Your Open Door Policy Is Just Lazy Management
An open-door policy isn’t a perk; it’s a barrier to entry. It requires an employee to have the extreme psychological safety, the perfect vocabulary, and the physical time to walk into a position of power and deliver bad news. We have to stop putting the responsibility of making the leader aware there’s a problem on the employee.
Too often, people talk about the most valuable resource in the organization - the people - and sum up their involvement by saying things like, “I’m here if you need anything.” It’s not enough. Changing it starts by first recognizing and then intentionally shifting the power dynamic.
If you manage people, your first 15 minutes at work are yours. Get settled, get your coffee, check that nothing urgent came in during your commute. The next hour, at least, is theirs.
Get out of your office and go to where the work is happening. See how the solution for yesterday’s problem is holding up. Ask Jen if she’s ready for the afternoon meeting. Check on Mike, who was out sick. Find someone doing something you don’t know how to do and have them explain it to you. Be present and approachable. And always, ask these three questions:
Do you have everything you need to get things done?
Is there any part of the process that’s driving you nuts?
Are you hitting any roadblocks I can clear?
This is the difference between just checking the box and doing the hard work of management. You have to seek out the issues, not wait for them to be brought to you. You don’t wait for the bank to notify you that you’re broke, why are you waiting for a resignation letter to check your culture?
According to Gallup, it costs up to twice an employee’s annual salary to replace them. If people are revolving through your “open door,” this is filling a bucket with a hole in it. An expensive hole.
Culture is not something you can seek to change, it is the exhaust that comes out of the tailpipe of every one of your decisions. You can say “growth opportunities” on every one of your job postings, but only having programmatic training and clear career pathways makes it true. You can put “integrity” on your website, but if you have no pay transparency and hide bad news from customers, it’s aspirational at best.
Every time you avoid a hard conversation, promote a brilliant jerk, or ignore a process bottleneck, you’re damaging your operational integrity. This is what people remember when they receive a pizza party instead of a yearly increase.
Feed their careers, clear the path for them, and give them a reason to trust your system more than the next company. Once you have that in place, then yes, there should be snacks.
