Conversations are Key to Success

We have written before about conversations, that conversations matter!

My friend, Al Ritter, a highly effective management consultant, maintains that organizational culture is built with conversations. We agree.

Another friend, Frank Barresi, a corporate communications consultant, says he has never met a CEO or other high level executive who did not proudly state that they have an open door policy. Frank rightfully points out that in order to truly have an effective open door policy, we must walk out of our office and engage our colleagues in conversations, including those who report to us. Only then will people feel comfortable coming into our office to discuss their work, their ideas and their challenges.

Conversations, while always the foundation of effective working relationships, are all the more important today when so many bosses tend to manage via email correspondence. That simply cannot work well. Our team members must know we value and care about them. They must trust us, feel we are genuinely interested in their success and want to help them.

Let’s remember, organizational success is achieved by teammates doing great work.
How do we inspire our team members? We cannot do it simply via electronic communications, that’s for sure. We need to have sincere conversations.

Today everyone is crazy busy, we must do more with fewer people. It is certainly a challenge to find time for conversations. Yet, it is our responsibility as bosses, as leaders, to find the time!

We should try to develop a more efficient system to manage the information flow coming at us continuously via the Internet. This is a lot easier said than done, but we have to. We cannot “become paralyzed” in front of our computer reading emails and other information. We have to have to get help and determine a strategy that fits our own individual work style. A lot of executives use David Allen’s Getting Things Done method. Others simply have the discipline to schedule just one hour in the early morning to dedicate to email and other Internet information, and then to spend their days with their team members, their clients, marketing, and other important activities.

I attended the International Coach Federation annual conference in September. Two valuable workshops were scheduled at the same time, so I attended one and afterwards asked a friend to fill me in on the other. The presenter advocated that, as leaders, we should delegate whatever responsibilities and work that we do not have to do personally. This delegation will give others opportunities to learn, grow and succeed, and we will allow us to use the freed up time as follows:

1. 1/3 in internal conversations with our colleagues, including those who report to us;
2. 1/3 in conversations outside our office, with clients and prospective clients, with attorneys, accountants, public relations, and other firms with whom we work, and who will share their insight about our organization and our field
3. 1/3 for quiet, contemplative thinking about the future and such questions as what can be our competitive advantage in the future, how can we be different and better, where is our industry headed, how can we stay ahead, and what more can I do to help our people?

Conversations are ideal when each party desires a relatively equal exchange of information.

And a conversation need not be long. In today’s very busy work days, it is fine to stop by, ask how things are going, ask what you need, about challenges, what would make things easier, how can we help, what are your ideas, how can we improve and other similar questions.

These conversations let our colleagues know that they are important, that their ideas matter, that they are valued team members. And it builds their trust in us.

To have effective conversations, we must put people at ease, let them realize that we are teammates, that we are sincere in our desire to exchange information, and that we are purposefully listening to them, in fact, listening to learn!

Our motive drives our behavior, our words and the quality of our listening.

If we are genuine, our investing a good proportion of our time in conversations, even stopping by for quick conversations, will lead to a high energy and loyal organizational culture, which is just what we want so our people, our team and our organization can maximize our success.