Into hot air, Part II

You can read Part I here.

When you're at high organizational altitude, you're surrounded by other people who are themselves at high organizational altitude (and therefore - to continue with our mountaineering metaphor - just as oxygen-deprived as you). We already know that oxygen deprivation can alter one's reasoning and decisionmaking skills, and summit fever can make a mountaineer take foolish risks; this is why high-altitude mountaineers typically stay in communication with Base Camp managers who are  lower on the mountain. In addition to the higher mental acuity, the folks at Base Camp are privy to information that those at the top of the mountain might need: perhaps a storm is getting ready to move in; maybe there's a high risk of avalanche in the area of the mountain you're about to traverse; or maybe it's time to forget about the summit and turn around so that you can get home alive.

At 30,000 feet, things look considerably different than they do at sea level; the big picture tends to look much prettier and simpler than the detail view. For example: from 30,000 feet, your company looks like a well-oiled machine; widget production is skyrocketing, profits are up 7% from last year, payroll costs are holding steady, and the management team feels that the business is in great shape. Closer to the ground, you'll find that although production is up, so is your defect rate; if that continues, those increased profits will disappear as you start to credit your customers for the defective widgets they've purchased. Oh, and the reason payroll is holding steady even though production is up? That's because people are jumping ship left and right due to the low morale. Meanwhile, the management team feels like everything is great because they too are looking at the business from 30,000 feet.

The only effective treatment for high organizational-altitude sickness (whether it's HALE, HAPE, or HATE) is to descend to the lower part of the mountain as soon as you can. But just as you can't live at the summit of Mount Everest, neither can you live at sea level when you're running a business; all detail all the time will render you completely ineffective. You can - and should - make periodic excursions to the lower part of the org chart to get some extra oxygen and an occasional reality check. And if you're an executive whose every utterance is greeted by uniform agreement by those around you, then you really need that reality check because no one is right all the time.

So how do you get to the lower part of the mountain? Make it a habit to spend time with the folks more than one rung beneath you on the org chart. Aside from periodic visits just to say hello and make an appearance, consider scheduling monthly lunches, and select one or two people at random to join you. During those lunches, ask them what's going well at the company; ask what's not going well. Ask what problems they're having. Ask them what suggestions and ideas they have to make the company run more smoothly. Heck, ask them if they have suggestions for new product or service offerings! Trust me when I tell you that the lower down the org chart you're willing to visit, the more genuine information you'll get (the folks on the widget production floor probably aren't too concerned with office politics, and they'll give you the real scoop).

Once you get feedback from those organization Base Camp managers, assess it and act on it just as you would feedback from any trusted adviser. While the folks on the production floor may not care about you and your success as such, they know that the decisions you make will have an impact on them; so when ten different people tell you that the equipment over in Aisle Q malfunctions on a weekly basis, you can feel fairly comfortable that they aren't making it up.

Here's the key to this whole process: you need to be sincerely and genuinely interested in what the widget production personnel have to say. You need to care about how they feel about the company and their roles in it. You need to believe that those folks have opinions that are just as valuable as those of the senior management staff. Sincerity is not something that's easily faked, and street-smart people will catch on right away if all you're doing is making a show of caring. So if you really don't care? Then don't waste your time or theirs.

Being a manager or executive is a privilege that you've earned through hard work, and there's nothing wrong with being proud of yourself for what you've accomplished to get to that nice office. But never make the mistake of thinking that that you and your fellow executives are the only people whose ideas have value. The customer service rep in the back cubicle might have a terrific idea for a service improvement that'll save your company millions of dollars; the employee working at the packing station might be able to tell you how you can reconfigure the line in such a way that you'll boost shipping accuracy by 2%. You never know where the next great idea will come from, so don't limit your input by staying only at the top of the mountain. To be a great leader, you need to visit the entire mountain from time to time.

But please, even if you're looking at the big picture, I beg you: no more altitude-speak.