Q. How do you become more
approachable?
The first thing is you have to
be very open-minded. You
think you know the way, and I
have very strong opinions in
my business, but I never make
any decision without consulting at least multiple people.
Because, even though I think
things are really clear, after I
consult multiple people, I find
that sometimes, my ideas are
not as well thought out as I
thought.
I try to emphasize to all of
my staff, ‘Don’t make any decisions in a vacuum. Run your
ideas by other people.’
Sometimes, you’ll change
your idea completely, or some times, you’ll get an enhancement on it. But, even at the top,
it’s very dangerous to make
decisions without getting as
much input as you possibly can.
Q. What other advice
would you have for a leader
on how to become more
approachable?
One is just a real open-door
policy. I’ve got about 150
employees, and they all can
— and often do — call me or
e-mail me or sometimes even
stop in to say something or even
invite me to lunch if they have
something really on their mind.
Q. What does an open-door
policy mean to you?
It means that every employee has to feel comfortable. I
mean, your door can be open,
but that doesn’t really mean
anything. They’ve got to feel
comfortable that they can really speak their mind and get a
bit of your time and that you
really will give them the feeling and the sense that you
really care about their opinion.
Even if you don’t agree with
it, they don’t always have the
information that you have.
But, sometimes there’s a
morsel, that if you shut yourself off just because maybe
you’ve done it before or it’s
something that you are totally
against — the best ideas come
out of the craziest ideas.
So, you’ve got to let a person
completely explain what their
thought process is and not
shut them down in the very
beginning because once you
shut them down the first time,
they’re not going to come back
and talk to you again.
HOW TO REACH: Summit Sports Inc., (888) 271-7500 or www.summitonline.com
