Never sit in the middle at a
dinner table with a large family or you’re going to spend
the entire meal passing bowls
to both sides. That’s just one of
the things that Anne Belec
learned growing up in Quebec
as the fourth of six children.
Now, as president and CEO of
Volvo Cars of North America
LLC, Belec applies more life lessons when managing an even
larger family of 351 employees.
Among the lessons: Express
ideas clearly and concisely,
don’t cut others off when you
should be listening, and
assume a fair amount of the
shared responsibilities.
Smart Business spoke with
the personable executive about
how best to become acquainted
with your staff before applying
some of these lessons in the
workplace.
Know thy staff. You have to
invest the time upfront to get to
know the people, their styles
and their strengths. There’s no
shortcut for it.
When I went to work in
Sweden, I was facing a different
culture, and I was coming into a
new company. One of the things
that I implemented, I call them
skip-level meetings. I’m not just
talking to my direct reports; I go
in the organization a level or
two and bring in groups.
On a two-hour block of time,
the full first hour was just setting up a situation where people
talk about themselves. I would
give them a make-believe situation like, ‘We’re on a desert
island, and you can only bring
one person and two of your
favorite things. What would they
be?’
I let people talk this way, and
then I would stop and say, ‘What
has this revealed about this person?’ and get everybody to start
talking about their insights into
this particular person.
It really speeds up getting to
know the individual and establishing the trust and a connection so that when we then move
to the business part of the discussion, there’s already a certain
level of trust and comfort that is
established.
When you lead a large group
of people, it also helped me
remember people’s names. ‘OK,
this is the guy who collects
trains. This is the person that
would have brought Tiger
Woods instead of his wife.’
I still do these skip-level
meetings on a regular basis to
gauge the level of happiness,
some of the things that are
bugging people in the organization that we can pick up on
or things that are common
nature and then address as a
management team.
Prep your staff before meetings. The more prepared people can
be before they actually get to
the meeting, the more efficient
the time spent.
(Provide more than) just an
agenda. It’s trying to provide a
little bit of texture, some questions, or, ‘Come prepared to discuss the following topics …’
(If employees) know what
we’re going to be discussing,
and they have time to formulate
the ideas in their minds, when
you get into the meetings,
they’re more organized in their
thought process.
I demand that they come in
prepared. If they believe enough
in their point of view, then they
will have done good research
and provide some good arguments for it. ‘Why do you say
that? Do you have facts? Do you have data that supports your
point of view or your direction?’
For a manager, it is difficult to
back off from the point of view
that you had. I am willing to do
that as long as a different direction is well supported.
If they come in and say, ‘I’ve
done my homework. This is
why we think it’s a better decision or it’s a better idea or
whatnot,’ if you have a good
discussion around it and, at the
end of the day, there’s an argument that is stronger, let go of
your own point of view.
Validate decisions by explaining the rationale you used to
make them. When you do get to
the end and you say, ‘This is
going to be the decision, and this is the direction that we’re
taking,’ explain why.
We always circle back and say,
‘OK, I know this was not all
your points of view starting out,
but this is where, as a team,
we’re going to go. This is why
we’re choosing this path.
Walking out of here, we all have
to agree that now the decision
is made and that we all support it.’
It’s a learning process for all
of the managers who may be
responsible for a very specific
discipline. When you hear out
the thinking process or the
argument that others bring to
the party because of their different backgrounds or because
of their different experiences,
you have the ability to share.
You’re developing the whole
team through that process.
Set the boundaries when
granting autonomy.
Micromanagement undermines
people’s capabilities. People
tend to start relying on the fact
that you’re going to be verifying
and changing things and doing
stuff. They have less ownership
of what they are doing when
you overmanage.
Trust and empowerment does-n’t mean you’re not going to
check what’s going on. Blind
trust can lead to a lot of surprises. It only works if you understand the boundaries.
Empowerment is not
embraced at the same level by
every employee. Some people
like to be directed much more
closely than others, and others
like to have a lot more leeway in
what they do.
HOW TO REACH: Volvo Cars of North America LLC, (800) 458-1552 or www.volvocars.us