It didn’t take me long to notice something interesting in Ernie’s office. Posted over the side of his credenza was a collage of pictures, each with a person’s name. It wasn’t just five or six pictures, more like thirty-five or forty.
“Quite a display,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s my team,” Ernie responded with a smile.
“All those people directly report to you?” I asked.
“No, I have six supervisors in the mix, but that’s my team, forty-six people. In fact, I have two new guys right here.” Ernie showed me two new pictures, each with their name captioned at the bottom. “When someone starts on my team, we take a digital picture and I photoshop their name at the bottom. I stick it up here on my board, so I get used to the face and the name together. I gotta tell you. I used to be really bad at names, so this is my cheat sheet.
“What I really like to do is, wait a couple of days after someone starts on the line. They probably haven’t seen me up close since their orientation. I walk over, sit down next to them and I am able to call them by name. This place is so big, most people expect that I don’t know they exist, much less know their name.
“Every couple of days, I drop by and do the same thing again. I cannot tell you how important it is to be able to call someone by name.”
Right on ernie,
very nice to if you look at it with an open approach. But be aware of the first impression. Hanging pictures on a wall for every new guy may remind you at that first impression. That can turn out positive or negative for that person.
Better idea would be to hang a blueprint on the wall, with everybodies name written on the place there sitting in the room. The result will be the same, but the memory of the first impression will be forgotten. Another benefit would be that if subgroups grow, you’ll directly visualize if it’s necessary to rearrange the place or not.
Kurt,
Whatever it takes to place the face with the name. The ability to call a person by name is a powerful skill.