“My door is always open.” I get it. You want – no, you need – your team members to be comfortable with you. You need them to feel comfortable walking into your office, sending you a DM, or reaching out in some other way for your guidance, approval, or to just hang with you. That comfort allows you to hear sooner rather than later what is going well and what is going off-track. It allows you to more effectively share compliments and critiques, and it allows you to establish and monitor the work culture that enables you and your team to work well together. However, your open door policy may be inviting chaos you didn’t anticipate.
Your open door policy may be inviting chaos you didn’t anticipate.
Managing a functional and effective open door policy isn’t as easy as it sounds or looks. When done well, you create an open, inviting space for team members, colleagues and others to connect with you, relax enough to share ideas, brainstorm, address problems, strategize, and hopefully laugh. When not managed well, you create a dumping ground and confusion that frustrates you and your team. Why? Because your desire and willingness to be available and helpful have skewed everyone’s understanding of what an effective open door policy is. Instead of being a comfortable forum for connecting and addressing issues, you and your office have now become the destination for people to vent their frustrations with their supervisors, bring problems they don’t understand, and delegate up anything they’ve never addressed before. Instead of coaching them on how to address the problems at their level, you’ve encouraged them to bring them to you. But in your attempt to be helpful, you’ve created dependency.
In your attempt to be helpful, you’ve created dependency.
Instead of coaching them on how to think and identify a path forward, you’re doing the thinking, problem solving, strategizing, and doing. By “helping” them the way you are, you’re really teaching them to not think or handle challenging issues at their level, not believe in their own abilities or positional authority, and to go ahead and jump the chain of command and come directly to you – and completely exclude their direct supervisors. That final act alone elevates distrust and frustration, and now requires additional rework and meetings to undo what could have been addressed right away with the right people, at the right level, having the right conversations.
So the next time a team member – and especially a team member a level or two below you – comes to you to vent, share a concern, or share a problem to solve, say to them, “Tell me everything you’ve done so far to resolve this. Start with what you’ve tried with your supervisor.” That request alone will help them realize, you’re not their enabler. You expect them to think critically, logically, and to include the right people in conversations at the right levels. If they’ve followed the proper path for finding a solution, then your figurative or literal door is open for them. Until then, before you let someone in your open door, ask who else they’ve visited first.
Copyright MMXXVI – Liz Weber, CMC, CSP – Weber Business Services, LLC – www.WBSLLC.com +1.717.597.8890 Liz Weber is an advisor to boards of directors, business owners, and C-Suite leaders. She’s a leadership, strategic and succession planning consultant, keynote speaker, and author. Learn more on LinkedIn.
