Technology
Talking it out
How showing compassion for employees can spur growth
By Mark Scott
Smart Business Orange County | February 2008
Marlo Brooke
Avatar Partners Unlimited LLC
As founder, principal and
president at Avatar
Partners Unlimited LLC, Marlo Brooke doesn’t have a
lot of time to sit around and
talk. But the moments when
she does have heart-to-heart
discussions with her employees are vital to the company’s
success.
“I always ask, ‘Are you
happy? How are you feeling
about things?’” Brooke says.
“Just directly asking the question, usually you’re going to
get a direct answer. There are
always tasks and projects at
hand. But in addition to that,
there is the question of how
they are doing. That seems to
cut off at the pass a lot of
issues between them and
myself and between them and
other employees.”
By staying in tune with her
employees’ feelings about the
company and their jobs,
Brooke emphasizes the importance of both communicating
and listening in everything the
company does, and in doing so,
she has led the software systems integrator to 50 employees since it was founded three
years ago.
Smart Business spoke with
Brooke about how —
although she doesn’t keep
many secrets — she motivates
employees by not telling them
how they can earn bonuses.
Q. What are some keys to
effective communication?
Keep drilling down beyond
the obvious questions. It’s a
very similar methodology to
being an excellent journalist.
Being able to really listen
many times to what isn’t being
said.
Needing to effectively listen is
just ensconced in our mentality.
It’s constantly discussed in our
internal meetings and training
with everyone from accounting
to customer service consultants
to the sales and marketing
team.
Everyone knows that we need
to have this openness of understanding, really almost a humility. Just a willingness to go
beyond your own head/mind
constructs of the picture we
built up in our many years experience. We don’t have that arrogance to assume that we
have all the answers.
Nobody is wrong for
saying anything or having
any kind of idea.
Q. What role does a
leader play in establishing open communication?
The attitude of top management funnels down
through to everyone. As
the president, I work on
that constantly. I also
allow people to criticize
the things I do in a constructive way. It puts a
check and balance on
me.
I’d rather have the
learning come internally as
opposed to jeopardizing our
relationship with our customers. We treat our customers
the same way, just allowing that
flow of communication.
I have to care about the
employee even more than I care
about myself. I have to be looking at what is in their best interests. I have to be thinking, ‘Are
they happy? Are they getting fulfillment? Are they challenged
enough?’
Different employees need different things. Some people are only interested in money. Some
are only interested in accolades
and fame. Some just want a
good job. It’s my responsibility
to have the caring and concern
for my employees, and then it
comes back tenfold.
Q. How can communication
ease the sting of failure?
Everyone has very sensitive
egos. If a person didn’t do as
well as they wanted on the last
project, it’s really important for
leaders to focus on the positive.
It’s very easy to be negative.
It’s very easy to come down on
a person and be critical and
maybe even get a temporary
result by being harsh with them.
It’s harder to be positive with
that person. But it’s much more
successful in the long term, and
that employee will be much
more productive in the long
term. Focus on what they did
do right and lessons learned.
I frequently manage by giving
examples of mistakes I’ve made
and how I’ve succeeded
through them so that they know
that leaders are fallible. They
need to know they are not the
only fallible person and the only
person that made a mistake.
Just having that commonality
can go very far.
Q. How does having a secret
bonus plan motivate employees?
We don’t believe in structured bonuses. We won’t do
Christmas bonuses every year.
We give bonuses based on factors. Our management committee gets together once a month,
and we have a factor that we’ll
give a bonus on to an employee
that month. Nobody knows
what it is.
At the end of the month, our
management gets back together
and finds the employee that has
done that particular thing and
we’ll give them a bonus on that.
We find unexpected bonuses
really tickle and excite people.
They feel what they do really
does matter.
If the objective is sort of
vague and nobody really
knows what the bonus is, it
incentivizes people to do well
at everything they do.
It’s also an expectation thing.
If you give somebody something they expect, they’re happy.
But if you give them something
they didn’t expect, that’s a gift. It
makes it exciting and fun.
HOW TO REACH: Avatar Partners Unlimited LLC, (949) 622-5557 or www.avatarpartners.com
