William Wilson isn’t
just making huge
business deals when he arrives early in the morning at KZF Design Inc.
“I clean up the coffee
machine and refill the sugar
and the creamer and things
like that,” says the president
and CEO of the architectural
and engineering firm, which
posted 2007 revenue of about
$15 million.
And he doesn’t do it just
because he likes coffee.
“There isn’t any job in the
company that you shouldn’t be
willing to roll your sleeves up
and do,” he says. “If you do
things like that, the staff will
be behind you on it.”
Smart Business spoke with
Wilson about staying involved
in your company and how to
communicate with diverse
employees.
Q. How do you communicate
with different levels of
employees?
It depends on the type of
business that you are in and
the type of people you have. In
my particular business, we
have a wide diversity of people with varying talents and
varying educational backgrounds.
You almost have to have a
smorgasbord of ways of handling things. There’s no one
solution fits all. It’s not like
you have a work force that has
a similar background and they
are all producing the same
product. This is much more
diversified, so it requires a lot
more personal tailoring.
There are people that are
great at working in groups and
talking in groups, and there are people that are very quiet
and don’t like that type of situation. You really need to get to
know all of your staff in order
to be able to manage the
process of interaction at the
level that they are most comfortable with.
Q. How do you get to know
your staff?
We are a team-oriented company. We are always working
together in groups and
teams on projects
together. Beyond that, I
think it’s important to
keep a certain amount
of separation between
your private life and
their private lives and
your life as a business
manager in the company.
But, just through the
general interaction,
you’ll get to know the
people and to learn
more about them just by
working with them.
Management in our
business is a hands-on
business. Our managers
are working managers.
We don’t have a separate layer of management that
has the ivory office and sends
dictation through the various
other people to filter down to
the staff. We’re actually working on projects. The management in our company is actively involved with our staff on a
daily basis.
