Q. How do you create an
environment to elicit input
from employees?
You have to have the
mindset to say, ‘I want
to hear all ideas to help
us get better at what we
do.’ So it’s that theory of
optimization. You’re
always looking for ideas
to get better. ‘We can
always do better’ is the
attitude. As a leader, it’s
never like, ‘We have
arrived,’ or, ‘We are good
enough.’ You are always
challenging that.
It starts with you as a
leader with that mind-set. It’s strategic, and it
says, ‘How can we get
better?’ So that mindset
and attitude permeates
your organization.
Secondly, you’ve got to
really drive home the point
that we are a marketing company first and foremost. No
matter what industry we are
in, we are in the marketing
business — that our main purpose is to attract, serve,
delight, entertain our customers at a profitable manner.
When you have that philosophy of, ‘We are a marketing
company first and foremost,’
I don’t care what department
you work in. I don’t care if
you are the receptionist. I
don’t care if you are working in the factory. Any idea that is
going to help us do that better
or more efficiently or effectively, I want to know about it.
When you introduce to a
company that everyone is part
of the marketing … you get the
ideas because they understand
that we live on the profitable
revenue we generate. You
bring everyone on board.
The other thing is, you have
to have an empowered management and employee team.
And as a leader to really grow,
you have to let go. But, you want to be in charge, and you
don’t need to be in control.
If you are controlling everyone and micromanaging,
you’re not going to get the ideas to surface because it’s
not going to an environment
where they think it’s OK to
take risks and it’s OK to fail.
Q. How do you elicit and
evaluate feedback from your
team?
There has to be a filter mechanism of, ‘Is this something
that is going to help drive profitable revenues to us? Is this
something that’s going to help
us reduce cost? Is this something that’s going to help us
dramatically serve our customers or clients better?’
… Whatever your metrics
are or whatever your filtering process, there’s got to be
three or four questions you
ask to make sure it’s going to
get through those filters
because you don’t want to
waste time on a lot of trivial
stuff.
You want to surface it and
you want to put it through
the filters. Everyone needs
to feel good that their ideas
are at least being heard and
considered. They can’t all be
adopted, but it’s more of a
culture you establish that we
want these ideas, we’re
going to vet these ideas.
The first thing is you have
to have an environment
where you want all those
ideas surfaced, so there is no
judgmental evaluation too
early. So, the ideas surface
(and) you are meeting with
your management team on a
regular basis.
For each company, that
rhythm and timing is different. It may be weekly —
that’s where they surface the
ideas.
HOW TO REACH: The Growth Coach, (513) 563-0570 or www.thegrowthcoach.com
