Communicate openly. If you allow people to tell you all the good things but not the bad things, I think that leads to a significant amount of problems. There needs to be open communication within the organization itself, regardless of up and down the chain, so people can understand where each other is coming from and understand what each other is doing and why. It also leads to a large amount of both organization respect for the company but also individual respect amongst our team members.
So, it really matters in terms of how you treat people. You still have to hold everybody accountable, but at the same time, you need to make sure that individual viewpoints are listened to and respected. I also think that goes with making sure you have the right type of individuals in there. If you have people that are really not of the same ethics, guidelines or mandates that you’ve set in place in the company, then in both the personal life and the professional life that can lead to a rotting of the culture inside the company as well. Then lead to, ‘Well, if I don’t respect you on something over here, then why should I respect your opinion about something that has a high priority for the business.’
Give freedom but have structure. You have to set up processes. You have to set up whether it’s documentation — and it’s probably both documentation and conversations over and over again. I’ve learned that you never can say the same thing too many times within an organization. Once you’ve set that mindset, the vision — that’s probably No. 1, to set the vision. You have to have a common vision — where are you going and why?
Once you’ve set that and set the processes in place and you communicate both the vision and the processes over and over again so that, as new people come in or people are reminded of it, then you have a common structure. That goes down to culture, your ethical guidelines of the culture and so forth. Everything goes within that.
But, at the same time, you put your organization in such a way and the type of people that you hire — we hire a lot of entrepreneurs, we hire people that are capable of handling and going out there making their own decisions. So frankly, it’s a lot like the U.S. democratic system. There are rules and guidelines that the constitution set up, but everybody has a tremendous amount of freedom within those broad rules of lines and processes, and I don’t think running a company like ours is any different than that.
How to reach: Standard Renewable Energy LP, (713) 316-4990 or www.sre3.com