If the Shoe Fits: Wave Deafness
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Last year I wrote about Tony Hsieh’s approach to employee empowerment, featuring some great quotes from him.
As I said then, the thing that sets Hsieh apart is security.
Hsieh is comfortable in his own skin; secure in his own competency and limitations, so he doesn’t need to be the font from which all else flows.
Entrepreneurs can learn from this.
Startup hiring usually comes in waves as the company progresses.
While most founders will listen to their initial team and first few hires, those hired later often find it difficult to get their ideas heard.
Unfortunately, this behavior often sets a pattern, with the ideas and comments of each successive wave becoming fainter and fainter and those employees less and less engaged—and that translates to them caring less and less about your company’s success—call it wave deafness.
Wave deafness is costly.
Costly in productivity and passion, but even more costly in lost opportunities.
As Hsieh points out, there is no way he can think of as many good ideas as are produced if each employee has just one good idea in a year.
And not just from certain positions. I never heard of a manager, let alone a founder, admit to hiring dummies for any position, no matter the level.
So if you hire smart people and don’t listen to them, who is the dummy?
Option Sanity™ rewards creativity.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process. It’s so easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
Flickr image credit: HikingArtist
April 26th, 2012 at 1:16 am
[…] ideas can come from any individual and are not dependent on their level or even their […]