Create both formal and informal avenues of feedback. It’s very important to employees that they stay connected with their leaders. It’s a two-way [street].
They want to understand the strategic direction the company is headed in, they want to hear feedback, and they want to ensure that the things that they’re seeing — they know more about what’s going on with our business, they know more about our challenges because they see them every day — are being articulated formally or informally. They really need to see that you get it; they need to understand not only the direction you’re headed in but also that they are able to push upward to you information that is being acknowledged and being taken into consideration.
I do that formally and informally. Informally, I begin my day in the parking lot; I may spend some time talking with our installers and technicians as they are getting ready to leave for the day. I walk around my business a lot so that people can find me approachable. My door is literally open to any employee at any time.
Formally, I do ride-alongs, meaning I will join an installer or technician on their route for an entire day. I might join a salesperson. I might sit in on the telephone in either the care or tech support.
I have those visits scheduled on my calendar. I set them up a year ahead of time, and I don’t change them unless there’s a very compelling reason.
I hold ‘Ask Anne’ meetings in which I pull together a cross-functional group of employees and we have lunch so that they can not only talk with me but talk with each other about … things we can improve on. If there are opportunities for us to take those ideas and implement them, we do.
When it’s something that you can’t do, you know that almost immediately, and you can discuss that with them right there. For the ideas and solutions, I generally bring them back to my senior team and talk about it with them and then create an action. So if it’s something that can be done, we’ll put something in place and get it done.
Then they get the understanding that we want to be close to our customers, and they think that it’s very important that they share that information with me or with their supervisor or manager.
HOW TO REACH: Cox Communications Inc. Cleveland, (216) 676-8300 or www.cox.com
