Banking & Finance
The relationship builder
How to get to know your customers and employees better
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business San Diego | March 2009
Page 1 of 2
Gary Cady
president and CEO, Torrey Pines Bank
Even with his busy schedule, Gary Cady is never
too busy to get out and
visit his employees. It could be
a spontaneous meeting in the
lobby of Torrey Pines Bank to
discuss news or recognize
some of his 123 employees or
the more structured road
show each quarter to visit the
bank’s seven locations.
“There’s no more important
task that I have than motivating
people and creating an environment for a motivated person to
succeed in,” says the president
and CEO. “It makes my job easier if they’re motivated and
accomplishing things to the
best of their ability.”
Cady’s focus on employee
and customer relationships
has helped the bank reach
2007 revenue of $27.4 million.
Smart Business spoke with
Cady about how to develop
relationships with your
employees and customers.
Q. How do you develop
trusting relationships with
your employees?
Open communication from
both standpoints is important.
It’s just not what maybe I have
to say but what I have to hear,
listening to expectations of
employees, both professional
and personal — just understanding what my expectations
are and for me to understand
what their expectations are.
Just listening and taking
time. Sometimes it’s away
from the workplace; it’s just
having a lunch or breakfast,
maybe a place that doesn’t
have the distractions in the
workplace. Ask open-ended
questions and truly listen to
what they have to say.
In some cases, it works better for it to be spontaneous. It
might be as simple as grabbing
somebody and going out to
lunch with them on a last
minute or for a breakfast. In
some cases, it maybe needs to
be more structured.
I’ve worked with people
before who like to have organized, structured, one-on-one
meetings, (but) mine tend to
be a little more spontaneous.
That comes across just more
genuine; that you want to
spend some time with them
and find out what’s
going on.
Q. How do you become
a better listener?
Silence is a powerful
tool, and too frequently,
people want to respond
quickly. Slow it down
and let silence be a powerful tool. The person
who is talking, if they
realize that you’ve waited to absorb what
they’ve had to say,
you’re more likely to
hear it, but they’re more
likely to believe you’re
listening to them.
Sometimes, it’s hard
for me to know whether
employees are listening to me
or the ideas I’m trying to get
across. Time will tell, will be
the answer. You can clearly
ask them to repeat and just
affirm what you’ve tried to
communicate, but even listening and understanding may be
two different things. Their
future actions will be a real
determinant of whether they
were truly listening and understanding the concepts or ideas
you were trying to get across.
Be direct with them and
form an action plan to help
them work on that. Sometimes
there are classes or outside
seminars people can go to. A
lot of times, people don’t even
realize they’re not good listeners until they’re presented
with that as a potential issue.
