Consumer Services
R. Dean Akers
CEO, Ideal Image Development Corp. Inc.
By Brian Horn
Smart Business Tampa Bay | September 2007
"No one can steal happy people. It’s just impossible." - R. Dean Akers, Ideal Image Development
To illustrate the impact leaders have on their corporate culture, R. Dean Akers describes a car ride on a sunny day with no other
cars on the road. When the driver flinches, everyone in that car flinches, says the CEO of the 400-employee, $60 million laser
hair removal business. They have no point of reference other than the driver because the driver is in control. In a business, when
the leader flinches or shows panic, that action goes through the organization like fire. From a culture standpoint, Akers says that
has less to do with outside influence than it does with leadership influences. Smart Business spoke with Akers about how to
show appreciation to employees through listening and why it’s important to create “wow” moments.
Ask employees questions, and listen to their
answers. When they come up with ideas,
you don’t always need to give them a
response back. If they say, ‘We should
paint it orange,’ you don’t have to say,
‘Yeah, I agree, but let’s paint it burnt
orange.’
If what they come up with does not
impact your business negatively and
your little spice on it doesn’t make that
much of a difference, then keep your
mouth shut. That is a validation that you
were listening because you let them execute on what their ideas were.
One of the things that shows you are
listening is, if they say their hobby is
fishing or their kids are into soccer, then
you make notes on that. When you see
an article on how to improve your soccer game, you say, ‘Mary, I saw this article for your son, and he might enjoy it,’
and shoot it to their house. You can’t
even believe the payoff for that as a
leader.
I use a computer. So when I have their
names in, I put their hobbies in. I do this
for vendors and everything. I’ll pull up
golf as a query, and it gives me 150 people that love golf. I might pick three of
them randomly and send them a note on
golf that I found was cool. I subscribe to
over 100 magazines, so I am always tearing articles out.
When they open it at their home, they
generally either show their family or sit
it down on the counter, and it helps validate that they are with a different company than they’ve ever been with before.
They value that a lot.
Let employees solve problems on their own.
There’s very few times that you’re listening that they get to go in the wrong direction because you are asking the right
questions, and you are listening. I’ve
found that a lot of times, if you don’t listen to people, they will go in a cocoon
and, in essence, start responding to you.
Then you are really managing and keeping them out of trouble.
For example, if someone is going down the wrong road, if you’ll ask them additional questions that will get them back
grounded, they’ll usually come up with
the solution themselves. When they
come up with that solution, it has much
more value than you reining them in or
fixing it.
Get employees involved in the company. When I travel, I go into a location for the
entire day. A lot of the time, they don’t
know I’m coming. I wear scrubs, and I
don’t go in like a boss that’s looking
down.
I hang out with them all day. When you
hang out with someone for eight or nine
hours, you aren’t going to get the superficial or presidential tour. Within an
hour, they are going to get on truth
serum and tell you how they feel.
I also send books out. We had our people read a chapter every week, and they
did a book report. It just helped them
feel more empowered. Nobody has to
read it. These book reports are about
what they thought of the chapter and
how it has affected their life.
You would die at some of the e-mails
you get and the impact. People feel we
are a company and not a corporation.
They are not a number. They know
everything they do influences our group
success.
Remember your personal life. I was divorced about 10 years ago, and I had been married for 18. I was a workaholic when I
was married. I did all these things for my
teams and customers, but I didn’t do
them for my wife.
Now, I have written a book I am trying
to get published on relationships that
deals with this whole balance thing. I
have, for the last nine years, been very
balanced because I got a wake-up call.
The name of the book is ‘52 Wows.’ The
premise is, you create a ‘wow’ in somebody’s life every week, 52 weeks a year.
The definition of a ‘wow’ is you do something for somebody without any agenda.
The ‘wow’ side of it is they could be driving in their car, they think back at what
happened and go, ‘Wow.’
What I’ve done is I put that in my personal life. I always did that in my business life. When I send a letter with an
article, they definitely go, ‘Wow.’ It’s
made a huge difference in every relationship I had.
Retain by showing appreciation. It’s that simple. I was on the phone with a fellow
CEO, and he was telling me about how
he thinks someone is trying to steal his
people. I told him no one can steal happy
people. It’s just impossible.
I’m a pilot, too, and every time I fly, I
do a check-off list. In business, when
we crash, we never go back, check our
check-off list and find out what we didn’t do. We blame something like the
market, or the guy down the street is
trying to steal our people. In reality,
people have left because they just aren’t
happy.
HOW TO REACH: Ideal Image Development Corp. Inc., (800)
234-3325 or www.idealimage.com
