Listening in Leadership: Are You Doing It?

We always talk about the importance of voice of customer research, but equally important are the voices of your own team.

Listening in Leadership: Are You Doing It?

There are few seemingly commonplace items with a more storied history than khaki pants (didn’t see that one coming, did you?). Though the exact history of the item is somewhat shrouded in mystery, one thing we do know is that the dye-color for khaki pants was originally implemented to solve practical military problems. The cloth, used throughout British military efforts in harsh and dry climates, served to not only keep troops cooler than the traditional garb, but also to camouflage them better against the dusty backdrop. The United States adopted khaki in WWII for its soldiers in order to attain similar benefits.

One such soldier who saw the benefits of khaki, as Forbes reports, was the founder of Walmart, Sam Walton. With the initial phases of Walmart springing up in small-town Arkansas, Walton wanted his employees to blend in with his customers, so as to give the latter a greater sense of calm and familiarity when shopping there—hence the khaki outfits (the pants, at least) that have become a staple for all Walmart employees.

Until now. Last month, the country’s largest employer abandoned the requirement in favor of giving employees the option to wear jeans (although the color of those jeans appears to be restricted). Why? Because the company could no longer ignore the myriad complaints flooding in to the Walmart system and its external social media sites. Simply put, Walmart employees didn’t want to wear khakis anymore, and the company knew it had to cave on this one. But Walmart’s inability to respond quickly to the changing marketplace—and to the enormous wealth of employee-driven backlash—caused it quite a bit of bad publicity that it could have avoided.

At Axiom, we always talk about the value of voice of customer research. But for business owners and leaders like yourselves, it’s equally important to listen to the voices of your employees. Here are a few tips to help you avoid your own khaki-esque fiasco.

Listen, Talk, Listen

This is a generally good model for all human beings to live by, but it’s especially pertinent for business leaders. More often than not, your employees are discussing an issue they may have with the company long before you ever hear about it. Why is that? It’s usually because your teams are afraid to approach you with any sort of problem, and that’s dangerous, because they need to know that you’re not only willing to fix issues if they’re presented to you, but that you actively encourage issues to be brought to your attention so that you can fix them.

This is a problem that can be easily solved during the onboarding process. Make it known to your employees that you care about constant feedback and interaction loops. Not only will this open up lines of communication, but it will also give them a greater sense of ownership and personal identity over the workplace—which will pay tremendous dividends in the long run. So, listen to what your employees are saying (by making it clear that they can come to you with issues, not by monitoring their activity, of course). Then, ask follow-up questions to really get at the problem. Sometimes your teams won’t be completely forthright with you, because an honest approach isn’t necessarily the norm in most workplaces—that hesitancy is natural. Create an open and trusting environment, and they’ll be more likely to keep their communication straightforward—which means your job is then to listen more.

Create Value

The larger the company, the more individual identity can get lost—and we’ve certainly explained this in our past blogs, as well as seen it from renowned research publications. When employees feel that their identities matter to the organization, they’re more likely to stick with the organization for the long haul, to be more productive in their work, and to be generally happier in the business environment. By showing your employees and teams that you value their overall position in the company as a whole, you are much more likely to establish an environment in which problems don’t arise with as much frequency, or when they do, that they are handled much more efficiently.

Maintain Leadership

Great business leaders know how to execute the above strategies, without sacrificing their perceived authority role. Here’s why that’s so important. It can be far too easy for your teams—if the above strategies are implemented—to no longer see you as the authority figure that you have to be in order to make decisions that your people will respect and follow. So, with that in mind, make sure that as you establish the open lines of communication with your teams, you do so in a way that effectively speaks to your leadership role within the organizational structure. If you lose the respect of your people, you’ll never get it back. For many leaders, this causes them to disengage from the communication process altogether—but the better approach is to get it right, rather than to avoid it.

Curious about improving your research tactics, either internally or externally? Email Mike Reiber at mreiber@axiomcom.com. Want to know how to foster a better environment for innovation teams? Email Rob Beachy at rbeachy@axiomcom.com.

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