How Healthy Communication Impacts Employee Engagement

Troy Meachum, ACR Supply Co.

Meet a company whose workplace culture was in pain—that is until its leaders took the outdated lemons and made lemonade. Imagine employees who discovered how to trust one another, work together, give their all, and as a result, increase company revenue eight-fold! It’s a priceless, true story that can take your culture and your company, to a whole new level, and it’s coming up, next.

If some things in your workplace culture are bugging you, if you can’t seem to find answers and the problem isn’t getting any better, then this episode of the Flourishing Culture Podcast is for you.

Here’s a quick, bit-by-bit preview of what’s in store:

Three Painful Realities (and Starting Points of a Flourishing Culture)

Troy Meachum, President of ACR Supply Company, North Carolina's leading wholesale distributor for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration, remembers when he saw problems he couldn’t fix:

1. “We had people on our team who were not contributing to a healthy work environment. It was toxic at times. We needed to get them off this bus.”

Troy then leveled with me: “Ultimately, as a steward of the business, I concluded, if the person wasn’t willing and/or able to change, then we had to change with new people. Getting the wrong people off the bus and the right people on the bus.”

What would you do in Troy’s situation? Listen and see if you agree with Troy’s course of action. 

2. “From the leadership on down, we did not know how best to handle disagreement or conflict.”

Like I suggested in the intro above, culture sore spots can ironically become the unlikely, yet authentic, starting point for a culture’s toxicity to heal.

Troy demonstrated this by taking the initiative to receive training in Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High.

Twice each year, Troy leads a 16-hour course to train employees on how to navigate potentially destructive encounters and experience why crucial conversations transform people and relationships.

How effective has the company-wide training in conflict resolution really been?  Troy tells it like it is in the podcast. The answer, as you’ll hear, is worth “trying on” for yourself, especially if you believe, like Troy, that mastering crucial conversations “helps people on a professional level and a personal level with their families.” 

3. For years at ACR Supply Company, communication was in the dumper.

The biggest positive change, says Troy, came when he began sharing his calendar with everyone in the company. Soon, everyone followed suit. It’s one of several action step strategies he shares that show why Healthy Communication is one of eight distinctive culture drivers that make up BCWI’s Flourish Model.

For you, what are the upsides of a culture that encourages and demonstrates clear and open communication?

The Best is Waiting . . .

The current podcast is your chance to learn, discover, and discuss:

• How ACR Supply Company achieved a 73.8% level of employee engagement (the average mark at Christian for-profit organizations is 50%).
• The most important God-honoring leadership principle Troy stands by. Hint: If you know who made famous the words, “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no,’” you don’t have to guess who is behind ACR’s values, action step strategies and character that permeates its people, decisions and customer service.
• Why there is a direct correlation between a healthy culture--where people enjoy what they do—and gross revenue and net profit.

[shareable cite="Troy Meachum"]Being consistent with our values, ethics, communication and how we go about our work every day is helping us build a flourishing culture."[/shareable]

It's Your Turn

The next time you and your team are facing a situation that seems to defy a solution, feel free to employ these words from Troy: “If you were king and were empowered 100% to fix the problem, what would you do?”  The thoughts, ideas, and strategies the person comes back with will offer a glimpse of what it’s like to have the right people on the bus, engaged and freely communicating in a crucial (and highly productive) conversation.

It’s just one ROI waiting for you in this podcast episode with Troy Meachum, who likes to say, “Being consistent with our values, ethics, communication, and how we go about our work every day, is helping us build a flourishing culture.”

Coming Up Next in on our Continuing Series

“Do You Want Better Communication in Your Church Culture?”
Bill Bush, Dave Sutherland
Rock Point Church, Queen Creek, Arizona