Q. How do you share the
vision with your people?
We do that in a series of fireside chats. We have 150 people
in the company. I and my CFO
break it up into about 12 different groups by sales teams, by
engineering teams, etc. Over a
period of three days, you do a
60- to 90-minute fireside chat
with these smaller groups
where you basically articulate,
‘Here is the vision, here is the
overall strategy, and here are
the objectives and tactics we
want to get to.’
Those smaller meetings are
absolutely essential to the
process. You get a lot of communication, feedback and buyin. In a larger audience, if we
got all of our company together
and I presented it, I would just
be presenting.
We wouldn’t be iterating and
discussing and refining and getting a lot of people on board
with it. We have a company
kickoff meeting after that. It’s
the old, ‘Tell people what
you’re going to tell them, tell
them and then tell them what
you told them.’
Q. What’s the key to getting
buy-in?
Put yourself in their shoes.
The three most important
things in a real estate transaction are location, location and
location. In effecting a change
or communicating a new idea,
it’s, ‘What does it mean to me,
what does it mean to me and
what does it mean to me?’
What you have to do is put
yourself in the position of the
person you are communicating
to and think, ‘If I say this, what
does it mean to them?’
Q. How do you respond to
criticism?
We just validate it, whether it’s
right or wrong. If we believe the
concern is valid, we refine the
idea. Rule No. 1 is to leave your
ego on the table. It’s the idea
that matters and not the ego.
I don’t have to have the right
answers. I just have to make
sure that the right answers are
implemented. I don’t care
where they come from or how
they come, what I care about is
that they exist.
Getting the right answers is
more important than having all
of the right answers.
HOW TO REACH: BBS Technologies Inc., (713) 862-5250 or www.bbstek.com
