Get negative with yes-men. You
have to be educated about
what the space is that you’re
in. If it’s not you as the CEO,
then it’s your team. Get unvarnished, nonyes-men feedback
about what’s really going on.
[To weed out yes-men,] you
could interview for that and
reference that before you hire
someone, but ultimately, you
won’t know for sure until
they’re here.
It’s very easy to get satisfied
when everyone’s saying you’re
right. A CEO should not get
comfortable with that.
Just like I did in the meetings
to make people switch roles, if
I have a yes-man in my midst,
I’ll ask them, ‘What part of
what I said is wrong?’ That can
stop a yes-man in his tracks. If
they come back with nothing,
then you know you’ve got a
problem. You need to stop
them from doing that or let
them go.
Set aside time to seek feedback. Make sure you have complete domain knowledge.
You’re constantly looking to
get feedback in whatever
form you can, whether it’s direct survey through your
customers or whether it’s
your people who are out in
the field.
We have business development and practice managers
throughout the country.
Every one of them reports
back one observation a week
to me every Friday on what
they saw in the field. It
allows me to get a quick
glimpse of everything going
on. You can start to see
trends that way.
In a very short time, I can
get a good feel or anticipation for what is going on.
Again, that could be what the
customer wants or what my
company needs. That’s a
technique I use to stay on
top of what’s going on.
Slow down. Make decisions a
little slower. When you’re
younger and you have less
experience, you make decisions sometimes when the
heat is on and there are emotions attached to it and you
may not have all the facts yet.
Sometimes when things don’t
make sense, you’re better off
doing nothing at all.
If I could advise (a younger
version of myself), I’d say,
‘That doesn’t make sense. Why
don’t you wait another day and
think about it again and see if
it looks different tomorrow?’
A lot of problems sometimes
just go away if you don’t do
anything. If you just slow yourself down sometimes, you’re
better off.
HOW TO REACH: IPC The Hospitalist Co. Inc., (888) 447-2362 or www.ipcm.com