Evaluate data
So, you’ve pounded the pavement and collected information from customers and employees. You might be tempted to keep going because you feel that you still don’t have enough data to reach your goal, but you have to stop eventually.
“In all business planning, you never have 100 percent,” he says. “At some point, you just have to say that this is good for now.”
Through talking with people, you have an idea of the outsider’s perception of a change and, in Chambers’ case, what an acquisition meant for his company. You also have gathered what is working well in your organization and what can be improved. Eventually, Chambers stopped collecting information after three months because his visits started to produce the same information as previous stops around the country.
“There are themes that come up that are very consistent, although they may be said different ways and the words used are different,” he says. “There are themes that start to emerge. Those are themes that you start to need to address in a more urgent matter.
“The information that I was getting was consistent with the information that I had received before. There was a consistency to what I learned and therefore that suggested where we needed to focus.”
All of t
hi
s information can be overwhelming, which is why you have to rely on your management team members to sort through the data.
They can be a part of collecting the data, but they definitely have to be part of sorting through the data.
“I would strongly suggest it’s not an individual effort,” he says. “It does take a team to pull this together. Having multiple viewpoints is constructive. In many cases, you will find alignment. Where there are points of disagreement, that’s really where you exert your leadership.”
Just like you had to create an environment for customers and employees to feel comfortable talking to you, you have to do the same when trying to get input for your management team.
“You have to be open to input — having a relationship or building a relationship with your leadership team such that they can come talk to you about issues without reprisal,” he says. “Such that when you are faced with issues that it is about getting the team together to drive through the alternatives and vet the process and get to a conclusion. I think it’s somewhat consistency, too, that you constantly perform in a way that the team has an expectation of how you will operate.”
To keep the disagreements at a minimum, you and your team all have to be on the same page as to what information is important.
“If you have a shared body of knowledge, most people come to the same conclusion,” he says. “Discourse usually happens when you are working from different sets of data.
“If you can get folks with a common base of knowledge, most people come to the same conclusion.”
When there is a disagreement, you need to ask what would be the alternative to what the group is proposing. If there is still disagreement, you as the top leader have to step in and decide.
“I don’t think it’s about voting,” he says. “I don’t think consensus is a fantastic management tool. Ultimately, if there is a disagreement, it needs leadership to break or to get the resolution.
“I would just say that it’s proven in business that consensus building can’t be your leadership tool.”
Once Chambers and his team collected the information and evaluated it, they put the mission on paper and began communicating it. While they were communicating bits and pieces of it during the three months, they continued to get buy-in after that time. Like most changes in business, it’s a continuous process.
“You have to educate around it,” he says. “What does it mean, and more importantly, what does it feel like? So when people aren’t living that document, you need to take action. You have to intervene and explain to people why that doesn’t fit with Snap-on culture. Then use those examples as educating opportunities where in Snap-on we expect people to behave this way or take these types of actions. ‘There were alternatives in front of you, and you chose this path. In the Snap-on world, we would have liked you to pursue a path that looked more like this.’
“So it’s really a constant process of education and reaffirming what a positive behavior looks like.”
How to reach: Snap-on Business Solutions Inc., (330) 659-1600 or http://sbs.snapon.com