Facilitate communication. You have to communicate, which is what we really believe in here. That starts with helping people on a broad basis understand the thinking behind the change. Reiterating to the whole company what you’re focused on as a business, where the opportunities lay and how making the shift will better position your company for achieving the goals of the business. It’s very important to help the teams and different individuals in the company understand their roles in that evolution and helping them understand how they impact your progress against your internal objectives.
The leaders have a very important role in helping their pieces of the organization understand the overall objectives of the business and how they relate to the areas of responsibility in that group. They’re obviously breaking down to another level of detail what the priorities and actions are that are going to drive toward the overall goal. Those leaders need to provide the feedback necessary that shows how the team is progressing in relation to the overall company goals. They’re taking the higher level messages of upper management and bringing it to another, more consumable level for the individual team members. Our leaders are no different. They consistently communicate with their groups. Some groups in the organization are meeting on a daily basis.
It goes back to making it part of our culture and making it a natural part of the way we operate here.
You just can’t be open and honest and direct enough. It’s another one of our values that is part of our entire intake orientation process. We talk about the importance of open, honest communication, even if it hurts sometimes. As long as that communication is done respectfully, people need to share openly and not look back. At the end of the day, people are trying to make the business and make each other successful, and the way you do that is by working well together. And you do that by sharing openly and without hesitation.
Give employees their say. You also need to develop feedback channels for employees. At a minimum, within the monthly meetings we’re sharing everything we possibly can about the progress, from a key metrics and financial perspective to the external feedback from consumers, analysts and others that are having conversations about the business. All of that is communicated in these monthly meetings.
Taking it to another level, each of the teams within the business are looking at detailed feedback mechanisms, which include customer feedback and actual key metrics that they’re tracking on a daily basis. I actually do involve myself on a consistent basis with various teams across the board, just to check in and make sure that every group has their questions answered as to our organizational direction.
How to reach: MyLife.com Inc., (310) 571-3144 or www.mylife.com
