Too afraid to ask?

Yet another article in the February 2008 Edition of the Harvard Business Review sparked my interest. This article talked about how Doctors and business leaders make mistakes which can have large ramifications.

The article explains how Doctors have team meetings with everyone from the top down to talk about cases and how this doesn’t generally happen in business. It goes on to say that in particular, business leaders don’t allow their team to challenge their decisions and don’t ask the opinion of those below them enough.

This interested me because I have never run my business like that. We have Planning Expeditions every 6 months that are designed specifically for my team to challenge the decisions I have made and to discuss what we need to do differently for the business to grow. It is probably why a recently leaving staff member suggested we started a group for previous staff (see last week’s post).

Your staff have a unique view of your business that you can’t see and won’t hear about unless you ask them. Inviting your staff to be involved in your business strategy is invaluable, both in the short and longer term, regardless of their experience.

I have always told my staff that they are my long term marketing plan. They work for me largely while they are at university and would like an understanding of research, but don’t want careers in the research sector. They have full lives of which their work at Tribe Research is only one element. So, being intelligent and ambitious, they leave and work elsewhere full time, but, it won’t be long before they are in a position when they think: my organisation needs to know their tribe better and I know just the place to go.

So, I ask you, why don’t businesses operate like medical institutions in that way? What are we scared of?

Creating a club for previous staff

In a previous post I mentioned a departing staff member recently suggested we started a group for previous staff who haven’t been fired and don’t work for competitors, to stay in touch.

Her reasoning was that because I involve staff in the business development of Tribe Research and they love working for the company, they weren’t leaving because they didn’t like it, they just wanted different experiences. Therefore they’re likely to be interested in staying in touch and making small contributions to the business where possible. Also, they’re in a great position to provide independent and informed feedback on the business. When it comes to new products, previous staff may even become raving fans if they are kept up to date on what is going on and have the opportunity to stay in touch with each other.

This is how TRX was born. A group of previous employees who keep in touch through a newsletter and social events. So far we’ve sent an email newsletter to all previous and current staff who qualify to be a TRX member and we’ve received positive feedback from the members – they seem particularly grateful for the opportunity to stay in touch with each other. We’re also planning our inaugural annual event for TRX members to be held later in the year.

I will let you know about the progress of TRX in case you’re interested in establishing your own club for previous staff.