Empower employees
In business, there are “yes” companies and “no” companies,
and after Dalton’s past experiences, he strives to be a “yes”
company.
“‘No’ companies are like GE, who will tell you all the things
you can’t do — ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t send this e-mail, don’t go over there,’” he says. “They spend so much time
telling you all the things you can’t do that by the time they get
done with you, you’re a little nervous that you might not have
heard right because they didn’t tell you not to do something
that you say, ‘I’m sure they don’t want me to.’ They miss out on
all this opportunity of all these people who want to do great
things, but they say, ‘They don’t want me to do great things —
they want me to do this, so I’ll do this.’”
Being a “yes” company is important because it empowers
employees to do things their way and try new ideas.
If you want to be a “yes” company, keep the rules to a minimum. Instead of telling his people what not to do, Dalton
instead says they can do whatever they want as long as they
don’t intimidate or offend other employees, customers or vendors. His reasons are simple — companies are like families,
and going to work is like going to a reunion. You may not like
everyone, but they’re still family.
“They’re all people, and they will be respected, and they will
all be respected with the same amount of dignity as the most
popular person in the building because they’re all family,” he
says.
Another way to be a “yes” company is to encourage them to
think on their own so they don’t depend on your ideas and
answers.
“If you come to me and say, ‘I have this problem,’ I’ll say,
‘What do you think we ought to do?’” Dalton says. “You know
it is impossible for you to identify a problem without identifying what you would do if it was up to you. I’d say, ‘You’re smart,
tell me.’”
To avoid being a “No” company, don’t create uniform
processes for everything.
“You have a style, and your style is different than people out
there, so if I was a big corporation, I would try to create a bunch
of little Rays and have you do it like I did, and use the forms I
used, and say what I say,” Dalton says. “You’ll never be me, and
I’ll never be you, and you have so many attributes that are so
amazing and so much better than me that if I try to make you me,
then I don’t get them. … We’ll be a lot better company if you don’t
try to make me you, and I don’t try to make you me.”