Telecommunications

Wired in

By Brian Horn

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Renaat ver Eecke
general manager, Navman Wireless North America

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The employees of Navman Wireless North America are spread out all over the country, which can make communicating with them a challenge. So, Renaat ver Eecke, general manager of the North American division, which employs about 50 people, has to do a lot of traveling to stay in touch, but he says it’s worth it because that type of communication is so important.

“I lead a lot by being there, going out, understanding what the challenges are from the distributors and really making sure that I consistently say the same message from a communications standpoint, not only internally but externally,” he says.

Smart Business spoke with ver Eecke about how to communicate effectively in a growing company.

Q. How can a leader consistently communicate when employees are widespread?

One of the things I did — and it gets a little bit more challenging as you grow because the ability to do it as frequently as you want becomes more challenging — but if you’re in a smaller company and you’re just starting to lead, I think giving monthly updates.

When I first started taking over the U.S. business, I did monthly updates for the entire team.

It was an all-hands meeting. I talked a lot about, ‘Here’s how we are from a revenue perspective. Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s why we are trying to grow these things.’ Any major changes that were coming up, I would communicate why we are doing it. Because, in my opinion, the things that confuse organizations are not that changes are being made or that ‘this’ is coming, it’s ‘why’ that people don’t address very well.

There was a lot of remote stuff. So, we used the latest technology to empower everyone to be on the same page.

Every single person that reported in to the organization had to be on this call, and they knew it — even the salespeople.

I said, ‘Look, when is the best time where you are normally at home? It’s not going to disrupt sales.’

They knew it every month. They had to block off (that time).

They wouldn’t make appointments there. I found it very effective on keeping everyone on the same page. As the business has grown here, I do that, but I now do that on a quarterly basis. I don’t do it monthly. I do a communications out via e-mail monthly, then I do an all-hands quarterly meeting.