Break down barriers
Jones and Mark Terhar, Turner’s operations manager, have
been conducting round-table discussions for the past three
years as a way to give their 200 employees a better understanding of what others in the organization are doing and give them
insight into projects they may be working on.
“The more that you can educate or give insight to some of the
folks who work for you, then the ideas take off,” he says.
The sessions are conducted once or twice a week during lunch
with eight to 10 employees from different levels within the
organization. The sessions were initially for new employees but
were so successful that they were opened up to the entire organization.
Listening is one of the most important keys to making these
discussions effective. You have to remind yourself that you are
there to listen to employees and not dominate the conversation.
“As Mark and I conducted more and more of these, we learned
that if we shut up and just listen, we can learn as much as they
can,” he says.
“Now, we depend on these round tables to inform us about a
host of items including productivity ideas, morale, the market
and anything else they want to talk about. I look up to the people who work for me. And I try hard not to lose sight of that.”
Creating a comfort level where employees feel free to say anything is also important. Build trust with employees so they know they can share things and won’t be punished for doing so. Jones
says the first time somebody is punished for something that’s
said in the round tables will be the end of those discussions.
“We love when they share rumors with us,” he says. “More
often than not, we hear some good rumors — some are factual,
some are fiction — and we’re able to explain the factual ones
and dismiss the fictional ones, which goes a long way.
“If there’s a rumor, more often than that they already know the
answer … sometimes they may just be testing to see how we
answer a question, and the more honest we can answer the question, that develops the trust with them. If they already know the
answer and we answer wrong, they’ll call us on it.”
To conduct an effective round table, you need to start with a
general idea of what you are going to talk about.
“You do have to bring a loose agenda with you,” he says. “When
we started them, we’d say, ‘What do you guys want to talk
about?’ and everybody would look at you in silence, all being
afraid to be the first one to speak.
“You do have to seed the round tables with some information
about how the business is doing and maybe some provocative
information about ideas you have that you want to test with
them,” he says. “That will often get you a reaction.”
Following up on ideas that come out of the meetings also
builds trust. Jones says there are a lot of great ideas, but every
one that you actually follow up on gives you more credibility as
a leader and lets employees know you are listening to them.
The round-table discussions have brought about significant
change for the organization. For example, one of Jones’ project
managers mentioned how he was staying at the job site until 9
each evening entering data. This led to centralizing the data
input and engineering functions and utilizing the administrative staff who wanted to get involved in new tasks, and in turn,
gave the project managers more time to focus on the jobs.
But the overall effect of the discussions is creating an environment where people feel comfortable talking about problems with senior management.
“The more comfortable the staff feels with us, feels with me,
feels comfortable walking in my office, and sharing a concern
or an issue or bringing an idea, then we will be leveraging the
organization better,” Jones says.
