The Lord doesn’t ask about your ability, only your availability; and, if you prove your dependability, the Lord will increase your capability.
—Unknown
As a leader, you should always be available to your people, your customers, and your community. This is even more important when times are tough. When you disappear from view, people begin to worry, and when they begin to worry, they become distracted from the work at hand. Your organization will perform better when you’re visible and available and exude confidence.
There are two ways to look at being available. One is that it means you’re accessible, that both your associates and the public are able to contact you directly. The other is that it means not hiding from your constituents when times get tough. In fact, I believe that when the economy is bad and your business environment is getting more and more uncertain, this is the time when you as a leader need to be even more available and visible than you have been—and not just to your employees, but to your suppliers, public, media, bankers, associates, and customers.
When the business environment is uncertain, your people, your customers, your partners and your other stakeholders want to be reassured that you’re on top of things and that everything is going to be all right. But if you’re hard to contact or reach, people tend to worry about what could possibly be going on. If they can’t get an explanation or reassurance from a company’s leadership team about what’s happening, fear sets in. This type of fear—the fear of the unknown—is unproductive and often creates negative rumors as people make up their own reasons to explain issues.
If I’m a customer and can’t get in touch with the company that I buy something from—no one will answer the phone or return my calls or respond to my e-mails—that company is sending a powerful signal that communicates something negative to customers. They begin to fill in the blanks, imagining that your company is in trouble or you don’t feel your customers are important. If you respond, at minimum they’ll understand what’s going on; it could have been as simple as your phone systems being down. By not being available, you’re allowing them to answer for you, and their answers can often be quite imaginative, inaccurate, and not in the best interests of your company. Whatever the issue is, you owe them an explanation, and it’s in your best interest to give it.
It’s easier to be available when times are good. Everybody wants to tell the world how great they’re doing, but when things aren’t so hot, people too often have the tendency to disappear or hide. You may unintentionally be sending out a message that will eventually come back to haunt you.
At Umpqua, our organization is as flat as we can make it. This is because I believe that the fewer levels of management you have, the better you are. We don’t need to create obstacles for our people to jump over in order to get to decision makers. Too many companies have so many layers of management that their organization chart looks like a pyramid, where only those with incredible tenacity can communicate with the top. When you have a flat organization, it’s usually much easier for others to get answers to questions and resolve problems, and allows management to take advantage of opportunities that the company can benefit from. It also keeps management connected to your customers, an essential part of delivering extraordinary service.
When asked by a reporter some years ago who he thought was the greatest leader in the United States, management guru Peter Drucker didn’t hesitate. Frances Hesselbein, he replied, at the time CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA. When the reporter balked at Drucker’s answer, insisting that surely he meant the best nonprofit leader in the United States, Drucker wasn’t dissuaded from his assessment. He retorted, “Frances Hesselbein could manage any company in America.”
In his Foreword to Hesselbein on Leadership, Jim Collins explained how Frances described the flat organization that she devised for the Girl Scouts. According to Collins,
In 1976, Hesselbein found herself at the center of an organization cascading into irrelevance. I’m careful here not to say, “atop” the organization, as Frances would never think of her role that way. When describing her organization structure to a New York Times reporter, she put a glass at the center of a lunch table and created a set of concentric circles radiating outward—plates, cups, saucers—connected by knives, forks, and spoons. “I’m here,” she said, pointing to the glass in the middle. “I’m not on top of anything.”1
Using this unique flat organization approach to management, Hesselbein rebuilt the Girl Scouts organization, increasing its membership to 2.25 million girls and a mostly volunteer workforce of 780,000 people.2
Too many layers of management serve as unnecessary translators, and messages too often get changed or lost altogether by the time they make their way through the organization. Umpqua is purposely designed to be flat because I want people to get answers quickly, and I don’t want or need translators. I want people to have confidence that management is available to them and that we want and value what they have to say on company issues and opportunities. This has an incredibly positive impact on our associates’ morale, their confidence, the level of service they provide, and the way they communicate to our customers and other stakeholders. I understand that at times, a flat leadership structure might not be the most efficient way of managing an organization, but my intuition tells me that this is the best way.
When I talk about being available, that doesn’t necessarily mean waiting for the phone to ring or for an e-mail to come in. It’s being proactive about being available that counts. I received a letter from one of our associates in the Puget Sound area. The letter wasn’t actually addressed to me, but someone thought I might get a kick out of reading it and forwarded it to me. In her letter, the associate wrote about how much she loves working for Umpqua Bank. As soon as I finished reading it, I picked up the phone and called her. I said, “I hope you don’t mind that I saw your letter, but after reading it, I just wanted to call to tell you that your comments were terrific and let you know how much I appreciate your passion for Umpqua.” She was happy I read her letter and surprised that I called to tell her what her thoughts meant to me. As you can imagine, that simple act of being available to my associates went a long way with her.
On the first of every month, I sign about 250 cards for associates who are celebrating their annual anniversary with the organization during that month. Every year everyone gets a card from me that tells them how much I appreciate them, their commitment to the company, and our standards for delivering customer service. And I sincerely do. I also make a point of getting out and visiting our stores and departments often so our associates can see the whites of my eyes. They need to have the opportunity to visit with and talk to me. I need to be available.
Being available can be easy to do. One way I make myself available to our associates and customers is through what we call the “Ray Phone.” Each of our bank stores has a special phone. When people select the number 8 on the keypad, their calls are connected directly to me here in Portland. When I’m at my desk, I answer these calls myself. If I’m not at my desk and a caller leaves a message, I make a point of returning the call on the same day. When we put those phones into place back when we had only six bank stores, I had no idea the impact it was going to have. It wasn’t a big deal at the time—I was just letting people in the small town of Roseburg, Oregon, know that I was around and looked forward to talking with them.
Today I average one or two calls a week. It used to be only two or three a month, but our customers seem to like the fact that they can talk with the CEO of their bank. For the most part, they call just to let me know how much they enjoy the uniqueness of our stores and how much they appreciate our staff. They’re also impressed that if they choose to, they can talk to the CEO of the company. Many of the calls I get are people, who after I say, “Hello,” just say something like, “Never mind. I just wanted to see if you would really answer the phone,” and then they hang up. Or sometimes they’ll ask me, “Is this really Ray Davis?” Our customers rarely use the phones to call me with problems, but when they do, I make sure we get them fixed right away. I’m available.
And it makes a difference. For example, a customer called me from one of the phones; we had a nice conversation and he was complimentary about the people he was dealing with at his local store. I thanked him for his comments and shortly after the call sent a note to the store staff thanking them for their good work. About three weeks later, I got another call from the same guy. He said, “Ray, I don’t mean to bother you, but I just had to call you to tell you this story.”
I said, “Sure, what’s up?”
He said, “Well, you know how two or three weeks ago, I gave you a call, and you answered the phone and we had a great chat. I just want you to know it really meant a lot to me.”
“I was happy to talk with you,” I replied. “I’m glad you called.”
He then continued his story. “I was so impressed that I decided to test this on another bank. Since I also had a checking account with one of the large national banks in town, I decided to see if I could get their CEO on the phone as well. I wanted to find out if I could get through to him the same way I got through to you.”
“How’d it go?” I asked, although I suspected that I already knew the answer.
“Not good,” the caller replied. “It took me about a week and a half just to get through to the floor in the building where the CEO works. And when I finally got one of his two or three assistants on the phone and said, ‘I’d like to speak to the CEO,’ the answer I got from the assistant was, ‘Mr. Smith [not his real name] does not take calls from the public. Have a good day.’ And then she hung up on me.”
You won’t be surprised that we picked up the rest of this caller’s business. I’m always happy to talk with him or anyone else who takes the time to pick up the phone in one of our stores to give me a call.
I know that all CEOs are very busy people. I’m busy too. But I always have a minute or two in my workday to pick up the phone and say hello to one of my customers. I think it’s a mistake for people in my position not to make themselves available to their customers, their people, and the community at large.
If a business is going through a tough period, and associates are wondering, “How are we going to get through this?” not having access to the decision makers—whoever they may be—creates a large amount of uncertainty and fear. My guess is that there’s a high likelihood that many of those associates, when given the opportunity to land somewhere else, are going to be gone. As important as it is for leaders to be available in good times, this is especially important when times are tough.
It’s a natural reaction for a leader to hunker down when things are looking bad and circle the wagons: constantly meet with the top leadership team, while unintentionally neglecting the company’s other associates. Not only do associates feel left out of the loop as a result, but their leaders aren’t hearing from them on important matters. These people may have great ideas about things the company could do to get through its difficulties, but these great ideas go unheard and are not acted on when the decision makers are hunkered down in a bunker and out of sight.
Why not have your associates be part of the solution? They’ll feel more worthwhile and more valuable to the company, more engaged, and they’ll understand that you respect them and their opinions. What’s wrong with that? Most businesses have a lot of very smart people working for them, many of whom have great ideas. When I look for new ideas that could differentiate our company from our competitors I often get important and timely input from our associates. In some cases, we’re able to implement the ideas as our associates suggest them; in others, we implement them after we modify them to the specifics of our business. To me, being available to our people is more than just answering the phone when someone calls; it’s about engaging with our people in good times and bad.
Engaging your people is important for any leader to do. The Gallup Organization keeps close tabs on the engagement of millions of American workers in their jobs—that is, how connected they feel to their workplaces. In its most recent survey of American businesses, Gallup found that only 30 percent of American workers—less than one-third—are engaged in their jobs, working with passion, and feeling a profound connection to their company. And if that’s not bad enough, Gallup also found that 52 percent of American workers are not engaged in their jobs. They’re “checked out” and just going through the motions at work. But here’s the really bad news: The remaining 18 percent of employees—about one in every five—are actively disengaged from their jobs. Not only are they not happy at work, they are actively working against the goals of their employers, undermining the good work that their engaged coworkers accomplish.3
If you’re available to your people but not motivating or helping them get through the problem at hand, what makes you think you’re going to get through it? Being available is one thing, but if you’re in a position of leadership, people expect you to lead, expect you to have ideas, expect you to be confident, and expect you to take action.
It’s okay to let your people know that you don’t have all the answers. But they need to feel confident that you are willing to listen to them and then act to get through the rough patch your company may be experiencing. This confidence becomes contagious, which is clearly positive. You have to demonstrate confidence and at the same time be truthful and transparent about the issues at hand while you make yourself available.
I often remind my executives that we sometimes take for granted the impact we have on the people who work for us, both positive and negative. A phone call, a personal office visit, a sincere thank-you in the hallway: each of these interactions and more can significantly change the course of an associate’s day. When I personally called the young woman who wrote the letter expressing how good she felt working for Umpqua Bank, it cost me nothing and yet she was pleasantly surprised. I’m sure she told others about the call, and I hope it was a positive experience for her and for her fellow associates. The opportunity to have such a lasting impact on people makes a big difference in their work lives and can make a difference in the lives of the executives who take the time to reach out.
Notes
1. Frances Hesselbein, Hesselbein on Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002), xii-xiii.
2. Ibid., xvi.
3. Daniela Yu, Jim Harter, and Sangeeta Agrawai, “U.S. Managers Boast Best Work Engagement” (Washington, DC: Gallup Organization, April 26, 2013).