Page 102 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

Steering the Ship and Inspiring the Crew C89

Q: Give us an example of how you work with your supervisors
on this mindset.
Hoogeveen: Different employees learn differently. There are some em-
ployees we call “scared rabbits.” They lack confidence, are uncomfort-
able with authority figures, and are unlikely to challenge people in
leadership. Employees with this profile are best taught by peers, not
by someone like me. My role as a senior leader is to positively reinforce
those employees when a particular success they achieve comes to my
attention, and over time we hope to build their confidence so they can
be more comfortable working with and confronting leader-types.
There are other employees, when it comes to learning, that we call
“arrogant jackasses.” They have an attitude that prohibits them from
being receptive to coaching from their supervisors. In those cases I
intervene and tell the employee that we see great potential, but if they
don’t start listening to their supervisor, things may not go well for
them, and the next time I have a chat with their supervisor, things
had better be different.
Both scared rabbits and arrogant jackasses can eventually become
successful employees, but how I lead them is very different. How each
group might describe me to their coworkers or friends would sound
like night and day. But understanding how each employee learns,
and individualizing my approach to them, will make all the differ-
ence in the world.

Q: Building strong relationships is very important at QLI. Why
so?
Pearson: Our goal is to help people be successful in life. That requires
us to know them and for them to know us. That takes a while, and
there is always a risk in getting to know people too well, but we’ve
seen the results of what happens when you are able to build a rela-
tionship where people know you truly care.
Elson: The more we learn about our associates, the better we are able
to understand their unique strengths. Our supervisors have an eye
for talent. As we observe, we’re constantly asking: What went right?
Who was involved in the success of the project? How did that person