Following the advice from the “Silly ol’ Bear” in my last post, I’ve learned that if something “lives” on my calendar, it’s real and I do it! With that in mind, I can boil down my team leadership efforts into one word, “consistency”. All activities were regularly scheduled, coordinated, and communicated across the team. Here are a few things that worked for me:
Thing 1- Ya Gotta Look At’em: Many of my teams over the years have been large (100+) and dispersed- which is a lousy excuse not to connect with them. At one point, my folks were scattered over 16 locations, 11 of which were reachable by car, others were a flight away. For the 11 “local” sites I bought a hybrid vehicle and scheduled visits monthly or every other month. I endured airport security, rental cars, and hotels quarterly to visit our “non-locals”. The visits were repeatable. Both staff and customers knew when I was coming. While there was a steady rhythm of “when” I was coming, the “what” I’d be doing varied. Some visits were team meetings in a conference room, some were walking the floor to see/learn what they were working on, and others were focused one-on-one sessions with customers. And there was usually food involved. Investing a few nickels to break bread with your staff is a powerful opportunity to bond professionally and personally. Lastly, some sites were 24×7 operations, so our staff worked shifts. For those on shift in the Pentagon, for example, I would show up at 0500 on a Wednesday to catch both night and day shifts in crossover. At that hour, I could avoid DC traffic, visit the crew, and get back to corporate before most folks arrived for the day.
Thing 2- Information is Power: We held voluntary all-hands meetings after “normal” duty hours with dial-in available. The attendance surprised me. On average, ~90% of the staff attended (in-person or virtually). Like the site visits, these were scheduled far out in advance (over a calendar year). The staff knew what to expect as the content for the all-hands was consistent: Our Team Vision; Our Services/Our Organization and where we were in the market space; “State of the Union”- what’s keeping our clients up at night; Marketing Initiatives– shown on a map; Rewards and Recognition– the usual corporate awards plus acknowledging things like completed degrees, new homes, marriages, birthdays, and pictures of new babies; Special Topics– sharing the yearly business plan in February and a “Year in Review” in December. Sometimes we planned time for a staff member to present/show off something they were working on; Networking- This was intentional time built in for people to just mingle- VERY important for a dispersed team that rarely interacted with each other.
Thing 3- Make It Personal: Each month I did a quick scan of the monthly Anniversary Report and flagged names of those reaching a major milestone with the team and sent a personal “Happy Anniversary” e-mail to each. Likewise for birthdays. I congratulated folks when degrees were completed, when they survived becoming a first-time homeowner, and when new tiny members were born in to the team. Also, my leads would bring new folks by to meet me when they joined our “family”. I’ve ALWAYS treated my teams as a family.
Thing 4- Little Things Matter: There’s an unending list of tiny things you can do to bond to your team. At one of our December all-hands, the staff gave me one of those “Fishing Fund” pots/piggy banks. Back then our management team was located off a major toll road. Staff had to pay tolls to visit the “flagpole”. I started filling that “Fishing Fund” bank with quarters and left it on the front corner of my desk. If staff were coming to visit the office for ANY reason, they knew they could swing by my desk to get a little change for the toll road. Again, it was a little thing…but it was MUCH easier than having to expense a $.75 toll back then (today, it’s a much higher toll).
So, what were/are the payoffs?
- Personal bond to me. The staff knew that I knew them, appreciated them, and saw the value of their efforts
- Regular comments from customers that our folks were engaged and satisfied with their corporate experience. They commented that they RARELY saw leadership from our competitor, “It’s obvious that insert company name invests in its people”.
- Visiting consistently led to irreplaceable customer relationships- which have been a benefit to both the business and me personally.
- Staff were afforded transparency into the business which kept them aligned to the mission, empowered to help us succeed, and motivated to contribute.
- Low team attrition (less than 4% over 4 years)
- We created leaders by example. “3rd” team leaders stepped up as mentors to more junior staff and showed ownership of the overall team’s success.
- The dispersed team looked forward to connecting with each other regularly
Costs
- Minimal out of pocket costs for food…. ya gotta eat!
- My time. Remember, the cost of keeping current team members connected, engaged, and productive is far less than the lost revenue and sourcing/recruiting time trying to replace them when they leave you.
-Nate Copeland