Q. How do you know when
you are being persistent
enough?
Our staff members let us
know that. Because of the kind
of culture we have, we have an
open-door organization. People
can walk into my office anytime and give me feedback at
anytime as necessary.
Now, not everyone is comfortable doing that no matter how
nice of a guy I am. But, there
are mechanisms where they
can do that to their direct
supervisor or they can do it to a
peer who perhaps is more comfortable talking to leadership.
We do an annual staff survey
to gauge how we are doing in
our organization year to year.
That gives us a measure of
areas where we may need
improvement or areas where
we are improving or issues that may be arising. Just like we
communicate on many plains,
we also try to listen on many
plains. We know when there
are struggles or tugs of war
going on in the organization or
where personalities may be
conflicting. Then we can work
in a proactive, positive way
with a staff to address those
kinds of needs.
Q. How do you handle
someone who is resisting
the vision?
Initially, with patience, repetition, reinforcement and then, at
some point in time, if you’ve
done everything you can, and
the individual is opposed, then
you have to make a decision.
They have to either decide to
move on, or they have to
decide to be a part of the
organization because I think
there is a limit after which an
organization cannot put up
with resistance that is disruptive to the organization.
If you don’t take that action,
if you let a staff member get
away with the opposition for
an unreasonable period of
time, then the other staff
members are going to look at
you and say, ‘Well, what happened to the big vision, to the
message about change and
the importance of that? Why
is that person allowed to get
away with it?’ Sometimes,
that can be painful. You can
have a situation where an
individual might be very valuable to the client as far as the
skills go.
But if they’re disruptive to the
productivity of those around
them, then you might have to
throw the baby out with the
bathwater.
HOW TO REACH: Harley Ellis Devereaux Corp., (248) 262-1500 or www.harleyellis.com
