Ask Rubi

Rubi Says…

Dear Cheryle,

I know you said this is a quiet and introverted crowd, but you’re not headquartered in Tokyo. Surely there must be some outspoken or opinionated people in the organization — even if they’re currently muttering most of their ideas over a mug of beer rather than sharing it with the rest of the company. Your task is to draw them out. To do that, you have to create three conditions within the company:

• Give them a forum.
• Make them feel welcome.
• Reward correct behavior.

Creating the forum is the easy part. Any competent wiki, bulletin board, or mail list software will do. Start it up, and invite people into it. Start low key; if you set the expectation that there’s going to be monster traffic on the first day, you risk disillusioning people. Better to start with low expectations and then allow people a pleasant surprise.

Making them feel welcome can be much harder. Does your company culture encourage candid feedback? If not, you’ll need to make clear that no one gets punished for anything said on your forum. That requires sponsorship from a senior executive in the company. You may need to seed the discussion by asking them questions online. You also need to make clear that the actual service decision-makers are participating in the forum actively. If you leave that to an intern, you implicitly say you don’t value their time.

You may need to recruit some noisy people to start the conversation. One great place to look is your company’s sales engineering team (if you have one). SE’s usually have daily contact with customers, are product-literate, and are frustrated that they have to apologize over and over for the same product flaws. If you can’t get them talking, you just aren’t trying. Or maybe you really are working in Japan.

As for how to reward correct behavior: It’s not about money, it’s about status. You and other senior managers should thank people lavishly for contributions, and make clear via follow-up questions that you’re listening. You should also reward the best contributors. How about giving the best one a tasteless hunk of colored lucite in the shape of the company’s logo? Rubi has seen many of those on display in cubicles across Silicon Valley. The get displayed because they give social status to the recipients.

And the delightful thing about them is that they don’t cost nearly as much as a trip to Cancun.

Overall, relax and have fun with the forum. It’s a bit like running an old-fashioned cocktail party, dear. Create a comfortable location, make people feel at home, and give them a chance to meet other fabulous people. If the host or hostess is at ease, everyone else will be as well.

Sincerely,
Rubi