Q. How do you work with your people in these meetings?
Have a workshop of defining how you can do things better. What are the threats and opportunities for the business? Let’s really dive down as a group and talk about these. Do we see this as an opportunity? What do you guys feel about our expansion plans and our goals for the next quarter or the next three quarters?
It’s not me at a pedestal or something, it’s more of a round-table discussion. I’ll say, ‘John, you’ve experienced something similar to this, what do you think?’ Sometimes you have to draw it out of people. It’s very important to identify people before the meeting. You can say, ‘Hey, I’m really looking for you to participate in this. I think you’ve got great background experience in this.’
I want to take information, compile it and then broadcast it and get people’s feedback. I can’t manage every component of the business. People on the front lines will have a better feel for whether strategic initiatives are headed in the right direction or not.
Q. How can looking back help you stick to your core?
In a growth environment, you’re always going to have new faces. You bring more people in and they don’t have that perspective of where the company was in 2006. In my meetings and in the past, we’ve done reviews of, ‘This is what we were, this is what we are and this is what we’re going to be.’ I think it’s very important to set that foundation.
I resurrect presentations from a few years ago to say, ‘OK, this is where we thought we’d be in three years and this is where we are. We got this right and we got this wrong.’
It’s important to have that open dialogue so it doesn’t come across that you’re infallible. Business is dynamic and organic and you need to be able to adapt to that in a growth business. So admitting that you got things wrong is important.
You have to understand that, as a leader, you probably know more about the business to some degree than everybody else in the room. But you have to make sure that you’re not assuming people know things that you haven’t clearly articulated.
How to reach: FacilitySource Inc., (800) 896-9000 or www.facilitysource.net
