Maximize your opportunities. If you go to lunches and dinners, act like you are meeting your friend or next-door neighbor. I focus a lot on that, and it builds that emotional bank account so that when things get tough and things go wrong, if people know where you are coming from, they know they can come back to you, have that personal contact and find out what is going on. It really helps you work through problems as a company.
I first develop the relationships with my direct reports, and then with as many people in the company as I can. We have 450 employees now, and I try to develop relationships with people at all levels, whether it’s entry level or overseas.
When I meet people and talk to them about business, I also mix in personal questions about how they’re feeling and so forth. I am an emotional, passionate person, and I’m not afraid to ask people questions about how they feel, their families or anything like that. And if you’re sincere and people see that you are sincere and transparent, that helps make that relationship.
If, when you meet somebody, you only talk business, you’re never going to build that personal relationship.
Build trust through communication. Trust is very, very important on a team. You have to make sure that when you hire people and put them in positions of responsibility that their heart is in the right place.
If you do that, if you have that trust and candor among your team, I think it’s easy to talk about issues and communicate. In board meetings or any forum you have, you’re going to have to be the catalyst to do that. If you lead by example and open up to put issues on the table, it encourages others to do the same.
In our company, our senior-management level has been together for a long time. We have that history of trust and credibility, and people know that we can disagree about something in the boardroom, but when we walk out, everybody has come to a decision and walks out with a unified front. When we disagree, we know it is over a certain topic, and it doesn’t have to do with our relationships.
To develop those kinds of relationships, you have to have a combination of circumstances. You have to have the raw qualities in a person to start with, an honest person, someone with integrity, the basic things you expect from people. But you can also mentor people with regard to what you expect and help them to get to that point.
How to reach: RW Armstrong, (317) 786-0461 or www.rwa.com
