Get out there
When Stewart got his first management job, he was continually impressed by the level of knowledge his CEO possessed.
“It always amazed me that the CEO never seemed to be surprised,” Stewart says.
In order to have a deep knowledge of what is happening in your company so you can keep moving to the next level, you have to get out there and talk to your people.
“That’s one of the things that I find challenging for me these days since I’m focused on so many different locations,” Stewart says.
It doesn’t change the need to get out of your office and get in communication with your employees, however.
“You’ve got a lot of people that are more than willing to tell you what’s going on,” Stewart says. “You have to create an environment that it’s OK for that to happen. So you take what you hear informally. You go out and you ask questions. I ask, ‘How are your leaders doing? What are you and your co-workers working on? What processes are you focusing on today?’ Sometimes, just by walking around and asking the questions informally, it will either validate the information you are getting directly from your leadership team or tell you that somebody is connecting the dots in the wrong direction. That’s when you start digging further.”
You need to create an environment where employees feel comfortable raising ideas that might not make everyone happy.
“You have to set the tone day one that everybody is important to us fulfilling our mission and our goals,” Stewart says. “Help them understand what their part is and how they need to help each other. When they identify barriers to things that need to be improved, they have to feel that they can bring that to the table, including meeting with me directly. They have to know there will be no retaliation from me or from their immediate supervisor. You’ve got to have openness and a culture of safety.”
You also need to approach your interactions with your people with the right frame of mind.
“When it becomes all about you, then you shut down the ability to effectively communicate and motivate,” Stewart says. “One of the most important things I think everybody agrees upon is humility. When personal ego is the leading factor and when people make decisions just because it will better them or their career or their income rather than the values of the organization, that’s when people get into trouble.”
So take a moment once in a while to remind yourself, very simply, that it’s not all about you.
“You have to learn that you can’t do it all and it’s not healthy for the organization that you do it all,” Stewart says. “I’m finding that my passion is more fulfilled by helping train others and teaching others than by my individual successes.”