open door policies - the best leadership podcast ever
  • May 23, 2024

13. Open door policies don’t work | Why your team won’t walk through your door

When I was 10 years old, I walked face-first through a closed screen door at the Kavanaugh’s BBQ. Plate of potato salad airborne. Soda everywhere. Slow-motion fall onto a clean rug.

That’s what your open door policy feels like to your employees.

Only 14% of employees will speak up to their managers about almost anything. So if you’ve got 50 people in your company, your “open door policy” gives you proactive input from 7 of them. You think it’s working because 7 people came through. They are not the company. They’re the 14%.

In this episode, I trace the open door policy back to 1899 China, why the Pareto Principle predicts it would fail, and what real leadership communication actually looks like.

🎧 Press play. The door has to swing both ways.

In this episode:

▶ The Kavanaugh BBQ story and what it has to do with your open door policy
▶ The 1899 China trade history that created the original “Open Door Policy”
▶ The Pareto Principle applied to leadership communication
▶ The 14% statistic that proves your policy isn’t working
▶ The 4 fears keeping your employees out of your office
▶ Why an open door is meaningless if the door only swings one way
▶ What real two-way leadership communication looks like

If you’ve been telling yourself your team would come to you with problems, this one’s for you.



Isn’t It Time You Got To The Next Level?

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Everything Else Jeff >> linktr.ee/jeffmatlow



Referenced in this episode:


#Leadership #LeadershipCoaching #ExecutiveCoaching #JeffMatlow #TheBestLeadershipPodcastEver #OpenDoorPolicy #LeadershipCommunication #PsychologicalSafety #TeamCulture #ParetoPrinciple