Lucien had been the Distribution Manager and finally Plant Manager in Sugar Land. Headquarters had always been a bit buttoned-down and stuffy, he told me; however, the general attitude was TYHers were a family, and the company cared about each individual employee. People enjoyed working there. Business was great. There was a young, energetic, and optimistic quality to the sales force. “We had carved out a niche for ourselves,” he said. “It was high quality, and our labs operated closely in conjunction with the plant.
“Unfortunately, nothing stays the same,” he continued. “Our business was challenged by a more global economy, and the same forces that brought about changes in other places began to affect us. The health products market got very competitive, particularly in regard to price. A problematic cycle began. Forgetting our quality niche, there was a push by management to lower costs, which was soon followed by a determination that what cost the company the most was employees. Sound familiar? So we had our first ‘incentive to leave’ program. People looked around and said, ‘Is this my family? I don’t think so.’ Some left gladly; others were forced out. Prices were lowered. One who left was our President, Griff Lawrence. He was almost like a father to a whole lot of people, having been president for over fifteen years. The man who replaced him was Altis Dunlop.”
Lucien told me that Altis had been chief financial officer for years, and people felt that he was instrumental in forcing Lawrence out. Now he was being rewarded for it. That didn’t sit well. No one was saying that Griff Lawrence was perfect, but he was loved and respected. After the downsizing, people didn’t feel quite as committed, partly because of the change in management, but mostly because they felt the company had broken faith with them.
“Other companies have downsized and done very well afterwards,” I remember telling Lucien, thinking particularly of my company, Perry Winkle Enterprises.
“It’s how things are handled,” he responded. “You’ve got to help people through a massive change. Altis didn’t know that, and when others told him, he looked back at the only authority he respected—the books, and refused to listen.”
“So then what?” I had asked.
“So then, things returned to normal for a while, but productivity was not quite as high. Altis looked at the numbers the following quarter, and he brought his managers in. ‘This is not acceptable,’ he told us. ‘Find more ways to cut costs.’”
“Did he consider working ‘the other side of the street?’” I asked. “Maybe, expand sales, increase quality even more, introduce a new product or product line?”
“All those things were suggested. His response was, “Do them all and cut costs.”
“Is that why TYH was put on the market?” I wondered.
“It didn’t happen right away, but that was the inevitable outcome,” Lucien had told me. He wasn’t sure how that had come about, only that in a down cycle, being acquired by a company far away with a management no one knew anything about did not turn out to be a big motivator.
Beth arrived with the coffee, the kitchen having been put to rights, and the conversation moved to me, my family, and my feelings about leaving them for several months. I told them I was lonesome. I spoke of Paul and his work and about Brad, who had decided to “sit the world out” for several months. Beth was sympathetic, but Lucien seemed to feel that his time alone with Paul might possibly produce a more responsible attitude. I wasn’t so sure.
Looking at my watch, I saw it was after nine. Five o’clock would come no matter how much or how little sleep I got, so I thanked the Powells and returned to my small apartment across the hall. That night I dreamed of spider webs and white painted walls.
CHAPTER 3
Developing
Relationships
Have respect for every person and every issue directed at you. Do not dismiss any encounter as insignificant.
— John Heider The Tao of Leadership
The morning commute to downtown Houston depends on how early you are willing to get out of bed. From where I was staying, if I left my apartment between 6:15 and 6:30, it usually took twenty minutes. Any later, and I was looking at thirty to forty minutes, depending on the weather and also on how skillfully Houston drivers were avoiding each other that day. An accident, no matter which side of the freeway, could add another ten to twenty minutes, based on how serious it was and how quickly the wreckers arrived. So, I had plenty of time as I drove to work the next morning in my TYH pool car to plan my day.
My strategy wasn’t very complex. Since the marketers didn’t seem very forthcoming in a group, I decided to visit with each of them individually, starting with whoever was there. I also needed to talk with Judy. Perhaps she could explain the situation with Gayle that had precipitated those sidelong looks between Stu and Katy when her name was mentioned.
My first act, however, was to check my e-mail. I figured I’d hear from Elroy, and I was right.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
TYH may be formal, but they’ve met their match in you. One word of advice, the first and foremost job of a leader is to recruit. Good luck.
Elroy
All right, I thought. So Elroy knows I can’t lead without followers. Easier said than done, I sighed. He was right. It was time to start. As I picked up my empty coffee cup and headed for the door, I was intercepted by Judy. Charlie Rothstein was in the building and had stopped by her desk. I had an invitation to lunch, but Judy could page him if I couldn’t make it. Otherwise, he’d stop by and pick me up at 11:30. I told her I’d be ready and asked her if she had seen Alicia. She pointed toward the coffee room. “She’s either in there or squirreled behind her door,” Judy replied. “It’s 4-C, right across from the coffee room.”
“Before I go,” I asked her, “have you heard anything from Gayle? How is she?”
“I really don’t know, but I’ll call her,” answered Judy. “By the time you get back, I should know something.”
I headed straight for the coffee room. Moments later I was standing in the doorway of Alicia’s office. I wasn’t sure if it was tiny or appeared smaller than it was because of the massive metal desk that seemed to fill the room. On top of the desk were numerous stacks of paper piled high and neatly arranged. A computer sat on a small table perpendicular to the desk. Behind the desk was a credenza heaped high with notebooks. I sat down in the straight-backed visitor’s chair to the right of the desk after removing several three-ring binders from it. Alicia was talking on the phone, which was perched on her shoulder. Occasionally she asked a question, keying in the response on her computer. Up until this point, she hadn’t acknowledged my presence in any way. I decided to wait.
The door opened wider and Tom Gaines rushed in, dropped some papers into the box marked “in,” which rested on the left-hand corner of her desk, waved to Alicia, nodded to me and was gone before I had a chance to speak. About that time, Alicia completed her call and turned to me with a weak smile.
“Can I get you some coffee or a soda?” I asked. Looking at me quizzically, Alicia produced a large blue mug hidden behind one stack. “I thought we might get better acquainted,” I said, more heartily than I felt. The phone rang, and Alicia looked at it and back at me like a trapped rabbit. “Do you have call notes?” I asked. She nodded. “Maybe we could talk in the small conference room across from my office.” She hesitated and then picking up her cup walked toward the door. Up until now, she hadn’t said a word. I could tell this discussion wasn’t going to be easy.
Building Trust
Many years before, I had learned a three-step strategy that helps to “prime the pump” of conversation. First, you look for common ground, something you share with the other person, no matter how small. Second, you begin building trust by revealing something about yourself. Finally, you ask open-ended, non-loaded questions to increase the other person’s comfort level. On the way to the conference room, I decided I’d better use this process, or Alicia and I would probably have the shortest disc
ussion on record. This is how the process works:
Find Common Ground: It may be the weather, the traffic or something in the morning news—on any given day, we share dozens of experiences and interests with others. [If you don’t believe me, try this experiment. When you meet someone new, see if you can, in one minute, find something you have in common other than that you are in the same meeting or work for the same company. I have experimented with it many times and so far have never failed to discover something. In fact, I’m amazed at how many people share my dislike for raisins.]
Tell your story first: So often we make the mistake of asking the other person a question, and putting him on the spot. “How did you like the meeting this morning? Did you stay until it ended?” This is more an interrogation than a “trust” builder. No wonder the other person feels exposed and vulnerable. He wonders why you are asking. How should he answer? Is this a test? To avoid this reaction, always start with your own story, making sure it isn’t something that puts you in a highly favorable light. Maybe when you attended the meeting in the morning, you slipped out a few minutes early. “I can never stay awake in meetings anyway,” you tell him. By disclosing something personal about yourself, you take the initial step toward creating trust.
Ask broad, open-ended questions that give people the latitude and permission to speak honestly and without risk. “What’s going on in your job (school, life)?” “How are things with you?” “What’s new?” “What’s on your mind?” Just the reverse are close-ended questions, which can be answered by a single word, a phrase or sometimes just a nod of the head. They are conversation stoppers. They generally begin with phrases like “do you” or “have you ever” or questions that start with “when” “where” and “who.” While there’s nothing basically wrong with such questions, they make us seem more like inquisitors than mentors.
With these three steps in mind, I sat down at the small table facing Alicia. She seemed so nervous, absentmindedly tapping on the table, and not speaking a word that I feared she might have misinterpreted the purpose of our meeting. There were no hidden agendas I told her. I was just hoping to get better acquainted. She appeared relieved. I talked about my commute to work that morning, complaining about the Houston traffic, and that bit of small talk seemed to open the floodgates. Alicia told me she took the Park and Ride, a bus service for downtown commuters that originates from key parking lots in the suburbs. She said she got up at 4:30 every morning to make her husband’s lunch and take her two boys Roberto, eleven, and Tomasito, nine, to her sister Gina’s house. The school bus returned them to her sister’s home. Generally, her husband Tomás picked them up in the evening. She said he was a construction superintendent. I told her I had one son, Brad. My husband Paul was also in construction. We were now on common ground.
Before I asked about her work, I wanted to be as open with her as I could about my situation. This is what I like to do when working with someone new. I call it playing fair. Besides, if I were to be of any help, Alicia would have to trust me. While I couldn’t hope that would happen the first day, I needed to get things started. So, first I told her about my being concerned about leaving my son Brad, who was “hanging out” at home, waiting for a flash of insight or as Paul put it, a “kick in the pants.” She laughed. Then we talked about why I was here. I told her I’d known Elroy Grant for a number of years, and he asked me to come to TYH on a temporary basis. I wanted Alicia to know that I didn’t have any idea at this point the way I might make myself most useful, but I was open to suggestions. Then I asked her to tell me about what she did or anything else she wanted to bring up.
Alicia: The Challenge of Overwork
“I work hard,” she said. “You saw all the stacks.” Then she talked about staying until almost six each day. “There’s so much to do,” she told me. I found Alicia typical of the hard-working women I have known. No matter how many hours she worked, she told me, she never caught up. In some ways, she reminded me of Sisyphus, a mythical Greek who offended the gods. It was his punishment to continuously push a giant rock uphill. When he got the rock to the top of the hill, it would roll down the embankment, and Sisyphus was condemned to start pushing it uphill once again.
Alicia told me she processed all the orders and dealt with all customer complaints. The rock she was pushing uphill was a continuous flow of paper work, scheduling, and company reports along with the telephone calls from customers that inevitably went to her desk because “she was the only one who had all the pieces of the puzzle.”
Alicia was an encyclopedia of information about TYH. She talked at length about their products, the vitamin line, the herbs, the tonics and powders that helped energize, slenderize, revitalize and more. She knew TYH’s wholesale customers on a first name basis. She understood the ins and outs of their accounting organizations. Some of the customers were notoriously slow pays, but she would make “courtesy” phone calls to get the paper work and money flowing.
With pride, she described how she kept a record of birthdays, children and other key information on each person she dealt with. She shared this information with the marketers and they used it to keep in touch with customers. “I don’t think anyone has ever thanked me for doing it,” she added. “Oh, maybe Tom Gaines has. He is such a nice man.”
She told me all of this, and when she was done, she looked at her watch and said she needed to get back to work. I thanked her for sharing so much with me, and she went back to her office, to the stacks of paper waiting to be processed and the multiple calls waiting to be returned.
Alicia left me with a lot to think about. I wanted to ask about her relationships with the marketers. I wondered why she hadn’t accepted the sales job and what she really wanted. I wanted to know if the massive paperwork had been thrust on her, or if she enjoyed the feeling of being an expert and having others come to her for help. Alicia was a complex person, but I hoped to find a way to relieve her of the rock. It was too soon to open up such potentially sensitive areas, but as we ended our conversation, these questions were on my mind. I wondered how well Charlie knew Alicia and what he could tell me about her at lunch that might give me the start I needed.
Rachel, I’d love to have heard your assessments of us when you first got together with the sugar man. He’s a great guy, isn’t he! He was with us last night at Oscar’s and said to tell you hello.
Hello, Charlie.
He came to the office at 11:30 as promised, asked me if I liked Chinese food and when I said yes, responded, “Good. Let’s get out of here.” I liked Charlie right from the start, and I could understand why they called him the sugar man. He was fun to be with. He was a short, stocky, round-faced man, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. In spite of his thinning hair, there was something youthful about him. In fact, he seemed like a forty-year-old sprite, not because of his appearance but rather because his eyes twinkled impishly as he spoke.
I was grateful to him because he seemed to sense my need for a friend at TYH, and he had decided to fill that role. “I’m glad they sent you,” he told me. Charlie and Ben Turner had become friends, and he frankly confessed that he had called Ben when he learned I was coming. Ben was still recuperating from his heart attack but was getting along well enough to be one of Charlie’s poker buddies. “Ben said some good things about you, Rachel,” he said. “Those marketers need someone who has more to offer than marching orders from PWE.”
Without revealing the whole story, I told Charlie that Elroy wanted to understand what was happening. TYH was part of his division, and he had made up his mind things had to change for the better, and soon. I frankly confessed I was feeling my way around. Charlie smiled. “I’ve never had much respect for someone who could parachute in and then offer simplistic solutions to complex problems,” he said. “See I like you already, Rachel.” When he added, “How can I help?” I could have hugged him.
I told him I met the Powells, and he smiled. “Beth’s a sweetheart. Lucien’s a good man and he can tell you a lot about
TYH.”
“I know,” I responded. “I’m here for a short time, but I don’t want to sit around and watch the place go up in smoke. Before I muck around and make things messier, I’d like to understand what’s been happening.”
Charlie’s Story: Economic Problems of TYH
“In order to figure out what’s going on, you need to understand some things about our business. About seven years ago TYH had a rapid expansion program. We went from only one retail store associated with the factory in Sugar Land, to five additional stores: three in Houston, one in Austin, and one in San Antonio. We had plans to enter the Dallas market as well. The wholesale business was focused primarily in three states: Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, but aggressive plans were in the mill to move into Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.
“You’d have to have been here to appreciate the attitude that people had. TYH was a very entrepreneurial place. Griff Lawrence, our President, had a low key management style. There were liberal bonuses and plenty of rewards for high productivity. Gradually, things began to get more competitive in the marketplace, and our Board of Directors heard predictions of doom and gloom from the financial end of the business. Profits were down for the quarter. Building plans for Dallas were underway. There was pressure on Griff to get rid of the retail business and lay off some people. He refused, maintaining things would get better if we didn’t overreact and just followed our plan; however, when they didn’t improve the next quarter, the Board voted. Griff didn’t have the support to maintain his leadership, so they put him on the Board.
“Then, they appointed as president the man who had warned them of disaster, Altis Dunlop, who was our Controller. Altis isn’t a bad person. He thought he had the right answer, but unfortunately, he’s more of a bookkeeper than a visionary. His first act was to insist that we lower costs to become more competitive. So we franchised the stores in San Antonio and Austin and began laying off people. That’s when Griff retired. The speed with which these changes were made had a chilling effect. Costs were dropping and so was morale, but little attention was paid to that.
The Art of Mentoring Page 4