Get feedback from employees
After you’ve been upfront and communicated with employees, you need to listen to their feedback. Much like Topehad to listen to people saying she wasintimidating, you have to listen to whatpeople are saying about your product oryour message. To get honest and constructive feedback, Tope has an open-door policy at the company.
“Feedback and discussion ideas can comefrom anywhere in the organization,” shesays. “… It’s based on the merit of the ideaversus the level of the person,” she says.
Tope says you have to have a very openconstructive dialogue, but you also haveto have a plan in mind.
“It’s not left to just sort of happen,”Tope says. “We have a very direct plan.”
Yet, you have to remind people throughactions that you have an open-door policy in order to get positive and constructive feedback.
“We value that,” she says. “You can sayyou have an open-door policy, and itdoesn’t work. You really have to livethat, and sometimes, you’ve got to be theone to make that happen.”
You have to ask questions and skip levels of management, asking questions insmall group meetings to get honest feedfeedback.”
Tope puts customer problems at the top of her priority list,and says it is the biggest part of her responsibilities. She maynot be jumping in to fix the problem, but she is helping to driveand support the areas where feedback shows there is opportunity for improvement.
“Virtually, if a customer issue is occurring and I’m in the middle of either waiting for a call or generating a call to a customer— it can be my boss, it can be my chairman, I would excusemyself and take care of that customer,” she says. “That’s a pretty extreme example because it shouldn’t get to the point whereit has to be me that’s addressing them, but that sort of framesup the picture that the customer is really driving my prioritization.
“The way I look at it is that I’m not managing an ‘or,’ I’m managing ‘and,’” she says. “So, it’s not a customer or profitability, it’s nota customer or something else, it’s and. I have to have that balanceand be able to keep it all going so that we are generating, delivering on the results tha
t
we’re supposed to and taking care of ourcustomers and our employees.”
HOW TO REACH: Verizon Wireless Florida Region, (813) 615-4800 or www.verizonwireless.com
