Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header
Share for a Cause









The Door to My Office is Always Open! ...or is it?

Guest post by: Tom Lemanski

Article Overview: We're all challenged to make better and faster decisions. How do you do this? One way is can expand your sphere of information and thereby minimize the amount of guesswork involved. This month I've called on Bob Newhart and Tom Peters to help examine some traditional approaches for getting to the real story and why they often fail to produce the candor needed to assure that your critical decisions are sound. How effective are your channels for building business insight? You're invited to invest 90 seconds and learn five ways to improve your personal information gathering skills. And I share a new smarter, solution that likely trumps anything you've already tried.

Free Download - Five Resounding Reasons to Review Your Strategic Plan By Tom Lemanski
Name: Email:

The Door to My Office is Always Open! ...or is it?

The Door to My Office is Always Open! ...or is it?
How do you get the real story?

A recent discussion on tapping knowledge resources led me to consider what works and what doesn't. I recall my first exposure to the concept of an executive open door policy. It was a comedy album that my parents used to enjoy....

"The door to my office is always open. I think you all know why its open. It was stolen and I'd like that returned too." - Bob Newhart, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart

The physical state of your office door is less significant than your mindset for seeking insight from your stakeholders. They include anyone who is impacted by the success of your organization and can hold valuable insight into what's really going on.

When you're spending most of your time working in your business rather than on your business, you're likely creating unspoken barriers to both seeking and receiving information from those with the real story about your operation and your marketplace.

Beyond the Open Door

The open door policy is a reactive approach to seeking information. Tom Peters' 1982 best seller, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best Run Companies, suggested a more proactive approach to seeking stakeholder insight. He used the acronym, MBWA: Management By Wandering Around. He discussed the value of getting out from behind your desk and into the field or on to shop floor and meeting with customers, vendors and employees.

While Bob Newhart and Tom Peters are dated references, is the need to understand our stakeholders' needs, capabilities and challenges any less relevant today?

How Do You Rate?

* How approachable are you, really? Are you getting the candid feedback you need?
* How proactive are you in seeking the real story: not only what is happening, but why?
* When is the last time you took a stakeholder to lunch? How frequently should you be doing so?
* How much proactive wandering have you done in the past week? How might you improve?
* Do you use a "My door is always open" mindset as an excuse for not proactively seeking the information you really need?

Your answers are out there. Just don't expect them to come knocking on your door. In fact, in our world of excessive political correctness and cover your tail mindsets, all of your wandering around and open door invitations can still fail to deliver what's really needed for effective decisions: candor. And how much wandering around time do you really have?

A More Effective Solution

I've discovered that as an unbiased outsiders, we can gather candid information about what your people are really thinking and why. This insight is impossible for insiders to acquire. And paraphrase Master Card, the insight is priceless. So if you want the real story, we would be honored to discuss how you might profit from getting to the truth of your situation.

Related Articles
  Is Your Open Door Policy Killing You?
  People Management - Having An Open/Closed Door Policy
  Lesson #4: An Open Door is A Company Score
  The Secret of Door to Door Street Marketing
  Customers that care

Home > Business-Coach > Tom Lemanski > The Door to My Office is Always Open or is it
Article Tags: open door policy

About the Author: Tom Lemanski
RSS for Tom's articles - Visit Tom's website

Tom Lemanski is President of Vista Development, a strategic development firm in metropolitan Chicago Illinois. As a Business Catalyst and Executive Coach, Tom works with executives in growth orientated organizations to help them to overcome their internal obstacles to growth and achievement. He has recently launched a new site Executive Talent Assessments with new resources for making more informed hiring and promotion decisions.

Follow Tom on Twitter

Click here to visit Tom's website
Dashed Line

More from Tom Lemanski
Overcoming Breakup Reluctance
5 Preventable Pitfalls to Solid Client Relationships and How to Resolve Them
Filling the Bus for Your Good to Great Odyssey
Your Price is Too High
The Difference Between Moving Bolts and Moving People


Related Forum Posts
Re: High price of entertainment Re: High price of entertainment - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":dadh8m1p]Kevin, I went to a Justin Timberlake concert recently where the bottled water was selling for $4 a bottle! I'm talking about the average 600ml bottle that sells for about $1.20 in the supermarket, now that's a rip off but people were buying it because they needed water.[/quote:dadh8m1p] Hi TheAnonymousMan, Can I ask how much you paid for the concert tickets? And more importantly, was the show worth the price? At the Tennis US Open, I had to pay $3.25 for a 500ml bottled water, $8.00 for a "travel size" Hawaiian Tropic bottle of sunscreen, and $13.00 for a Carnegie Deli pastrami sandwich, $4.25 for fries and $2.77 for a Sharpie pen (for autographs), etc... And to make things worse, they don't allow you to carry a backpack for security reasons, so it's very inconvenient to bring your own things to the event (keep in mind I was at the US Open for 7 hours). I mean who wants to carry around 10 lbs worth of stuff (if I were to bring my own necessities like food/water/sunscreen/etc. and have to carry a bunch of souvenirs) in a plastic transparent bag for the whole day?! It's an obvious scam for more profit.
Greetings From Destiny's Door Greetings From Destiny's Door - Hi Everyone, Thanks for the invitation to introduce myself. I'm looking forward to being part of the discussions here. I called my business "Destiny’s Door Coaching" because I believe you already have everything it takes to create the business of your dreams. The door to your destiny stands always open. The choice is up to you. I work with Business Women and Entrepreneurs who want to create a life and business that matches their true potential, while still allowing them time to do the things they love most. I support them as they discover how to work smarter and not harder. I coach because I am passionate about seeing women achieve amazing things when they fully accept their own greatness. Business really gives women a great opportunity to express their passions and purpose in a way that also brings financial rewards. I believe you are highly important as the foundation of your business. As you grow and unleash your true potential, you enable your business to do the same. In fact, I'm doing that personally through my own business. I coach women and write articles inviting women to step into greater personal success. As a Certified Life Coach with a Degree in ministry, this is a perfect fit for me. On a personal level, I believe in living fully alive and making the most of every moment. I even have my own Coach! Of course, life is always a work in progress, but I keep moving forward. I do this happily in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of B.C. with my husband and two feline companions. Anyhow, I look forward to meeting you through the forum where we can challenge and inspire each other to really grow towards our full potential. Let’s really commit to creating the businesses of our dreams. I’ll meet you at Destiny’s Door! Warmly, Tami
5 Entrepreneur's success stories 5 Entrepreneur's success stories - My local paper's business section profiled 5 successful entrepreneurs in the Jan 6, 2008 issue of the paper. Thought I'd share just a bit of it here. Bill and Heidi Dittmar: Executive Lifestyle Jeff Wassmer: Spectrum Deloise Hawkins, Star Whitaker and Lenzy Hill: Touch of Elegance Stephen Brosius: Advanced Door Systems Pam Watson: Goodrich and Watson Insurers Bill and Heidi Dittmar: Executive Lifestyle founders of a magazine called Executive Lifestyle. Started in 1991. Revenue has grown more than 200% since 2004. 4 full time, 3 part time employees "We started off with $1,000 and a stupid idea." It began as This Month, a guide for tourists, and morphed into Executive Lifestyle. Jeff Wassmer: Spectrum Company specializes in computer network security and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. Wassmer was an 11-year Air Force guy, so he had "ins" in order to form this business. Deloise Hawkins, Star Whitaker and Lenzy Hill: Touch of Elegance Founded business in 1994. 12 employees. Their company designs and plans an average of 25 events each month in Hampton Roads and other parts of Virginia. Stephen Brosius: Advanced Door Systems Started company in 1995. 5 full-time employees, plus subcontractors. After having worked as a subcontractor for others in the construction business for 20 years, he decided to start his own business. Pam Watson: Goodrich and Watson Insurers At age 49, she was approached by an insurance colleague to buy out their employer's insurance division. They did so, and became employers themselves., witj 4 full-time people.
Re: Google Chrome is not faster than firefox 3.1 Re: Google Chrome is not faster than firefox 3.1 - Just a quick update here for Beat, To copy your bookmarks (and history, passwords etc if you want) from IE to Firefox: Open Firefox, Click File (top left of browser) Click Import Select IE Click Next follow the instructions provided, hope this helps, Carol
Books for Women Entrepreneurs Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women


Recommended Article for You close

  Is Your Open Door Policy Killing You?

Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article


Bottom Footer
Share for a Cause












Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

Living on The Edge of Chaos...

The Value of Small Businesses

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.