Be visible
When you are managing a high-growth company, change becomes a way of life for employees who may not be used to the new fast pace. Weiss increased his visibility with employees to respond to questions and address concerns.
“The best people I ever saw were visual leaders that were out there that you didn’t feel uncomfortable about approaching,” Weiss says. “If you were uncomfortable, they made you comfortable by coming out and finding you and listening to you. I try to do that. I’m sure there are people out there that don’t think that I do it very well, but it’s very important, and it’s something I focus on a great deal. You have to be a good communicator as an executive, or else left to the written word, you’re left to a speechwriter to write your words, and I don’t know that that necessarily works.”
You need to make sure that your front-line leaders, those who deal directly with the employees who work directly with customers, are speaking in the same voice as you.
“If they can’t answer the question, then you’ll look awfully dull if you’re the only person that can make that happen,” Weiss says. “Every month, I bring in all the first-line management team as well as the executive team to listen to what’s going on.”
Talk about what’s going well, what’s not going well and what you’re unsure about. If mistakes are made or changes in your plan need to be done on the fly, don’t shy away from them.
“You need to be open-minded enough to know that you’re going to make mistakes,” Weiss says. “When you make a mistake, be man
or
woman enough to own up to it. ‘OK, I made a mistake here. We’re going to make a change here, and this is the reason why.’ You’ve got to be decisive in what you do. If you leave things floundering, that’s a bad deal.”
Weiss also utilizes surveys to solicit employee feedback. The key with those, of course, is to make sure that you respond to the issues noted in the survey to encourage employees that their voice is heard and that it’s not a waste of time to fill out the survey.
“We want to make sure we understand what the employees are saying and that we’re reacting to it and putting plans in place to address the concerns,” Weiss says.
