Stay in touch
To find out what people are thinking, you have to get out there and ask.
Taking the temperature of your organization’s morale through employees can be a “touch and feel” process. You can even ask them directly what morale is like and how their co-workers are feeling, as Corbett does.
She takes management by walking around seriously, whether she’s at the L.A. office or any of the others in her region. She compares it to a networking exercise within the organization.
But it’s not just the traditional definition of MBWA she’s talking about. She’s also walking to meetings, because they’re not always in her office.
“When I meet with people, I don’t usually ask them to come into my office. I usually go to theirs,” says Corbett, who got the advice from a PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in another market. “It just sets a different tone and openness for the meeting.”
By literally meeting employees where they are — and, consequently, where they’re comfortable — you create an inviting setting for an open conversation.
Beyond the general “how’s it going?” that she asks employees, Corbett makes sure to ask partners about specific concerns or issues they’re facing. Then she asks how she can help.
“What I’m trying to find out is how their business is going and what kind of challenges they’re facing and how I can support them,” she says. “Sometimes it can be a simple thing like … I can get them a spot on an agenda to speak about the business that they’re trying to build.”
To help employees relax and open up, you need to create an air of approachability around yourself. That can be as simple as keeping your door open so employees have the opportunity to initiate a conversation if they need to.
Corbett also opens them up by sharing about herself first. For example, she may get started by sharing some of the challenges she faces trying to balance running a company with raising three children.
“I think if you share, they will share,” she says.
Still, it’s hard to connect with every single employee if you have as many as Corbett does and especially when they’re stretched across multiple states. So you can rely on some employees to channel multiple lines of communication to you.
“I will gather a staff council in one of our lines of service,” Corbett says. “And I view that as a voice of the people. So I ask them if I can come to one of their meetings and I sit with them and find out what’s on their minds.”
