Rob Carringer can recite the vision statement of just about any
company without ever being in its office to see what’s hanging on
the lobby wall.
“I want to have a quality product, at a low price, at the service levels my customer expects, blah, blah, blah,” he says.
As managing partner of the Corporate Revitalization Partners
LLC, a business turnaround consulting company with 52 employees, he often asks clients what visions mean to employees. He says
that using both written and oral communication to explain specific goals tied to the vision is critical to success.
Smart Business spoke with Carringer about how communication becomes even more critical when a company is in crisis mode
and why doing what you say you’re going to do is vital to building
trust.
Q: How can leaders better communicate during tough times?
Repeat the same message over and over. When a company’s running out of money, everyone thinks they’re going to file bankruptcy and everyone’s going to lose their job, and if they lose their job,
they’re going to lose their house, and then their wife’s going to
leave them and they’ll be destitute. They make that connection
really quick.
Get up and tell them, ‘We have a plan. Here’s what we’re going to
do to turn around the company.’ Then the next day, they need to
hear it again. Repeat it over and over because they’re in distress
and feeling the impact of their company’s distress.
Q: How do you get buy-in in those difficult situations?
Make small promises that you can deliver on in a short period of
time to gain credibility. Often, when you get to that point, employees feel betrayed by whoever has led them down the path.
They can’t trust anybody because all managements stand up and
tell people things are going to be fine next year. We’ve seen clients
hand out bonuses at year-end and run out of money in January.
Tell them, ‘This is what I think we’re going to get done tomorrow.’
Then tomorrow you stand up and say, ‘We did this.’ If you do that on
a repetitive basis, then you begin to develop some trust with the people.
That’s true with employees and the outside constituents — customers, vendors and the financial community. They’re all in the
same boat of not trusting the company.
If it’s a vendor you owe money to, tell them, ‘Look, I don’t know
if I can pay you today, but on Friday, after we know what we’ve collected this week, I can give you a better idea.’ Friday, as soon as
you’re done with that meeting, call them and say, ‘I know you’re
owed $2, but I can only afford to pay you $1, but I will call you
again next Friday and tell you what I can pay you.’ Send them a
dollar. Then next Friday, call them again, and send them another
dollar. You’ve made a commitment to call them, and you’ve done
it. That’s a big deal because people that collect money are used to
people not calling back.
A non-phone call is a void, and when you leave people a communication void, they naturally assume the worst. Every time
you’re trying to get a job and you’re calling and following up on the
interview you had, and they’re not calling you back, what do you
assume? You assume the worst.
Q: On the other end, how can leaders better listen?
When you have your very first job in high school, and you’re
sweeping the floor at the store, and the boss walks by, you make
sure you’re busy. You don’t want to offend the boss, and the only
thing you can do is sweep harder. You want to make sure the boss
sees you as a very industrious sweeper.
That cultural framework affects everybody as they grow up in
business and get more responsibility. You’ve seen it at Christmas
parties where the boss is standing around, and everyone listens
to what he says, laughs at his jokes and agrees with everything he
says. … You begin to believe that you are smart and know everything and have this ability to make decisions because everyone
agrees they’re right. Create an environment where it’s OK to have
dissension.
Don’t use your chance to let them talk to prepare your next volley of words. Absorb what they’re saying. When they’re done,
begin your next statement by repeating what you think you just
heard. That forces you to really listen to what they say.
Mirror their style of speech and choice of words. When you’re in
New York, you have to talk differently than when you’re in the
South or with someone from another country. Match your cadence
and word choice to the person’s cadence and word choice so you
get some rapport with them. That makes it easy for them to talk to
you, and then you can learn from what they’re trying to say.
HOW TO REACH: Corporate Revitalization Partners LLC, (972) 702-7333 or www.crpllc.net