Smart Business Magazine, October 2017

4 Smart Business Pittsburgh October 2017 JAYNE GEST EDITORS NOTE Consistent listening Get your information from the source Morgan OBrien president and CEO of Peoples Natural Gas Co LLC this months cover story tells his employees that executives dont make bad decisions because theyre not smart They make bad decisions because they dont have good information or theyre not close enough to the issue That sounds simple enough to change Executives need to gather better information and or learn more about the issue But how Smart Business Pittsburgh 835 Sharon Drive Suite 200 Cleveland OH 44145 O 8009884726 F 4402507001 Smart Business Magazine Events PUBLISHER CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Dustin S Klein GENERAL MANAGER John Lotenero VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES Katie Janoch Janet K Valore VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Somer Karim ASSOCIATE PUBLISHERS David Brodowski Jennifer Wafalosky SENIOR EDITOR April Grasso SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Mark Scott ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jayne Gest ASSOCIATE EDITOR DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER Adam Burroughs PRODUCTION MANAGER Mary Kay Bukowski CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jim Mericsko PROJECT MANAGER EVENTS Danielle Catteau SALES MANAGER EVENTS Meredith Rankin SALES EXECUTIVE EVENTS Lisa Walker AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Tammy Frank Smart Business Magazine Events are a division of Smart Business Network Inc PRESIDENT CEO Fred Koury MANAGING PARTNER CONVERO Lee Koury MANAGING PARTNER CONVERO Michael Marzec CONTROLLER Kathy Deutsch EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR Jill Brown ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE ACCOUNTS PAYABLE Marilyn Homolak Smart Business Magazines Akron Canton Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Florida Houston Los Angeles Northern California Orange County Philadelphia Pittsburgh St Louis Smart Business Pittsburgh is published monthly by Smart Business Network Inc 835 Sharon Drive Suite 200 Cleveland OH 44145 All material herein is property of Smart Business Network Inc and may not be reproduced Smart Business and Smart Business Network are registered trademarks of Smart Business Network Inc SMART BUSINESS JAYNE GEST Associate editor Smart Business Pittsburgh jgest@ sbnonline com 800 988 4726 ext 281 www sbnonline com OBrien likes to get information directly from the lower level employees who are dealing with customers He makes an effort to do this by trying to visit all of Peoples locations twice a year It takes time certainly but as he reminded me during our interview when you believe in something you will make it a priority If executives believe they need to listen and learn from their employees theyll spend time on that in both good times and bad Theyll consistently focus on it Sometimes consistency is undervalued When your employees know what to expect from you and from the organization and managers know what to expect from the employees stress and anxiety decreases I recently spoke to my great aunt who is more than 90 years old at a family reunion When I reminded her what I did for a living she told me she doesnt understand why people in business today are so stressed out and anxious I didnt have a good answer for her at the time but not enough consistent listening is certainly part of the problem One organization that has spent the past several years listening is The Women and Girls Foundation I hadnt previously heard about its Femisphere project which is onto its second phase Its an interesting concept you can read about in the feature story on page 18 Finally The Frick Pittsburgh the Uniquely Pittsburgh feature has another exciting special exhibit opening this month I missed the last one so I plan to get to this one The Frick is doing lots of great things to improve its visitor experience Id guess a few of those ideas came from some consistent listening on their part too