Building A Team

For some unknown reason, throughout my 32-year corporate career in the supermarket industry and my 20-year hobby career in the transportation industry, I have always been tasked with building a team. Over that time, most would probably say, I had a knack for building successful teams. Upon reflection, this knack didn’t require any brilliance for brilliant I’m not. It wasn’t necessary to demonstrate ingenuity as thinking “outside the box” was not in order. In reality, it initially didn’t take any prior experience as I had none–no one ever does. The simple truth is in order to build a successful team you must be able to build genuinely sincere relationships and just demonstrate good ol’ common sense.

Over the years, I found those who failed at building successful teams were more enthralled with themselves being the “boss” instead of being a “mentor”. In fact, most “bosses” were more frightened of being dethroned and held their best performers back from progressing. Today, due to technology and failure to develop the human resource, companies are struggling like never before and it’s extremely disheartening. There are far too many supposed “leaders” who are in roles of responsibility that neither have the experience or expertise to ever be successful as they are merely attempting to survive by staying “below the radar”.

One of my great personal joys throughout my career was training and developing the human resource. Nothing was more pleasing than see your people attain heights in their career that they themselves thought was impossible to achieve. Personally, I never attempted to hold anyone back as it gave those “next in line” the opportunity to advance. For me, a key to building a successful team was to find those individuals who were more talented, more motivated, more aggressive, harder working, and brighter than me.

Companies today when interviewing those up for promotion seemingly ask each candidate the same questions as provided by HR. Once the question is asked, the interviewer will rudely lose eye contact and just begin taking notes while the interviewee is talking. This type of interviewing along with other types of testing is such an impersonal process. I believe we shoud be attempting to hire people, not robots.

My experience, for the most part, knowing the candidates I spoke with were already well-qualified was merely to have a congenial conversation with me focusing completely on them and never losing eye contact. From this conversation which usually also included lunch, I could normally determine if this was a person I wanted to be a part of my team by using plain ol’ common sense and having the necessary “gut” feeling in making my decision. At times, when I just wasn’t quite sure which way to go, I would consult La Bear who, of course, had that “mother’s intuition” which I found to be always correct. Unfortunately, there were a few times when I, mistakenly, went against La Bear’s “mother’s intuition” and paid the price for my indiscretion.

During this congenial conversation, my goal was to determine if the candidate had, from my perspective, these four qualities: 1) they were dependable, 2) they were passionate and possessed a tremendous work ethic, 3) they were in possession of high moral character and demonstrated immense integrity, and 4) they would be loyal.

While being a General Manager (GM) at Giant Food “back in the day”, I was proud when a Retail Trainee was selected to the Department Manager Training Program, I was proud when a Department Manager was promoted to a larger volume department or was selected to the Assistant Manager Training Program, and I was proud when an Assistant Manager was promoted to a larger volume store or was selected to the General Manager Training Program, but I was most proud when an hourly associate was either made full-time, promoted to second person in their department, or was accepted as a Retail Trainee. Certainly, a key to Giant’s success was that they promoted from within–never from the outside.

As a footnote, Giant Food was the greatest company I had ever been associated with as the training, development, and mentoring built the foundation for the rest of my career with those learned skills being continuously utilized and copied throughout my corporate life.

Bi-Lo was a different story as they had been a family run operation somewhat recently taken over by a large conglomerate who had invested heavily in upgrading the company and now wanted to see a return on their capital investment. In order to accomplish this goal, they brought folks, like me, in from the outside to create the changes needed to achieve the desired return. At times, I felt like Wyatt Earp trying to tame Tombstone and surviving the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We were able to create a Plan of Action (POA), demonstrated the necessary “sticktoitness” to the POA, and ultimately persevered.

The final move to Wal-Mart and their new Supercenter Division was exciting as we were building something from the ground up. The first prototype was nearly five acres under roof and was truly one-stop shopping with thirty-two departments. These Supercenters, in a rural setting, would draw customers from as far as seventy miles away where they averaged over seventy-five thousand weekly transactions servicing nearly two hundred and fifty thousand weekly customers. These stores would employ over four hundred associates and created a tremendous boon for the local economy. Many customers would visit a Supercenter and spend an entire day where they could get an oil change and lube or even new tires for their vehicle, a haircut or perm, visit an optometrist and purchase new glasses, do their banking, buy a ring or watch in the jewelry department, or new shoes in the shoe department. Of course, they could get all of their prescriptions filled, purchase top-line cosmetics, try clothes on before purchasing, do all of their grocery shopping, and even have lunch at the McDonald’s.

We initially began rolling out thirty Supercenters/year doing our best to control their growth and each store was staffed with the best management team and associates who were all shareholders, enjoyed competitive wages and benefits, trained and developed for moving up from within, and were empowered to be entrepreneurial. The Supercenter Division was very successful as many writers in the food industry wrote that the Wal-Mart Supercenter was the greatest retail innovation of the 20th Century. The ROI was tremendous as the stock soared. Wal-Mart already owned the “brand” of being low priced and as the Supercenter Division continued to grow, the company was quickly becoming a juggernaut.

The last twenty years of my career was spent at JL in the black car transportation business and was my fun job allowing me to continue to have both focus and purpose. It initially was a very small family-run business which over time grew to a point where it took on more of a corporate entity which introduced a sense of structure.

This was strictly a service retail business which relied on outstanding customer service which exceeded their customer’s service expectations each and every time. The “brand” at JL was the professional Driving Team made up mostly of retired former executives who wanted to get out of the house and stay out of their “wives’ hair”. The key to the company’s success was threefold: 1) avoid the dreaded service deviation, 2) eliminate single vehicle accidents, and 3) develop a “never say no” attitude in fulfilling your customer’s service needs. The Mission Statement and the Motto were identical and was simply “Driven to Serve”. We always strove for perfection, but excellence was accepted.

Our drivers were extremely professional as they looked professional, acted professional, and were professional providing an “Academy Award” performance at every opportunity where they not only “wowed” their customers, but created everlasting “memories”. In order to avoid the dreaded service deviation, the Driving Team needed to conform to just three rituals: 1) they had to complete a thorough preplanning the evening prior to their scheduled runs, 2) they needed to provide timely communication, and 3) they needed to exercise excellent time management skills. To eliminate single vehicle incidents the Driving Team needed to: 1) never lose focus or become complacent, 2) stay out of reverse, and 3) practice the “GOAL” (Get Out And Look) method not always trusting only your mirrors or cameras. In developing a “never say no” attitude you merely just always said “yes”.

We seldom saw one another with that being the nature of the business with trust being the glue that kept the team as one. Other than an annual Reinforced Training Seminar, experience was gained through frequency and repetition once the initial orientation and training was completed. Going forward it was up to each individual driver to improve by embracing self-development as they critically evaluated their performance after every completed run.

Each week at JL, we would create a “Weekly Message” which often repeated to tedium important aspects of our business which we were tasked to accomplish in order to be successful. They say if you “practice what you preach”, for at least twenty-eight days, it becomes a habit. The following are a few excerpts from those messages as an example:

Qualities of a Great Driver

Safety–As we all know, SAFETY is the #1 priority at JL. This is non-negotiable. The key certainly is being an excellent time manager where you always allow much more than enough time to get to where you need to be when you need to be there without “pushing” as nothing good can ever come from “pushing”. Always practice proper driving techniques to ensure the comfort of your passenger(s) in order to maintain lower heart rates and a relaxed passenger(s).

Punctuality–If we’re not at least 10 minutes early then we’re late and we can never, ever be late. Proper preparation and preplanning are essential to our always being early taking in consideration the time of day, weather, traffic, construction zones, and always having alternate routes prepared.

Personality–No doubt being an ultimate “people-pleaser” is essential as you “wow” your customers in creating “memories” in being chameleon-like utilizing this skill to take on the personality of who you’re professionally serving. It’s about being personally humble while your customers always remain the center of attention. Knowing when to chat and when to be quiet, understanding the importance of being discreet, and practicing your softer skills set where you’re able to anticipate your customer’s needs without any spoken words are also attributes of a “great” driver.

Discretion–As mentioned above, being discreet is critical creating value as your customer knows they can trust that was is said in the vehicle goes no further remembering that the rear compartment is their sanctuary. A “great” driver will never share who, what, or where as it’s crucial to keep business and personal conversations safe.

Presentation–Our customers expect us to be well presented. Being professionally dressed, paying close attention to personal grooming, and maintaining vehicle cleanliness are essential in exceeding our customer’s service expectations. This requires the utmost attention in wearing a sharp suit, having a crisp ironed shirt, conservative clean tie, polished shoes, neatly trimmed hair, clean shaven or manicured facial hair, proper fingernail care, and a pristine vehicle are essential to making that everlasting first impression in your presentation.

Inspire to Aspire

“Inspire”, by definition, is to create the urge or ability to positively accomplish an established goal.

Thank you for embracing what we attempt to embed in each of us by being so repetitive week after week in sending the same message over and over in our attempt to define the JL “standard” of excellence through the elimination of the dreaded service deviation and single vehicle incidents as we exceed our customer’s service expectations at every opportunity.

The services we provide are not inexpensive as we merely drive our customers safely between points A and B. But by being professional, dependable, safe, and discreet we build a relationship where our customers can count on us which creates value.

It’s our Driving Team who accomplishes this as they are the “face” of JL, thus, the “brand” of our company.

“Aspire”, by definition, is to have a strong desire to achieve a goal or standard.

Clearly, you see the difference between “inspire” and “aspire”, but you can also see the similarity.

It appears we may have finally achieved, after all the effort and repetition, the goal where we “inspire” to “aspire” and that’s extremely satisfying.

Who Likes to Practice??

Everyone enjoys playing the “game”, but truly no one likes to practice. Why is that?

Well, practice isn’t really fun. In fact, practice is hard work. More importantly, you must practice in a way that improves your performance rather than hinder it.

In our last Weekly Message, we spoke about a lack of focus and self-discipline giving specific examples through glimpses.

To maintain balance and create a consistency in performance one must practice discipline.

Discipline is the quality of being able to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules and standards.

So, the bottom line is that you must challenge yourself to practice in a disciplined manner where you are consistently doing what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, even when you don’t feel like doing it!!

That’s the difference between just being average or maintaining the JL “standard” where we strive for perfection, yet excellence is accepted.