Communication – Reality or Illusion?
As I covered in my last article, “Three Principles of Leadership” accountability and empowerment are the linchpins that maintain the culture of trust and respect, which enables you to have an engaged workforce, motivated and enthused to achieve the objectives of the organization. In this article, I’ll point out how communication is a key indicator that you have a functioning culture based on mutual trust and respect.
In the absence of fear and in the presence of trust and respect, employees communicate willingly and freely. However, before they’ll put themselves out there to engage you in a conversation or bring something to your attention, they not only need to know that they can trust you; they need to believe that they know you as a person.
While in many large or multi-site companies, it is not possible for a CEO or executive leader to know every employee personally, it is still possible for a leader to be visible and approachable. Good leaders make time in their days to walk the manufacturing floor and engage employees in conversation. If you manage multiple sites, then when at a remote site, go out on the floor, introduce yourself to employees, ask them how they are doing and share some insights or points about the company with them. Be genuine and approachable. Take the time to learn names. Hold “Town Hall” style all-employee meetings and be ready to engage honestly and humbly with your employees.
When I first started at Rockwell Semiconductor as a newly hired engineer, my first assignment was to process a box of wafers through the manufacturing facility (the fab). I had no idea what I was doing nor how to do it. However, in order to be successful in my new position I had to be able to communicate with all the employees in the fab. This assignment forced me to ask questions and humbly seek instruction. To this day, nearly forty years later, I still remember how kind and patient the operators and technicians were as they explained their jobs and how to execute the needed tasks. Unfortunately, I think my box of wafers was the lowest yielding box that month!
I carried that practice into all my future roles. Nothing is better than when the new vice president or CEO is being shown how to line up a stitch, assemble a product, or load a pallet. Putting yourself out there where you are not the smartest or the most capable makes you approachable and shows your trust in your employees, and listening to and learning from them as they coach you through their job responsibilities shows that you respect them and respect what they do. When not a safety issue, making the product, or performing the core service is also something that I have insisted all my new managers and professionals do.
Once you have established and shown that you are approachable, if you are approached or engage with an employee it is imperative that if you are asked something, then you get back to that employee and ensure closure. This brings me to one of my favorite quotes: “The great enemy of communication is the illusion of it.” (William H. Whyte, Fortune magazine 1950.) Communication involves not only talking, but also listening, and listening involves doing. It is more than hearing, it is confirming the receipt of the sender’s message and either resolving it immediately, or committing to providing the answer, guidance, or information as soon as possible, and then following up once delivered.
At Applied Materials, CEO Jim Morgan used to say, “Bad news is good news, good news is no news, and no news is bad news.” He instilled in us as managers that we should welcome bad news as that gives us the opportunity to improve something. When we hear good news, nothing is really learned. However, when our employees (or customers) don’t talk to us or don’t tell us anything meaningful, (“no news”) then that means they don’t trust us, and that is bad news.
Be visible, be approachable, welcome “bad news,” and above all, be humble.
To learn more about the leadership topics of organizational development, operational excellence, resource leveraging, and intellectual asset management, send me a note at info@ventusstrategies.com.