At a loss prevention seminar
a few years ago, Dennis Astorino learned of a horrific
architectural accident.
A beam at a Chicago-area
structure had failed, resulting
in a needless death. But instead
of assessing guilt and blame,
the project’s architectural and
engineering firms took immediate action to make sure the
building would be safe for
future occupants. That kind of
proactive response can make
all the difference in solving
problems, Astorino says. As
president of architecture and
engineering and CEO at
Astorino, a 191-employee,
Pittsburgh-based architectural
design firm, the leader’s head-on approach to problem-solving has paid off: The company’s
2007 revenue was $40 million,
up from $37 million the previous year.
Smart Business spoke with
Astorino about how to use
different “languages” to pro-actively address the needs of
your clients.
Communicate using different languages. You need to state the
message that you’re trying to
communicate to the client in a
number of different languages.
Restate the message over and
over again from a number of different points of view so that you
can manage the client’s expectations through communication.
Just because the client will
shake their head and say, ‘OK, I
understand,’ that’s not enough. I
want to make sure that they really
do understand or that we understand what their concerns are.
Keep asking the questions in a
number of different directions
so you understand what the
client’s needs are. Ask the question one way, and come back
and ask it again. Then I like to
put it in their words and give it
back to them so that we’re all
understanding.
Every client is different — just
as we’re different as human
beings. You have to understand
the client as a personality.
Try it from a point of humor.
You can try it from a point of
being serious. You have to
explore all of these different
pathways to truly understand
the client.
At the end of the day, the most
important thing is to manage
their expectations. You want
that client to say, ‘Boy, that’s
exactly what you told me it was
going to be, and you listened to
me because this is exactly what
I wanted.’
Exceed expectations. It’s important to try to help clients understand their business and actually to make their business better. We deal with healthy buildings
all the time. If we can create a
building that’s healthier, and you
can have less absenteeism and
less sick days and it’s a healthier
environment to work in, it’s going to increase productivity. That’s
a positive thing for a business.
As experts, we want to give that
advice to our clients. I challenge
our staff not to stop and just accept everything that (clients) are
telling us and continue to look
for better ways to do things.
The end benefit is a happy client that’s working in an environment that’s productive and exceeds all kinds of expectations.
Encourage input. You must encourage the staff to communicate freely without concern or
fear of punishment.
One of the things that I do here
Mondays and Fridays, we have
a design review where we put
up projects — they’re internal,
and anybody can come to them
— and we just talk about issues.
We sit there, and someone goes through their design
thoughts, and we critique them,
and we go through them, and
we talk about them.
You encourage that, and you
foster that. That really helps.
(Employees then) become part
of the process. People want to
feel valuable with their ideas.
You want to encourage their
input, and you want to nurture
their creativity.
Avoid certain comfort zones.
Never find a comfort zone of
putting issues off and missing
deadlines. I’ve seen it happen
too many times, where you may
miss a deadline, and you make
it by. Somebody goes, ‘Ah well,
it’s OK,’ and you put an issue off
that you should have addressed.
If you put it off, maybe it will
go away if everybody’s real
quiet. If you get into a comfort
zone of allowing that to happen,
eventually, it will be absolutely
disastrous.
Practice clock management. You
need to manage your internal
clock in assessing how long it
may take to accomplish a task.
You’ve heard it a million times:
It always takes longer than you
think it’s going to take. Try to really understand how long you need.
You have to be realistic about
it. I see sometimes that people
aren’t realistic about it. Forgive
the cliché: Their mind is writing
checks their body can’t cash.
You have to understand that.
That is something that comes
with experience, obviously, but
even experience sometimes is not enough. I see people who
have worlds of experience but
still can’t figure out how long it’s
going to take to do a task.
(Encourage) them not to be
fearful of saying, ‘I can’t do this,’
or, ‘I don’t have enough time to
do this,’ or, ‘This is what I need
to do this.’ There may be a multitude of reasons, but you have to
stress upon individuals to be
open and not fearful of telling
somebody their limitations.
When (they) don’t know
something, encourage them to
ask questions, to get help or to
talk to somebody who might
have more experience about
how to manage that situation.
It’s to our benefit if that person
is successful and learns and
grows.
HOW TO REACH: Astorino, (800) 518-0464 or www.astorino.com