Sergey Aslibekian, the Managing Partner of Grant Thornton, believes that his strongest competency is the ability to convince people to do something and to share his aspirations. In our conversation he tells us how he does it and how he manages to create a comfortable atmosphere for people in his company.
1. What is your strongest competency?
Each person has a lot of strengths, no matter who he is: executive or just an ordinary employee in the organization. As to me, I think that my strength is the ability to convince people, to convince them to do something and to share my aspirations. If you wish to move the organization ahead and make people share your vision, you need to explain them why it is necessary to do something and to convince them that they can do it. It is an important thing.
2. How do you do it?
It's different with each person but it is necessary to start with asking a question why something you offer should be interesting to this concrete person; why he/she should share your vision with you; why he/she should follow you. It's also important to show what perspective this particular employee will have. As we take for example a partnership based organization, like ours, your vision should be shared by your partners so that they buy your idea. It's very important. Therefore, it is necessary to convince, to show an example of what you wanted to achieve and how it was achieved.
3. Can you give an example?
About five years ago, I have started to discuss the merge possibility with one organization, as a result, one of three partners of this organization has joined us, and it was our common decision. When we were discussing with him, why he will be successful in our company, I showed the prospective he can get. He was delivering a certain range of services to a low segment of the market. It was clear that our client base was large and diversified enough to allow this partner to increase both his portfolio, and his income. I can tell that after five years, the volume of services sold by him has grown 4 or 5 times, his income increased a lot; furthermore, he became more interested in his work. He became the partner not of a small organization, but of the big one. But for this purpose, I have spent a lot of time to convince him that the decision to join us will be right for him.
4. Do you have some more examples?
In many organizations people tend to flow from one organization to another. My partners and I are often approached. One of my colleagues was very persistently offered to join one of our competitors. He was pretty close to take this move. But he came to me and we talked it over, then in some months, we had another conversation, so I had to convince him that his decision is not right. By moving to that company, he would become one of those small wheels whereas in our company he could expressed his personality much better. It's been a year and a half since that conversation, and this person still works with us, and hopefully he is happy.
5. How do you manage to convince people you are right?
When we talk about business, there is a whole set of standard things each person in the organization should understand. He/she should know the strategy of the organization; he should see that this organization was successful in the past. In other words, it is impossible to constantly sell a fairy tale and just talk about beautiful ideas. The idea can be sold only once, the second time you won't be able to sell it to anyone. It is very important to have a transparent organization, with clear strategy and with clear goals which can be achieved and measured and towards which it is possible to move.
6. Why is it so important to be able to convince?
To convince is it not about simple talk. A person should understand what he/she can achieve in this concrete organization; he/she should understand that this organization is a normal business with strategy, business plan and long-term perspective. The most important thing is to make a person understand that he/she works in a team of people who are good to work with. It is very important. I believe that it is possible to enjoy your work, without becoming family friends and visiting each other seven times a week. As organization grows larger, more difficult becomes to achieve it. If there are only five people your company, it's one thing; when there are much more people in the organization, other rules start working: lots of bureaucrats and politics emerge. But there should be the right general spirit in the organization; people should feel that they are respected, that the organization wants them to achieve more and to succeed. No matter what position an employee holds; we like when people move forward; we invest a lot of time and money in people, we train all our employees, including partners. It is very important, that the environment, in which the person works, is helping him/her to grow and increase his/her commitment to stay in the company.
