The Big Picture
“How do you manage others day-to-day while focus-
ing on the big picture?”
■“By setting key objectives within the larger organizational
context, I am able to stay focused and on top of the man-
agement of projects while still maintaining the team’s trust.
I don’t think you’d find anyone that I have ever worked
with who would say that I ‘micromanage.’ I believe in help-
ing others maintain their focus and avoiding ‘analysis paral-
ysis,’ I have been successful in moving projects forward
while not taking away from the leadership of the project.”
■“I pride myself on making decisions only after I have
considered the ‘bigger picture.’ That is to say, I am very
aware of how the pieces fit together while working with
individual team members. Each member of the team plays
a part in the success of a project, and I encourage each
person to stay focused on the ‘whole’ project, whether it’s a
customer’s need or a long-term goal. I believe that my
open communication style has contributed greatly to my
success in managing people.”
■“My approach to marketing involves retaining current cus-
tomers first, and attracting new customers second. One chal-
lenge I have faced is customer retention. I work with my staff
and members of other relevant departments to retain first,
build second. One method that has worked in the past is to
send teams to interview ‘the customer.’ By feeding the data
collected to the marketing department, we used ‘permission
marketing’—ask first, send only upon request for informa-
tion. The success of a program is our working together as a
team to support any campaign from the beginning.”