Keep the door open
While driving around one day, an employee at MBA noticed three new restaurants were opening in the area. Instead of making a note of three new places she could dine at in the future, she brought the names, addresses and phone numbers of the potential clients to Lettelleir.
He expressed his appreciation for the information and told the employee he would let her know how it turns out. It may turn into nothing, but the fact that the employee brought the potential clients to the boss speaks volumes. Lettelleir is constantly preaching an open-door policy for himself and all managers.
“If they see that they have success, and what I mean by success is that they get in, talk to me, and that I’m really listening and taking their ideas into account, I think that message is going to come back and filter down,” he says. “At least I hope so, and I think it has for the most part.”
In a perfect world, you’d talk about an open-door policy and situations like the above would happen all the time. You’d get information that you can use, and employees would take all of their other issues to t
he
individuals who should be dealing with them.
However, if you drive an effective open-door policy, you may hear things that are someone else’s responsibility.
“It’s important to express the message down to your people,” he says. “Not only your management team but even … to your line-level workers that, ‘We have a lot of stuff to do and everything is important, but let’s make sure we prioritize what we need to bring to the forefront. If there are small issues, if it’s facility-driven or anything else, talk to so-and-so.’”
You also have to be careful not to get caught up in employees jockeying for a better position in the company
“When you have an organization that is large, there is going to be office politics,” he says. “Even each department has their groups. I don’t think you can avoid that aspect. But I think the key is, in this case, I listen to it and I listen to the situation, but I also say, ‘Have you talked with your department head about this and what was their take on it?’”
If people feel they can come directly to you, they may get in that habit and start viewing you as someone they report to directly.
“The one thing you don’t want is you don’t want to have somebody who’s playing office politics and trying to go around managers,” he says. “That’s why I said, I may listen to people, but the first thing I will say is, ‘Have you brought this up to your supervisor or your department head?’
“Because, I don’t want to see people going … behind people’s backs because that does cause problems and it does create issues.”
Some managers will feel uneasy because an employee may jump ranks and go directly to someone above his or her manager with information or an issue.
“Unfortunately, some managers, they get paranoid, if you will, about their people and what goes on in between them and who they are talking to,” he says. “I think sometimes that part of the problem is not necessarily the line worker but more the manager and their insecurity with handling situations.”
To deal with that insecurity, you have to handle it promptly and directly.
“The best thing to do is meet it head-on and talk to them … and reassure them that you have their back and that you are on board with them,” he says. “But also encourage them to develop their people. There’s no bigger compliment then having one of your people that used to work for you move up into a management-type position or continue to grow because that means that you did a great job in developing them through the ranks and as a leader.
“What I think people do sometimes is they try to keep people at bay because they get concerned that they are going to try to take over their job.
“But they should be developing their people and getting them to grow and get better. That’s the way we are going to grow as an organization is with a stronger team.”
Having a cohesive work environment will help build that stronger team to get the job done.
“That open door and making sure that people understand and know that they are part of the team, I think they are willing to do anything,” he says. “They are willing to push it to do whatever needs to be done to get the job done.”
How to reach: Modern Business Associates, (888) 622-6460 or www.mbapeo.com