Gather feedback
Every two or three years, Laikin sends out an e-mail to every single one of his employees. He asks each employee to tell him what
he or she does at Brightpoint, how long he or she has worked for
the company and how the employee believes he or she has made a
difference at the company.
“Tell me what you would do if you were the CEO for the day,”
Laikin says, mentioning the final question he poses in the e-mail. “I
hit a global e-mail, and it goes to 3,000 employees, and I’ll get back
2,000 responses. I read every response, and I respond within 48
hours personally back to every person thanking them for the time
they took to e-mail me and also talk a little bit about what they
said.”
Laikin says he has received countless good ideas from the e-mail
blast. He learned about the potential for products from Garmin, a
leader in the navigation device market.
“That gave me the idea to reach out to the CEO of Garmin with a
cold call, which six months later turned into a distribution agreement with Garmin,” Laikin says. “I probably wouldn’t have priori-tized Garmin unless one of the people in the field had urged me to
do so.”
Laikin says he sometimes gets flak from other CEOs he knows
about the time he invests in the e-mail correspondence.
“Friends of mine I’ve talked to told me I’m crazy,” Laikin says.
“‘Bob, you spend two days responding to 2,000 e-mails?’ I consider it a privilege I had that one-on-one contact with 2,000 individuals to tell them how I appreciated what they did for the company.”
CEOs who have a proprietary technology or who work in a
monopoly can afford to keep more to themselves.
“But if you are in any kind of competitive business, you have to
listen to all your people,” Laikin says. “I foster a culture where I tell
all our global employees it’s OK to e-mail me at any time. In certain
cultures, people are told never to e-mail the CEO. I try to foster a
culture where people know it’s OK to reach out throughout the
entire organization.”
Laikin views himself as the key spokesman for his company. And
by initiating dialogue and making himself open to his employees,
he encourages them to talk about the company with others.
“People who are in the company tell the stories and see what is
happening and tell other people and bring people into the company,” Laikin says. “If you do a good job at telling your story in your
space and industry and in the public markets, people want to come
work for you.”
