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THIS MONTH: STOP HIDING
Start Listening To and Serving Your Employees
As leaders we should stop hiding:
- Behind our desks with the numbers, spreadsheets, graphs and reports
- In meetings and the board room
- Behind excuses(1) and blaming
- In fancy cars and smart suits
- Behind titles and positions on an organogram
- Behind the Number 1 reason – I don’t have time
Invest time to make time in the long run.
The best advice I can give you comes from my book Life EduAction(1):
“When you no longer push the buttons or use the tools,
you should become a servant to those who do!”
— Jürgen Tietz
and
“I walk around and see my people, because just to walk around and dare to be strong, dare to give, is much more valuable than any decision I could make or any report I could read.
What I give away is mental health to the organization.
The most unproductive time we have is when we sit at our desks, because the only thing we do is read history:
what has already happened, what we cannot do anything about.
When we leave our offices and start to walk around and talk to people, that’s when we make things happen.
You give your thoughts; you get thoughts back;
you draw conclusions; perhaps you even make decisions.”
— Jan Carlzon, CEO of SAS
Manage On Your Feet and Not On Your Seat
People need to see you and be able to interact with you, there where the rubber hits the road.
Schedule a routine where you set aside at least 5 hours a week to “Walk Your Talk”(1) and ask and listen to hear what your people are saying – then put that into action. This is over and above formal audits.
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