Q. How do you establish
that balance between taking
chances and not hurting other
areas of the company?
Leaders tend to be more
visionary, and what leaders can do in a company is
their vision is absolutely
valuable and needed.
However … the vision isn’t
really the hard part. The
vision is actually the easier
part.
All the folks who have to
then create this and make
this product something or
make a service something
or take it to market, the
leader has to be able to
allow them the ability to
veto the idea, the vision.
They have to know they have veto power … and our
business skyrocketed once
we did this here.
We give the management
team full veto power. (It’s)
a little bit risky. Not all
companies can do that.
But, once somebody has
full veto power, they are
more responsible then
about their decision.
Let’s say someone from
human resources says,
‘Well, I just really don’t like
this, and I don’t think this
is going to work, and I
don’t want us to do it.’ And
you can say to them, ‘Well,
you have the power to say
no to this. Do you want
that power right now? Do
you want that authority?
Are you saying that you
want this to not happen?’
What happens then is it
empowers them to think
strongly about their decisions and their viewpoints,
and they’ve got to make a
really good case then. So,
it’s now no longer an opinion; they have some real
weight.
Q. How do you deal with it
when you disagree with an
employee’s decision?
What I learned most was
the ability to separate the
need to be right, the need to
be the leader, the need to
have the final decision. Take
all that stuff out of the mix
and say, ‘All right, really,
really, really listen to what is
being said. What is really the
impact?’ And weigh it as
someone from the outside
would do without attachment. What are the pros and
cons of this?
HOW TO REACH: Health Contact Partners Inc., (847) 465-5000 or www.healthcontactpartners.com