Take This Questionnaire To Test Yourself ? Both As An Executive ...

A Questionnaire To Help Determine If You Need
Panorizontal Communication In Your Workplace

The topic of this blog is to review a process I have been promoting for over 25 years, and coaching for the past 17 years. Its purpose is to assist business owners and executives in evaluating themselves as leaders, and to describe how they can improve their own value in the workplace.? ?One of the best ways to do this is by testing their current environment by the use of a very meaningful questionnaire. Following is a simple list of questions in which you can test yourself. It is believed any individual who oversees others, and has a sound grip on what is going on at their place of business, should be able to answer these questions easily.

These questions are based on a very simple preface: how can we (management), help them (employees), to do their jobs right the first time. The answer is, we have to ask them that question ? and we have to listen to their answers ? and respond to them honestly, and to the best of our abilities, no matter how uncomfortable this may seem.

If every leader would adhere to this philosophy, the workplace would be a happier and more productive venue to go to each day ? from the highest-ranking individual in authority at any one location or operation (depending on how your company is organized) ? to the janitor sweeping the floor. You most certainly know who your CEO is where you work, and if it is indeed you, then the most important thing for you to be thinking about while reading the following questionnaire, is how might any of your subordinates respond to these same questions?

Here is a list of questions that you, as a business executive, must ask yourself, and answer honestly, regarding your workplace:

• Is there a ?horizontal? or ?vertical? style of communication in place?? [Do you, as their leader, only count on your staff to know what is going on; or is there an open and (what I call a) ?panorizontal? line of communication from you ? all the way to the very nadir of your organization ? and then back to you again?]

• Are meetings taking place on a regularly scheduled basis ? only at a staff level, or from the top to the bottom of your organization?

• How well informed are rank-and-file employees regarding day-to-day operations, and do you feel that is of any importance to you or them?

• Is there any kind of ?favoritism? being carried on anywhere in your workplace ? or more importantly, is there a way for you to know?

• Is there any kind of ?intimidation? being carried on anywhere in your workplace ? or more importantly, is there a way for you to know?

• Is there any kind of ?harassment? (most is unlawful) being carried on anywhere in your workplace ? and more importantly ? if unknown to you? [Careful ? your staff members could be culprits?]

• Do all employees have the proper tools (as near as is possible) at all times in order for them to do what is expected of them?

• Are department heads, supervisors and rank-and-file getting along, and working together as a team, to meet company objectives?

• Do you, as an executive, feel you and your staff have a handle on the actual pulse of the organization ? and how do you think your staff and hourly workers would answer?

• As a leader in your place of work, do you feel you would get an honest answer if you asked a subordinate a controversial question?

What did your answers reveal to you? If you are like most leaders who go through this exercise, you may have discovered that you do not really know what is going on in your workplace, or at the very least, you do not know as much as you think you SHOULD know ? or you would like to know. Do you know why most leaders do not know? Because they do not ask, and therefore they do not listen to, the right people.

WHO ARE THE ?RIGHT? PEOPLE?

My experience has found that rank-and-file employees usually seem to be the only ones aware of hidden costs, because hardly anyone of real importance ever takes the time to ask them.

You NEED to set up a system of communicating with all employees in order to learn how to make effective, yet easy-to-implement, improvements now. This questionnaire should have exposed to you what more you need to learn about your workplace.

There are a number of financial and global reasons why ?business as usual? does not work anymore. ?Lifetime employment? and ?guaranteed pensions? are things of the past. Entire industries have disappeared, not because something better came along and replaced them ? but because some foreign country can do it cheaper.

So why mention businesses going overseas and industries disappearing? A big reason is lack of communication ? solid, good business communication with a raised awareness of needs, legitimate complaints, and how to address them.

ONE-ON-ONE COMMUNICATION WORKS

It has been proven time and again to many executives that whoever sets up a panorizontal style of communication in their own system, will learn more about what is happening at that place of business than anyone else there. It will work in any business environment. Yet there is but one basic thing to learn: executive leaders do not know all they should know about what is going on in their place of business, until they set up a process of communication that allows everyone to be heard, and to provide input and suggestions for correcting whatever might be wrong.

WHAT IS PANORIZONTAL MANAGEMENT AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO KNOW?

Many of the leaders that have requested my help have been more qualified than me, with substantial credentials, most with MBAs, some from distinguished universities, all with many years of experience in their fields. Nevertheless, great majorities of those counseled were so self-centered and had such a high opinion of their own abilities; they actually believed they knew all they needed to know.

Are you one of these leaders? Do you believe you and your fellow staff executives really know what is happening every hour of every day in your workplace? Do you visit each day out on the factory floor; in your warehouse; in your vault; in each office department; in each cubicle; in each lab; in each hospital ward; out on the site; out on the tarmac? Even if your profits were increasing, would you be aware of (and you should) where money was still being wasted and inefficiencies still existing?

A panorizontal style of managing is an improved communication tool that results in management, as well as rank-and-file, becoming more aware of what is going on, and having a better understanding of each other?s problems. Once you know where problems exist, you can get to the root of their cause and take corrective action to fix them.

To summarize, as this process goes forward it will only be successful if the people see management listening, caring, taking hold, and really trying to improve wherever they can. The natural fallout from such a process will be better ways to do things, improved efficiency, and attitudes that are more positive. Moreover ? and this point should never to be forgotten ? your increased profits, raised employee morale, improved productivity, and rapidly contagious smiles on everyone?s faces, simply become added gifts.

To learn more about ?successful business awareness? and how its use of ?panorizontal communication? will help you and your company, go to http://b2bawareness.com and learn for yourself ? how you can improve even more as a business leader.

Thank you for visiting ? and I wish you and yours nice days always,

Bill Hartman
The Business Awareness Coach

This entry was posted on June 1, 2012 at 1:21 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Panorizontal Communication Creates Awareness by Bill Hartman

pga tour argentina train crash nancy pelosi nancy pelosi gop debate republican debate lewis black