Why Open Conversation Matters for Leaders

From our standpoint, we value the opinion of our consultants, right? We value the opinion that everybody that's on the floor, not only about the business but about us as leaders. It come about initially, well, I was having a conversation with our marketing manager Rosie because we do kind of town halls and quarterly wrap-ups, which are more kind of answering questions over email anonymously, sending them in. But really, to be able to get on one par with the guys on the floor to understand kind of really what's happening, I wanted to be able to create something that was informal What we created was 20 Minutes with Tay, where I spend 20 minutes with every consultant in the business and we go for a walk, we go and have a coffee, whatever that may be, and we just talk. We talk about the business, we talk about performance, we talk about them, and I gain their feedback. And it was so powerful for us as a business to be able to understand exactly what's going on on the floor, but those guys feel comfortable enough to open up. And I think that was so much better than just sending an email. We still do the email ones, but that was really me spending time with each individual and understanding not only them, where they're at. And the conversation starts with, how are you? It doesn't start with what's your thoughts on the business, how am I as a leader, what would you change? It's really, how are you, how's things? Really understanding what they're going through at that point, you know.