Plan meetings. I started doing an annual calendar that maps out where I need to be for meetings or conferences or important client visits and then where I want to be, which is a reasonably equal distribution across the offices. Just getting that on paper and seeing it in front of me makes me accountable to myself to say, ‘I really don’t feel like going to California next week, but I said that I would and so I’m going to go.’
The other thing is making vocal commitments about things I’m going to do. We do these semiannual meetings, and announcing at the beginning of the year when they’re going to happen, makes them happen. So I self-create some pressure to make sure that things will happen.
Make yourself accessible. It’s just being up and available. I spend most of my day just walking around, talking to people, trying to understand what they’re working on and making sure that if they know that I know what they’re working on, that it’s important. Make a very conscious effort to spend time physically in each office — and not just with the managers.
I’m very conscious about who is there, who I’ve talked to. Most of it I can remember, but I do make little notes from time to time about significant events in their lives — if they’re getting married, if they’ve got children.
As soon as somebody thinks of you as president of the division, then suddenly there’s this organizational chart that makes it really difficult for them to feel like they can come talk to you. When they know that I’m Sasha and I’ve got two daughters and I’ve got the same challenges they do in their life, that makes them a lot more likely to do it. I’ve tried to make sure that people know me not just as their boss but as a person, and that is enough to make them come talk to me.
Listen to responses. If an employee believes that they matter to the organization and that the organization is sincerely focused on empowering them with tools that they need to do their job more efficiently, that’s a pretty big driver and motivator, as well. But that also translates back into the communication, because if it’s just me talking my head off, then what good is that? It’s got to be a feedback loop so that they can feel like they can come and talk to me or their manager about ideas that they’ve got.
If you can create environments in which people can sincerely give you ideas and they see those ideas implemented within a month, that’s pretty powerful stuff.
One of the ideas that I’m introducing this year is asking people to have a hassle log. What’s making your life harder? What could I do to make it easier for you to do your job better? I said I want a quarterly list from people beginning in December. I told them to call me personally, e-mail me personally — it’s not [email protected]. They know I’m going to get them.
One of them was, ‘I don’t know everybody anymore. We have new people starting all the time. How about name plates to put on our desks?’ That’s a really good idea. We’ll have that in a couple of weeks.
If we can say, ‘Hey, Brian had this idea; it’s done,’ that’s a really quick and easy win. When people see those quick wins happening, then they’re going to say, ‘Well, this isn’t just lip service.’
How to reach: Hobsons EMT, (800) 927-8439 or www.hobsons.com
