Front Door

We are Front Door

We are direct communicators, confronting challenges before they become barriers – whether in our office or yours.

Picture any building and how you might enter it. We have a choice. We can go around back to go in. Sometimes we can slide in on the side, or we can walk up to the front door and enter that way. This is a great metaphor for styles of communication. Imagine a world where everyone has the trust, skills (it is hard to speak first), respect, and understanding of what it takes to hit each communication challenge head on, Front Door so to speak.

Front Door is not about running people over and being rude. That has very little to do with being honest, genuine, and trustworthy in our relationships. Front door is about being able to see when a situation is going a little wrong and reaching out directly to that person and agreeing to work through it.

My goal was to see more honesty. For us to be ourselves. To realize that it is hard to be Front Door (that is, until you start). But, it stops gossip cold. We have very little use for bad coffee pot chatter. Human nature is to talk to others when we have a problem with someone. Our value is to respect yourself and that person so much that you go right to them and talk to them.

Like all of our values, being Front Door takes skill and practice. Confrontation is not easy for most. However, Front Door saves time, prevents conflict, and is mission critical to preserving and improving our working relationships with the folks we spend 8-12 hours a day with! When there is passion and belief in something greater, there are oftentimes disagreements that arise. Try to think about what is best for the customer. Hard to ever blame them!

Front Door works pretty well with clients, too. They respect us when we tell them that we see a challenge coming, and we want them to know well in advance. This communication becomes proactive, strategic, even consultative, and often supports our other core values around being Customer Centric, and being Risk Takers. Even driving change.

Being good at Front Door requires all of us to work on our abilities and skills to influence, and to work on our interpersonal communication skills. Remember, we build trust and climb the internal relational ladder every time we work through a conflict with someone. Our relationships grow and get stronger in this process.