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Do Your Employees Have Your Ear?The other night I watched part of a documentary show on the downfall of WorldCom. Since I once worked on a training project for that company in an earlier life, I had more than a casual interest. One of the most telling vignettes included several former WC employees explaining how the Chairman, Bernie Ebbers, would get abusive whenever an employee had the nerve to pass on bad news during a staff meeting. Apparently, the abuse of the truth-teller was so extreme that it never happened a second time. So what does that tell you about the WorldCom Chairman? Plenty. But more importantly -- how do you think this pattern of behavior affected employees who might have noticed that something was going wrong at the company and thought it should be addressed? Do you suppose that WorldCom ever really had a chance to right itself? If you suspect that you or your management team have fallen into the trap of preferring to hear only the best news about your company operations, or that you don't listen well to your employees, it's time to act. The answer, while not easy, is to establish a rigid discipline of respecting the truth - being willing to listen to the truth and encouraging your managers and employees to tell the truth -- even when the truth is discouraging, painful, or just plain scary. So, why do I bring this up in a newsletter dedicated to employee performance? Because an employee who is afraid of telling the truth is one who always has a lid on his thoughts. He has no reason to act in the best interests of the company. He has no reason to want to do his best. In fact, he now has plenty of reasons not to. Because an employee who is frightened of telling the truth has very little reason to want to stay with the company unless he knows he couldn't get a job anywhere else. else. Surely you wouldn't want someone like this on your staff? If you have even the slightest suspicion that you or any of your managers might have a problem with hearing the truth, or with telling it, please consider taking one of these steps to establish the value of truth-telling and listening. 1. Hold a truth-telling session with your immediate reports - those managers who report directly to you. This is easy to describe but may be tough to do. You hold a meeting with your managers in which any issue is fair game, and no one is allowed to comment on or critique any truth that anyone expresses. Deal with issues that are brought to the surface at one or more additional meetings. Make this your next staff meeting if you hold one regularly. And then make it plain to your managers and everyone else on your staff that this is what you expect of all meetings from that point onward. 2. Start listening carefully to everyone. Force this discipline on yourself by keeping a journal of what you hear every day from your managers and employees when you actively listen to them talk about their jobs and the company. If your journal is empty at the end of any day, then you'll need to push yourself harder to establish this discipline. You can do it; you'll just have to keep at it for three weeks or more before it becomes a habit. 3. Show you heard and understood. When an employee or manager gives you a "heads-up" about a problem, encourage that person to think the problem through some more and come up with a plan to address it. Better still: when you hear back from the employee, share with him what you've been thinking about the same problem ever since he mentioned it. But be sure to listen to his ideas first and don't make it sound like your ideas are better. I've stated numerous times in this newsletter that the best way to get someone to do a great job is to give him a great job to do. At the same time, you have to give him the right atmosphere to breathe. Truth clears the air like nothing else. A few good reasons why listening could be the most important thing you do for your employees:
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