Many leaders pride themselves on having an open door policy. Yet somehow employees still are reluctant to stop in. Leaders become puzzled when their open door policies don’t improve communication or employee engagement. To accomplish those goals, an open door is not enough – leaders need to adopt open mind policies.
An open mind policy is one that welcomes new and different ideas, even those that might contradict those of the leader. There is nothing more frustrating than a leader who makes him or herself accessible physically but is not willing to listen to what his or her people have to say.
This is true at the organizational level as well. While many organizations have diversity programs, most fall short of true diversity. They encourage learning about other cultures and holidays. They attempt to balance representation of various groups in key roles and leadership positions. However, without an open-mind policy to complement the diversity policy, orgnaizations will not acheive the greatest benefit. The value of diversity is the individual experience, cultural experiences, and the other deeply embedded traits that come from who we are. When those things get left at the door, companies wind up with groups of people who look quite different but think the same. The value of diversity is also then left at the door.
It’s time to start embracing true diversity – diversity of thought, perspective, and experience. Encourage your people to worry less about the state of their doors and more about the openness of their minds.
I had a leader that I believe demonstrated both an open door and open mind policy. Despite that, we still had staff in our group that held back. They not only held back from approaching the leader but kept the doors to their own offices closed which pretty much communicated, “don’t approach me.” What is a leader to do in this situation? One can recognize that predecessors may have scared people into not speaking their minds, or that individuals may have a personal psychological history that prevents them from speaking up. But after awhile do you just give up on reaching these individuals? To do so limits the team from reaching its full capability but there is only so much a leader can do. What should be done?
I appreciate your point about this on an organizational level as well. I recently read a book that I highly recommend. The title is “Hard Facts: Dangerous Half-truths & Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management.” There is a passage in it that I’d like to share. It echoes what I believe is part of your message:
“…in large organizations, people are heavily screened for credentials, competencies, and backgrouns similar to those of other CEOs…Many organizations also choose internal candidates, people who have worked their way up the ranks. As renowned management theorist James March pointed out, this too drives out differences: ‘Assuming that all promotions are based on similar attributes, each successive filter further refines the pool, reducing variation among managers. On attributes the organization considers important, vice presidents are likely to be significantly more homogeneous than first level managers. The result is what statisticians call a restriction of range in the observed population of senior executives…managers are indistinguishable.” I see this in my own organization.
I really appreciate your posts.
Great quote from “Hard Facts”! That’s exeactly the issue – we weed out differences to create the “ideal” person. The problem is that we wind up with 10 of that person.
In terms of the issues with the team, I think it just is a matter of patience and consistency. Everyone opens up in their own way and trust has to be built. You can’t rush it. But you do have to be ocnsistent. If they see you being open in one situation and clsoed the next, you’ll only reinforce their concerns.