Take an interest in your people outside of work. There’s so much you can do as a leader to add that comfort level, to establish that trust factor. We do things outside of the workday together.
Get to know people, get to know them on a personal level, get to know about their spouses and their children and what their dreams are and aspirations are. It makes people feel as if they can belong without being the same.
We don’t just support various organizations monetarily, we also provide leadership in organizations and hands-on work. Every month, we go to the Cleveland Foodbank and we work side by side — partners, associates, staff members — sorting food with other volunteers where it’s outside of a formalized work setting. The barriers come down, the titles come down, and people just work together.
Over time, I learned that complete consensus is rare, and that the best way to deal with challenges isn’t through formal meetings with fixed agendas but really behind the scenes in the personal relationships that you develop. When you build these solid relationships, a leader can have an open and honest dialogue with employees and they will know that you care about them and understand them.
There are two important byproducts as a result of those relationships — trust and mutual respect. At the end of the day, I’m the one that has to make a decision, and it may not be a popular one. But because of the trust and mutual respect, people abide by the decisions, whether they agree with them or not.
Construct a culture without egos. Our culture is one that embraces diversity; it fosters an atmosphere of mutual respect. So if I’m going out and looking to hire somebody, it’s easy to say that we look for the best and brightest — I think everybody would say that — but what we’re looking for are people that value team-work.
And I’ll tell you what we don’t look for. It doesn’t come as any surprise to know that in the legal profession, we have our share of lawyers with inflated egos, and we expect people to check their egos at the door and work with other members of the team. If an attorney is unable to embrace that concept, it doesn’t matter how profitable he or she is, he will or she will be asked to leave — it’s best that they find another suitable place where their egos will be allowed to flourish and grow — which is really important for the other people to see, and it reinforces that culture.
When you’re hiring, you can find out a lot more than just (what you hear) in the interview. We’re not that big of a community.
There are a lot of us that are active in professional organizations where we interact on a daily basis, and if you have those conversations, it’s pretty easy to get a sense of a person’s ability to work with others or, conversely, an inability to work with others. It kind of follows them.
HOW TO REACH: Roetzel & Andress, (216) 623-0150 or www.ralaw.com
