Focus your people
To focus your company’s direction, you first need to focus your people and get as many as possible aimed in the direction you want to take the company.
At AVI-SPL — formed from the merger of Audio Visual Innovations and Signal Perfection Limited several years ago — Zettel had to unite a work force of about 1,300 employees on the common goal of serving customers in innovative ways that also made financial sense for the company.
“Our largest single group is probably our technicians and installation force,” Zettel says. “We also have a couple hundred salespeople, and between our installation force and salespeople, they’re at our customers’ sites on a daily basis. We rely on them to understand what our customers are after, what our customers are asking for, what they think would be helpful to run their businesses.
“I don’t believe in pushing technology, in having the customer simply swallowing technology that we’re feeding them. But we do need to take what the customers want and use it to offer the best solutions. You do that by keeping our sales force and operations people well trained and up to date on the newest and best things out there.”
To keep the dialogue pipeline open among customers, employees and management, you need to set the tone from the top. It is easier in theory than it is in practice, particularly as economic conditions change. When tough times hit, bad news tends to show up on your doorstep a lot more frequently than good news. In attempting to salvage morale and confidence, you might try to minimize the impact of negative news by downplaying it. Zettel says that is a common trap that business leaders can fall into — a trap that can become a destructive force within your company.
“We kind of fell into the trap that a lot of companies fell into, where you kind of get cautious and slow down communication during tough times, if for no other reason than you’re not constantly being perceived by everyone as the bearer of bad news,” he says. “But we quickly realized that was not the answer. The answer is to be open and up front with your employees.”
It is possible to deliver bad news while still emphasizing a belief in a better future for the business. You can be frank, honest and still upbeat during difficult times. For starters, you should rally your most tenured employees around your message. If you can get the strongly rooted employees on board with your vision for the future, you will make it much easier for everyone else to follow.
“That is one of the advantages we have at our company,” Zettel says. “A lot of our employees are very tenured and have been with us for a very long time. So by talking to them and explaining everything to them, that we’re not where we want to be right now, but we do have a vision and belief that we’re going to be better in the future, we were able to get them to understand that this was a temporary pause in our growth plans.”