Tackle value breakdowns
Establishing connections with employees is also a built-in way to gauge their adherence to your values.
“If you’re engaged well, you’re going to hear what’s going on, either from other employees, from vendors, from clients,” says Mechler, who maintains several touch points to check whether employees respectfully follow through on promises to clients or enthusiastically cheer on other team members.
Solicit external perspectives to see how employees behave when they’re not under your observation. SpawMaxwell conducts surveys at the end of every project. An employee in its closeout group calls several customers or partners from the project, such as the building owner, architect and construction manager. The last and most revealing questions she asks are, “Would you use us on your next project, and would you recommend us to a peer?”
“If that’s a resounding yes, then we’ve been totally successful,” Mechler says.
With more detailed questions about the project, you can gather feedback about employees on a case-by-case basis.
“Sometimes there’s a disconnect, where we may not get that recommendation or we may find out there is an issue on a project. We can jump on that right away,” Mechler says. “It’s a very good tool for us, because we’re only as good as the last project we did.”
Hopefully, you’ll become aware of issues before hearing input from the outside. If you want employees to bring issues to your attention, build internal touch points into your process.
Every Wednesday morning, project managers and officers at SpawMaxwell’s Houston headquarters hold a Manpower Meeting to catch up on each local project. Offices in Dallas and Austin hold similar sessions on Monday and Tuesday.
You can provide avenues and expect feedback to bubble up, but the biggest challenge is establishing a comfortable zone where employees can open up, especially if they’re bearing bad news of a breakdown in your expectations. That’s where — once again — the relationships you’ve built will provide background.
“When you’re leading a company, it’s hard for somebody to just come in and say, ‘Hey, this is going wrong. I need some help with this, or I need some help with this individual,’” Mechler says. “[You make them comfortable] by visiting with them and by having coffees with them, by being open with them, by celebrating the good times, dealing with the bad times. … You have to, first of all, know the individual well enough where you can really talk to them.”
The reputation you’ve built plays a big part here. The way you’ve reacted to news in the past determines how readily employees come to you with more.
“If you’re going to berate them when they do something wrong all the time, it’s not going to work. Who wants to come see somebody that’s going to yell at them?” says Mechler, comparing the interaction to good parenting. “If you’re going to help them to do things better and be with them and respect them, then they’re going to open up more. Having patience and calmness is a huge part of it.”
But don’t confuse calmness with quietness. When you find out about a value gap in your organization, address it without slack.
“If they’re not living up to the values, then you have to point it out,” he says. “You have to be steadfast about it. You have to say, ‘If you promised it, you need to make it happen no matter what — even if it costs us money.’ So you’ve got to be really diligent about that, and you’ve got to be consistent in how you deal with that. If you sometimes just let them slide and other times don’t, well, that inconsistency sends the wrong message because employees see right through that.”
Tackling mistakes doesn’t mean you step in and take over, though. Make the employee aware of the issue and your expectations, and then back off to let them fix it.
“You can’t always jump in there and solve the problem,” says Mechler, acknowledging it’s a tough tendency to break. “You can’t just (say), ‘Oh, I can make that phone call or here’s what I would do.’ You have to turn it around and say, ‘OK, you brought me this issue. What would you do?’ and then talk through that. Make sure the solution is their solution, not my solution.”
Mechler would rather see an employee make a mistake while trying to solve an issue, then deal with the consequences, than watch them sit idly by. Through that process, the employee will become better prepared to respond correctly in the future.
“It’s hard not to give them the answer … but you’ve got to turn that into a learning experience,” he says. “And the only way to do that is to have the employee deal with it themselves.”
By building relationships as intently as he constructs buildings, Mechler has poised SpawMaxwell for success more far-reaching than the company’s 2009 revenue of $238 million.
“Success is not monetary. My definition of success is the legacy that you leave,” he says. “It’s good if somebody would say, ‘He always cared about me. I was a person to him, not a number. He knew a lot about me. I appreciate all the effort he took in putting people first.’ To me, that’s the success.”
How to reach: SpawMaxwell Co. LLP, (713) 222-0900 or www.spawmaxwell.com
