By Steve Adubato, PhD
Bob Miglani, is author of the book, “Treat Your Customers: Thirty Lessons on Service and Sales That I Learned at My Family's Dairy Queen Store.” Miglani wrote in to respond to my recent column titled, “Employers need honest feedback.” Says Miglani; “In my experience, in both big and small business, the number one problem is not necessarily about feedback rather it is about TIME employers/managers spend with their employee. We are not spending quality time with our employees. Time training them, coaching them and fully engaging them in conversation. This yields productive employees who are focused on the most important thin in business—the customer.”
Bob Miglani raises several points about the importance of investing time when communicating with individual employees. Time is our most precious resource and many managers and leaders incorrectly argue that they simply don’t have enough of it to communicate as fully and effectively as they would like. The problem is that when you don’t invest in quality communication, the amount of time, money and effort that is often wasted on the back end can be devastating to an organization. There are some key questions we should consider in order to reap the benefits from investing the time to communicate one-on-one with our people.
Q: How much time should a leader invest in each person on his team?
A: The key is to do it on a regular basis. Once a month, or every two months at the least, you should sit down and go over a variety of items including progress on key projects, obstacles or barriers the employee is facing, new ideas and initiatives as well as his overall satisfaction level. You could also get the employee’s perspective on what could improve the way the team is operating. A session like this should take about an hour. More than two hours is too much.
Q: But what if you have 20 or 30 people reporting directly to you? How are you going to meet with all of them individually for that much time?
A: You have to prioritize (Who are the most important 10-15?) and also rotate who you meet with. You may also consider meeting with smaller groups of individuals, either randomly or based on the kinds of projects they are involved in. The key is to create a culture that communicates that you really care about what your people are thinking and feeling and have a mechanism to facilitate that process. Even if you don’t get to communicate with every individual as much as you or they would like, the payoff will be huge. The buzz around the office will be that you care enough to take the time to listen. Most reasonable employees will understand that it’s just physically impossible to give as much as you would if the team were smaller.
Q: What about for employees reading this column who have a boss who doesn’t invest the time to communicate so thoroughly?
A: It depends. Is your manager the kind of person who really doesn’t like to sit down one on one and truly engage? Is it that he or she would like to, but may just not be aware of the need to do it? The reasons matter. If your manager really doesn’t like to spend time with his or her people, you may be wasting your time trying to change that situation. However, if your boss falls into the other category, you might approach him like this; “Jim, there are so many projects we are all working on. Would it be possible to get on your schedule so that we can prioritize what’s really important to you? I also have some ideas that I think you’ll like. Most importantly, it would also be great if I could get the benefit of your thinking.” It’s unlikely that your manager would turn you down if you couch the request in such a positive, non-threatening fashion. Try it and write back to me.