Technology
The daily walk
How to get out and be visible
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business San Diego | February 2009
Page 1 of 2
Laurent Desclos
president and CEO, Ethertronics Inc. USA
Laurent Desclos isn’t afraid
to get out and interact
with people, and he
spends a lot of time walking
around Ethertronics Inc. USA
listening to his 250 employees.
“Listening to your employees
and speaking to them like that,
you will be able to know what
they like and also what they
need to get better at,” says the
founding member, president
and CEO of the company,
which designs and manufactures high-performance
embedded antennas for wireless devices.
Taking time to develop
those relationships and establish trust with his people has
helped Desclos grow the
company to 2007 revenue of
$25 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Desclos about how to make
time to understand your
employees.
Q. What are the keys
to understanding your
employees?
You need to position yourself
in their skin, in their footsteps.
It’s management by walking
around, going around and asking what people are doing and
being receptive to their feelings
and fears. You create a contact
there, not only in the company
but globally in their life.
It’s not for everyone. It’s not
a free thing; there is an investment there. It’s important that
leaders understand they will
spend a lot of time at the
beginning. Don’t do it to be
superficial and say that you
need it. ... You need to be constant in the way that you do it.
Don’t start if you don’t sustain
it. You know them and appreciate them for what they are doing for you.
In this role, you need to
understand a little more of the
joy and the pain of all the people. It sounds simplistic, but in
a way, if you have no idea
what your employees are
doing, how can you lead them,
how can you know their limits
on goals?
Q. What are the keys to
management by walking
around?
You need to be visible
in all departments. You
can also start simply,
like going to a coffee
place and starting to
speak with the guys on,
‘How is your work
doing, and what are you
working today on?’ And,
‘I heard about this project,’ and so on and so
forth. Being trusted is
the key there. You are
much more knowledgeable, and you can keep a
finger on the pulse of
the company as well as
manage the crowd better because you know
what they expect from
you and you can generate a better message.
Every day, I will walk around
the floor and speak with a few
people. It doesn’t have to be a
one-hour discussion about the
weather. It’s establishing the
trust and establishing the relationship at all levels.
For some people, it would be
difficult, because they’re not
used to going down a notch.
It’s pretty much like in all relationships — what costs more
is the first step. The second
step will be easier.
One thing you want to avoid
is to be too friendly, because
you need to earn the respect
before getting to the friendliness and buddy-buddy kind of
relationship. Otherwise, it’s
pretty hard to recover.
