Spread the passion
Leaders are teachers. Without an ability to teach, McLane says you
will never get your people to see eye to eye with you, understand
your vision for the company and feel the passion you feel for the
business.
For McLane, teaching starts with getting his employees involved in
shaping the company’s future by posing problems and letting them
come up with their own solutions.
“You have to teach people your business, what the problem is or
what you want to accomplish,” he says. “You sit down in strategy
sessions, you outline it, and you tell them, ‘Here is what I think are
the objectives.’ Then let people spontaneously talk about it, maybe
go home knowing we’re going to meet at 8 o’clock the next morning
and figure out just how we’re going to do this. When I do that, I’m
always amazed at the big ideas people come up with.
“You have to give them free rein, this is what enterprise and entrepreneurship is all about, people with new, fresh ideas. Let
them feel a part of that, but also let them feel a pride in not just creating it but achieving it.”
But McLane says involvement in shaping the company’s future
should also come with a sense of responsibility and accountability.
Growth on a personal and companywide level doesn’t generally
occur when you arbitrarily throw stuff against a wall to see what
sticks, so employees given the opportunity to create must be given
parameters and then held accountable for staying within those
parameters.
The parameters should fall in line with what you want to accomplish as a business.
“In a large business where you have a number of people working
for you, you have to identify what your objective is and what you
want to accomplish,” he says. “Is it products; is it services? You
have to identify the objective, what it is you want to do and what
it is you want to produce. Then you have to sell people on the goal,
what it is you want to achieve. Then the last part is the toughest
word in the English language, and that’s ‘accountability.’
“Imagine you’re back in college, and, on the first day of class, the
professor says, ‘I’ve got great news. At the end of this semester,
everybody is going to make an A. But I still want you to buy the
book, read the lessons, do the homework and be in class every
day.’
“Now, if I knew I was going to get an A regardless of what I did,
I might not try very hard. But that’s not how they do it in the U.S.
educational system. You have exams, term papers and homework
to determine your grade, so you’d better do the work if you want
to graduate. You have to be accountable in school, and, in business, it’s the same deal.”
