Friday, July 25, 2008
You Can’t Lead Through Email
I had a boss once who rarely left his office. He communicated his wishes via email; sometimes by voicemail—never face-to-face with you unless he wanted a favor. He made an early attempt at a monthly department meeting which ended up being a waste of time. There was no agenda, few goals, sporadic recognition and was more of an exercise in trying to get 9 people into a tiny office. This was abandoned after a few months. In fact, everyone stayed in there office and rarely interacted with the rest of the organization. Very ineffective for a Human Resources department.
What are the consequences of this kind of behavior? It led to the following:
* Low trust among the HR department staff (not to mention the organization in general).
* Individual development plans were non-existent and annual performance reviews written without input. (He also gave everyone the same merit increase percentage regardless of performance evidence.)
* Conflict was ignored and, therefore, unresolved leading to assumptions and judgments.
* Favoritism ran rampant so overall morale was low.
* Inappropriate use of company time was tolerated. (He’s probably still playing hours of Solitaire.)
The key to being a leader is to find out exactly what motivates each person on your team. You need to discover what benefits are important to them (both logical and emotional) for them to further your vision. This requires you getting out from behind your desk and actively pursuing an honest relationship with each individual. It can be as simple as:
* Having coffee together from time to time
* Dropping by their office with the day’s mail and chatting a few minutes
* Going on a customer call together
* Observing them in a customer conversation and giving them immediate feedback
* Acknowledging their birthday and work anniversary dates
* Having them sit in on one of your high-level meetings
* Rotating responsibility in setting the staff meeting agenda
* Impromptu stretch breaks during the afternoon slump
If you’ve been leading by walking around and talking with your team—Congratulations! If this is new for you, start out slowly and begin incorporating a new behavior weekly. The last thing you want to do is take these suggestions and implement them all at once. That would only create suspicion among your team members. Your goal is to increase trust levels.
Until next time...live like you mean it!
Marjorie