The People Principles

Leadership in the 21st CenturyBy Mark J. Balzer

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Mark J. Balzer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-5908-7

Contents

Foreword...........................................viiIntroduction.......................................ixChapter One The Dilemma............................1Chapter Two The Challenge..........................8Chapter Three The Plan.............................12Chapter Four M&Ms..................................23Chapter Five The Wizard of Oz......................56Chapter Six Fishing Lures..........................80Chapter Seven Rosetta Stone........................98Chapter Eight Green Beans..........................121Chapter Nine Milk Bones............................136Chapter Ten Twenty Dollar Bill.....................156Chapter Eleven (S+A = B) = O.......................183Pay it forward Conclusion..........................195Afterward..........................................204Acknowledgements...................................205

Chapter One

The Dilemma

Steve Gugino, the General Manager of Dunkirk Distribution Company, was nervously pacing in his office. He was waiting for Bill Crocoll to arrive for a meeting to discuss the development plan for a new college hire at the facility. Bill, the facility's HR manager had been out of the office for two months working on a troubled start-up in Ontario, California. Steve fidgeted with a stack of papers on his desk, feeling his anxiety increase with each passing minute. Steve was not known in the company for his patience.

Staring out of his window to the parking lot of the building, Steve replayed a recent conversation with his manager in his mind. The development of Randy Sysol was critical to both of their careers. Steve couldn't help but think of all he had contributed to the business throughout his career - and now his career was being jeopardized by a twenty-two-year-old college hire. He was having a difficult time justifying that to himself. Were all his past accomplishments for nothing? Why didn't they factor into the equation? He knew college recruiting was important to the business, but this situation took the significance of the program to a whole new level. He could not believe how important the development of Randy was to company, let alone him. Randy's just one of fifty students the company's recruited recently, Steve kept thinking. Misplaced priorities.

His manager had explained in no uncertain terms that Randy had to be successful in his role, and Steve was going to be held accountable for ensuring that outcome. The phrase "Failure is not an option" echoed in his head. He couldn't help but feel sorry for himself. With all the demands of the business, and seasonal volume spike about to hit, the last thing he needed was the pressure and accountability of developing some hot shot college graduate.

Randy was a recent college hire assigned to Steve's building, who had been personally interviewed by Sean Murphy, the president of the company. Randy, a 3.9 GPA student from Iowa State University with a Bachelor's degree in distribution and logistics, was considered the cream of the crop among the company's recent spring college recruits. The president considered him a "can't miss" candidate, the type of person the company needed to grow the business and increase its competitive edge in the marketplace. It was rumored that Murphy saw a lot of himself in Randy: a smart, aggressive, small town boy looking to do well in the big city. Give me a break; if Randy's so important to the business, he should report directly to Murphy, Steve thought to himself.

Dunkirk Distribution was part of Globalistics, a world leader in third party distribution. Recruiting top college talent was part of the company's long-term strategic goals in supporting the anticipated growth of the business. Murphy felt college recruiting was the lifeblood of the organization and would ensure a competitive advantage over other third-party distribution companies in the future. The president had expressed concerns about the increased turnover of recent college hires, and placed the blame for it on leaders not making the development of new college hires a high enough priority. Murphy had gotten engaged at all levels of the college recruiting program, making it a top business initiative for all executives at Globalistics. He was known in the company as a brilliant strategist who rose quickly through the ranks, and he was well-respected at all levels of the organization. He was also known for his tenacity in meeting financial results for the shareholders; when he put his attention to an issue, it was a given that success would follow. Everyone in the company knew Murphy did not like to be disappointed. The man hated losing more than he enjoyed winning. Murphy was determined that college recruiting would be successful - or else.

The company's goal was to recruit one hundred college students per year into entry-level leadership positions. Meeting this target was part of every executive's bonus plan, and this trickled down to the performance objectives for directors and general managers as well. The company had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the program; both the placement and the development of each college hire had high visibility for the senior leadership team. If a college student was placed in your facility, as the general manager of the site, you were accountable for their success. Randy's placement had even higher visibility than most because Murphy had personally handpicked Dunkirk Distribution as the location for Randy's entry into the organization. Murphy had started his career with Globalistics at Dunkirk himself, though Dunkirk Distribution had changed dramatically since Murphy worked there. The size of the building had increased from 150,000 thousand square feet to 1.2 million square feet, and the volume had increased by five times.

Why me? Steve thought.

He turned away from the window, returned to his desk, and pulled out his notes regarding Randy Sysol and his past two months at Dunkirk. Steve remembered sensing a bit of arrogance in Randy during their initial interactions, but chalked it up to Randy trying to impress his new boss. He knew Randy was very intelligent, but wondered if he would be able to relate to his employees. Steve knew that leadership started and ended with people, and he wasn't sure Randy placed a premium on people. He was a nice young man, and Steve coached him on the importance of employee relations, emphasizing that being successful in business was not just about having the technical skills to complete a task, but even more importantly, about being able to develop relationships with the people that worked for him. Steve had his doubts, though, about whether Randy had really grasped that concept. Is the phrase "People matter" so hard to understand? Steve wondered. Early reports of Randy's progress as a leader were not encouraging. He was seen as standoffish and as a bit of a task master by his team.

Randy had started at the facility two months ago, and these first months had been less than stellar. His behavior towards the hourly associates on his team had caused major disruptions in the building - and his team was comprised of some of the most senior and valuable people on the floor. Most of Randy's team had more than fifteen years of experience with the company and had made significant contributions to the success of the facility over the years. Steve had personally supervised many of the people on Randy's team when he started at the facility as an operations manager eight years earlier. He found them to be hard-working people, and reasonable on most issues. Steve had specifically assigned Randy to lead this team because he knew them: this team could make any leader successful. Steve had thought that assigning him that team was a fail-proof solution: all he had to do was open the doors and stay out of their way. Steve was surprised and disappointed when he learned that these people were unhappy within the first month of having Randy as a supervisor. You really had to work hard to make these people unhappy. He thought, I should have let Randy's manager write him up and get him out of the building, but he knew that would have been political suicide. Yet he also knew that he would have fired any other leader who behaved like Randy.

Steve looked at his watch, still thinking hard. The complaints from Randy's team ranged from his arrogance and disrespect towards them to his total disregard for their experience and knowledge, which had helped to make the facility the top producer in the company's supply chain network of more than three hundred locations. Randy's mantra of "that's old-school thinking" irritated the entire team, enough that many of them had expressed their frustration and anger to Steve. These associates were people whom Steve valued and respected, and weren't known as complainers. They had worked under many different supervisors over the years and had actually helped other supervisors to understand the business and advance their careers. This team made every other supervisor look like a top performer in the building – except for Murphy's hot-shot from Iowa State. These types of issues were unusual at Dunkirk Distribution. Most of the time, the leadership and hourly employees worked together very well and without the all-too-common "us versus them" mentality that many businesses had to deal with.

Steve knew Randy was digging a hole and that if it got much bigger, he would not be able to get out. Randy's acclimation to the company was not going well, and immediate action was required. He knew the time commitment required to turn Randy around was great, and the coming seasonal volume spike would not allow him sufficient time to coach Randy.

Steve also knew the person that could help Randy the most was Bill, who was returning today from the Dutton Enterprise start-up. As far as Steve was concerned, Bill couldn't get to his office soon enough. The issue needed to be addressed immediately. Steve glanced at his watch again and muttered out loud, "Bill, where are you?"

Steve was not a big fan of HR in general. He felt most HR professionals were prima donnas: a bunch of administrators with little knowledge of the business, they simply hid behind the policy manual. People that can, do, and people that can't, work in HR. Maybe it was an unfair appraisal of the HR profession, but Steve viewed HR as overhead cost, adding nothing to the bottom line, and creators of a never ending flow of meaningless forms with no real impact on the business.

But he did not view Bill in this way. Bill was his type of HR person. He was all about making the business better, not about pushing an HR agenda. Bill could explain Labor Management Standards as well as he could explain the Family Medical Leave Act. He spoke the language of operations and knew the business as well as most operations people. He wasn't a "desk jockey" like other HR people; he spent the majority of his time on the floor. He understood the business, the numbers, KPI's, challenges; heck, he was even forklift certified. Bill was an extraordinary human resources professional in Steve's eyes and was known throughout the business as the ultimate "people person."

Bill had started at Globalistics right out of college as a floor operations supervisor, but his ability to relate with people at all levels of the organization caught the eye of Jerry Phelps, the Senior Vice President of human resources at the time. After Bill had spent five years as a supervisor, Jerry finally persuaded him to join the human resources team. Bill never bought into the HR-by-the-book mentality; he was a business leader working in the HR field. His philosophy was simple: know the business, speak operation's language, not "HR talk," partner with your customers, and contribute to the bottom line. He wasn't happy with a seat at the table; he wanted a voice at the table, and he earned one. He believed in eliminating unnecessary HR for HR sake and he knew the secret language operators understood: drive efficiencies into the business and waste out of it. If HR could eliminate work from an operator's plate or remove costs from the operations, operators would listen. He wasn't always well-received by his peers in HR, but the folks in operations genuinely liked and respected him.

Steve took a sip of his coffee and swiveled his chair to look out the window. His thoughts drifted back and forth between his current dilemma and his impatience for Bill's arrival. He thought about calling him, but did not want to come across as desperate. Gazing intently out of the window as if he might find some answers out there, he started thinking again about Bill's strengths. In addition to his knowledge of the business, Bill had the ability to make every person he came into contact with feel important, and always left them smiling. He never forgot his roots. He was raised in a lower middle class family, and all the success he enjoyed during his career never changed his core values. The hourly employees at Dunkirk Distribution loved him. They knew Bill would always listen to their concerns. He wouldn't always agree with them, but people always felt they had received a fair shake. He knew every employee by name, and something personal about each of them. Steve couldn't remember ever hearing any negative feedback on Bill.

Bill had a Master's degree in organizational behavior from Mercyhurst University, but people often remarked that he also had a PhD in people from the school of life. He was a great coach and developer of people. Many leaders at Globalistics could attribute a part of their success to Bill's mentoring and training. Bill had passed on many opportunities to move up in the company; he was extremely family-oriented and was not willing to relocate his family to Frederick, Maryland, where the corporate office was located. He enjoyed the small town feeling of Dunkirk. Besides, Bill wasn't in to titles. "People follow people, not titles" was his motto. His worth as a person was not determined by his level in the organization, but by the hearts he touched.

A loud knock on his door made him jump, almost spilling his coffee, and a voice bellowed, "What is so important that a man can't even have a cup of coffee without his boss starting to leave him frantic voicemails? I leave this place for a few months, and the whole thing falls apart."

Steve whirled his chair around to see Bill Crocoll grinning in his office doorway. Half smiling, but still with a sense of urgency, Steve replied, "You scared me to death. Hope you finished your work in Ontario, because you are definitely not going back out there. I need you here. I never should have volunteered you to help out with that start-up. Grab a cup of coffee if you like and then please have a seat with me over here." He pointed toward the round table at the back of his office.

Chapter Two

The Challenge

Bill had worked with Steve for eight years, and he had rarely seen Steve so tense. Steve was usually very laid-back and liked to spend a little quality personal time with people before getting to the business discussion. He was impatient but never rude, but his tone today was on the verge of rudeness. Bill knew by the look on Steve's face and tone of his voice that the issue was serious.

As Bill took a seat at the table, Steve wasted no time on small talk. "Sorry for the voicemail, but I really need your help with our new college hire. A young man named Randy Sysol. He hasn't gotten off to a great start." Steve continued to outline the entire situation in detail. Everything from Murphy's handpicking Randy for the site, to his referring to everyone and everything as "old school," to the complaints from the people on the floor. "So as you can see we have quite a challenge in front of us," Steve finished. Bill could gauge the severity of the issue in Steve's strained voice and the look on his face.

Bill took a sip of his coffee and then just held it in his hands, not responding right away. He quietly digested Steve's concerns for a moment, thinking through the situation. He could sense that Steve was becoming impatient for his response, but he wanted to provide the best possible counsel to Steve. He knew Steve was looking for a lifeline, and his response needed to give him hope.

He sat up in his chair, leaned forward to set his cup down and rested His elbows on the table, and then spoke in a very calm but direct voice. "Steve, I agree the situation needs to be addressed immediately, but we need to be careful as we design a development plan for Randy. If we move too fast, without a detailed idea of where we're going, we could actually make the situation worse. The most important aspect of the plan will be Randy's mentor, so the first thing we need to do is review the leadership team and pick the best person for Randy's personality and needs." Bill could see his words were hitting their mark as the muscles in Steve's face began to relax. The tension in the room seemed to dissipate slightly.

"I've already evaluated the team," Steve told him. "I think I've settled on the best person to mentor Randy." Bill nodded expectantly. "He's sitting right in front of me."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The People Principlesby Mark J. Balzer Copyright © 2011 by Mark J. Balzer. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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