they were moving up the ranks, would
take lateral moves and take new jobs that
might even be seen as demotions, but
they did this for a very deliberate reason
because they wanted to broaden their experience
base, and that requires a certain
level of fearlessness.
Q: I LIKED THE CHAPTER “LOCK YOURSELF
OUT OF YOUR OFFICE.” CAN YOU
TALK ABOUT THAT CONCEPT?
AB: This theme came from so many
CEOs who said it was invaluable to be
visible and to spend time with employees.
It may seem inefficient to walk around
the building and stop into people’s offices
since there is not an immediate ROI on
your time, but the CEOs I spoke with
learned so much in terms of what employees
are working on, what the roadblocks
are, etc. They obtained great insights
by doing this.
Another benefit is an interesting phenomenon
related to us as human beings
“TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD, THE CEO HAS TO
LOOK LIKE HE OR SHE HAS ALL THE
ANSWERS. WHAT I CAME TO APPRECIATE
IS THAT THE ROLE OF THE CEO INSIDE THEIR
COMPANIES IS NOT TO HAVE ALL THE
ANSWERS – BECAUSE THAT IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE
– BUT TO HAVE THE RIGHT QUESTIONS.”
in that when the boss is locked in his or
her office all day long, we start to imagine
things about what’s going on and there
is a void of communication. Voids are
dangerous because people fill voids with
stuff like rumours and gossip. It is tough
to imagine what the leadership is doing if
you have no context or understanding of
who they are.
In this day and age, it can be very
tempting and a bad habit we can all fall
into, where we see all of these emails piling
up and we feel like we need to plow
through them, but there is a cost to doing
that, because the longer the time you
spend in your office, the less human interaction
you have.
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HRPATODAY.CA ❚ FEBRUARY 2014 ❚ 47