Give your team a chance
With the idea firmly planted in his employees’ heads, Smith needed to make the inaugural monthly department head meeting at Shoes For Crews count.
“The first meeting, I did a lot of the talking,” Smith says. “I just went over a lot about how this would help all the departments and that even though we have a great product, we did lack teamwork.”
Having sufficiently reinforced the reasons for holding the meetings, Smith set out to accomplish his goal of getting his leaders to talk to each other more and work together more collaboratively to keep the company moving forward.
His first action was to step back from the actual running of the meeting.
“You don’t want to micromanage,” Smith says. “You have to have faith that your people are going to arrive at the correct decisions. You can’t stand over their shoulder.”
Smith likened the development of the new department head leadership team to the way he pulled back from the company’s sales and marketing department in the company’s early years.
“I was solely responsible for sales and marketing for a long time,” Smith says. “You spend so much time working on those projects intimately; it’s hard when you suddenly have to give up the responsibility.”
But as time went on, Smith saw how the burden of carrying the whole department on his shoulders had become overwhelming.
“You get to the point where you can’t believe how you ever ran that department,” Smith says. “You realize you’re hurting the company by still maintaining the tight grip.”
Just as Smith needed to let go and allow his sales and marketing team to do its job, he also needed to step back in the department head meetings and let his leaders do what he wanted them to do: start talking to each other.
“We started off having each department mention what their responsibilities are in the company,” Smith says. “Not every department is as obvious. They would mention what initiative they are working on this month, and it sort of broadened out from there. Whatever the topic, we asked e
ac
h department head to participate. We didn’t want these meetings to drag on forever, so when we could tell a certain manager wasn’t participating, we would say to the manager, ‘The meeting would be much more valuable if you would participate.’”
By continually tossing the ball back to your leaders and asking them to carry the meeting, you reinforce their value to the team and to the company. You also encourage dialogue that will build a sense of team among your leaders.
“It aligns everybody,” Smith says. “It says you have a company objective and nobody can be going off on their own. All departments are interrelated and nothing can be successful without everybody contributing.”
Don’t be afraid to be aggressive in encouraging your leaders to express their opinion and take a position on a key decision.
“It’s going to help them succeed,” Smith says. “If they don’t come up with initiatives, it’s a lot more difficult for them. It ends up being a whole lot more successful when it comes from them and it’s an idea that they thought of themselves.”
