Nonprofits
Listen up
How being true to yourself earns employee buy-in
By Patrick Mayock
Smart Business Akron/Canton | March 2008
Jeff Johnson
executive director, Weaver Industries Inc.
Diversity drives creativity.
That notion may not be particularly revolutionary, but it
has nevertheless proved invaluable to Jeff Johnson at Weaver
Industries Inc.
As executive director of the
organization, which provides
vocational training and employment opportunities for 750 adults
with developmental disabilities,
Johnson must routinely apply
out-of-the-box thinking to solve
commonplace dilemmas. In
2005, for example, he was
charged with creating a new
venture to provide more
employment opportunities for
Weaver’s internal customers.
So Johnson turned to a diverse
group of executives from the
Akron community to assist him
and established an enterprise
task force. The unique backgrounds of those individuals
were crucial in adopting a social
enterprise model that manifested
itself as Weaver-SecurShred, a
secure information shredding
company. Since then, Johnson
has relied upon the fresh perspectives of a rotating board of
directors to help guide the strategic direction of the company.
Smart Business spoke with
Johnson about how simply listening will help you clarify your
goals and why it pays to just be
yourself.
Listen to constituents to get buyin. It starts with relaying
the internal customers’
needs and requests.
We listened to them and
sat down with the board
and talked about strategic
avenues and strategic tactics that we could implement.
From that conversation,
we were able to discuss
different ways [in] which
we can meet their needs.
Stay focused on your mission. If you really listen to
the population that you’re
serving, it really will help
clarify what you need to do
and where you need to go.
It’s absolutely necessary.
If you’re growing and
you’re expanding, nothing
is going to be easy. Staff
will continually be challenged, and they will be
pushed, and they will be
asked to do things differently, to do things better
and to improve processes.
If they know why they’re
doing that and that there’s
a real reason out here of
why we need to get better
and why they’re being
pushed, they don’t view
that negatively, and they’re
willing to really step up
and push.
If they look at it and they
just see someone coming
up every day pushing them
to do something better or
faster, they don’t know the
real reason why, and
they’re going to push back.
Be yourself. Person-centered
leadership, from an academic perspective, is leadership
that starts with a comfort
level that starts with yourself, where you’re comfortable in your own skin.
There’s no work Jeff,
director Jeff and another
Jeff — they’re all the same
person. Communicating
that and reinforcing that
every day is very important.
It’s being comfortable
with who you are and what
you are.
When you’re true to yourself as a person when
you’re enrolling your
employees in your vision,
they’re more willing to
enroll into that vision when
you exhibit those types of
traits as opposed to a work
personality that puts on the
executive-director hat.
Gauge character by taking job
candidates out of the office. We
really want the right people with the right background,
education and the right
character to run divisions
or branches. Those are the
folks that are in the trenches every day that are working very closely with those
internal and external customers.
I always have two interviews. My first interview
tends to be more structured. I have a series of
questions that I will ask,
specific answers that I will
be looking for.
Have a second interview
outside of the office environment and try to have it
in a public setting, like a
restaurant for a lunch or dinner, where you can see
how that individual interacts in a different environment, in a more relaxed
environment.
I like to hear a little
about their family. What
are their hobbies? What are
their interests?
It allows the conversation
to move away from the
specifics of the job and
move more toward what’s
that person’s life like and
what’s important to them.
Treat ‘no’ as the starting point.
On sales calls, when a customer says no, it’s a good
start because you can learn
why they’re saying no and
keep moving forward.
It’s asking that customer,
‘If no, why? Is it service? Is it price? What is it?’ It
might be something that
there’s nothing we can do
or they’re going a different
direction.
At least we can seek feedback so that we can know
if there’s something that
we need to change within
our operation. We can
gauge whether we’re competitive, and then we can
move forward, and, ultimately, that will help our
business in the long run.
HOW TO REACH: Weaver Industries Inc., (330) 379-3680 or www.weaverindustries.org
