I hope this letter finds you well, prosperous and in good spirits.
You’re busy, I know, so I won’t take too much time. I’ve got a few ideas about our company I thought you might be interested in.
The boss, get it?
1) Start building an infrastructure that will allow us to work remotely. Gone are the days of slogging our way into the office and fighting the evening’s traffic. If it’s a trust issue, well, you shouldn’t be hiring anyone you don’t trust. If it’s a security issue, get over yourself. The internet is a heck of a lot safer than keeping a Narnia-sized file library full of completely compromise-able physical. documents.
Yes, there will be challenges. You’ll have to schedule meetings in remote offices, coffeeshops and restaurants, but with what you’ll save by not housing a bunch of bored people, you’ll be be able to buy our lunches. Skype, Instant Messenger and, even the old-fashioned conference call are all beautiful resources for connecting in real-time. Consider hosting a cloud server and giving us remote desktop accessibility, we’ll meet you there.
Of course, meetings will have to change, which is okay because…
2. Meetings Suck. Seriously. In my experience, most of these round-robin talk-fests actually inhibit productivity by keeping us from our desks, sales calls, clients and research. Of course, they aren’t always without merit, but, if we’re going to get down to the real meat of the meeting, we need a Pangaea-scale shift in the entire dynamic. A few notes about meetings:
- Make them necessary. Most meetings can be avoided with better, proactive communication. Too many meetings are called in order to “set a record straight” or “clarify a few things.” Take note, leader, this happened because the original information was communicated poorly. We should have heard the news from a single, unified source. Instead, a version of it was leaked and left to the rumor-mill to put the finishing touches on it. Bad call. If it’s not possible to address the news immediately, be certain to secure it confidentially until it is.
- Have an agenda and stick to it. The agenda is the scaffolding around which the entire meeting hangs. It should be well-groomed and free from all excess. If you’ve called the meeting, you owe it to yourself to make it count. You owe it to us to make it worth it.
3) Invest in your culture. If you’re going to expect us to weather a few storms, be sure there’s something worth weathering them for. Hint: it’s not about the money. If you keep chasing your best employees with money, don’t be surprised when they follow it somewhere else. Money is great, but only for so long. Give us a deeper story to join and we’ll return allegiance, confidence, creativity and innovation.
I realize that the challenge here is to recognize that “investing in your culture” doesn’t always ostensibly add to the “bottom line.” But, over an extended period of time, given the cost of employee turnover, training and re-training and momentum-loss, I’m willing to bet the culture-investment you make today will return handsomely over the coming years.
I truly appreciate your time. Give me a call if you need anything – I’ll be at home, working harder than ever.
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