A Reputation That Drives Results

I’ll ask you once more: Who ultimately cares about your values? Our immediate team members most certainly do. And so do the clients we serve directly as well as the community we’re a part of. But everyone else who hears about us will too, and all of that will impact the results we achieve in one way or another.

I often reference the eighteen month period where I hired 225 people for a net headcount increase of less than thirty. The work performed in any given area within that facility hadn’t really changed, it was always fast-paced and physically demanding. If anything, the working conditions had gotten somewhat better over time as technology improved. And even though there was a ton of mandatory overtime, that had been the case since the company started operating locally in 1961.The most significant change I saw in the final few years I worked in that organization was the interaction between the local management team and the rest of the workforce. Over the course of a decade or so, many of the longest tenured management team members had retired, left the company for other opportunities, or had taken roles elsewhere within the organization. While most of the changes happened one-at-a-time, there were several key changes within just a few months about two years before I decided to move on. Interestingly enough, those key changes occurred just before the most significant increase in turnover I had seen in the nearly two decades with the company. I can’t say it was a coincidence either…

In chapter nine of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell defines “The Law of Magnetism” by saying “Who you attract is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.” One of the new management team members who started in that short period served as the engineering manager. He was new to the area and, arguably, looking to use any success he could achieve at that location as a stepping stone for more prestigious roles in that company or wherever else he needed to go. He wasted no time in alienating nearly everyone he interacted with on the shop floor, but he didn’t need anything from them since he already knew more than everyone who had been working there longer than he had been alive. Since he only dealt with the production employees in passing, that only had a limited impact on their results. With his direct team though, it was a different story. The most senior salaried engineers tolerated him, but only because most of them were so good in their roles; he was more of an annoyance to work around. The hourly team members under his thumb had far less leeway. These highly skilled maintenance mechanics and diemakers were indeed critical to keeping the operation running so dependability had always been a core value the engineering team as a whole rallied around. Under his iron fist though, any discretionary time away from work was eliminated - regardless of the reason it was needed. The majority of the hourly team members had perfect attendance most of the time, and one of them maintained that for 35 consecutive years. Much of that waned during his tenure; be it a foot of snow, an ice storm, or a family emergency, nothing was excused.

The strict enforcement wasn’t a big deal. The attendance policy hadn’t changed. What had changed was the example those team members saw him setting. On his best days, he showed up at 8am and left around 5pm, and that was only Monday through Friday. If there was so much as moderate rain, you could count on him arriving late or leaving early; possibly both. And there was little chance of catching him in the building between 11:30a and 1:30p; he wasn’t about to abide by the twenty minutes he expected his team to scarf their lunch down in… You can imagine how that variance between the values he modeled and what that highly skilled team had historically held dear spilled over into their feelings toward him! Think back to that Harvard Business Review article I’ve referenced here, throughout What’s KILLING Your Profitability? and a few times in Leading With A Clear Purpose… Do you think he earned anywhere close to that 57% increase in discretionary effort?

While that’s one specific example of how the values modeled (or in this case, not modeled) by someone in a leadership role impact results - and this example is limited to the hourly team members in his department at that time - the impact most definitely did not stop with his team. Nor was he the only new management team member walking a far different walk than what was expected by the rank and file who made up the rest of the workforce. This had an (almost) immediate impact on overall performance, and soon it spilled over into our ability to recruit quality candidates for the numerous open positions resulting from it. Eventually, those management changes, and how they did or did not exemplify the values that had been strongly held within that facility for decades, impacted what customers around the country experienced from that location. The change was substantial, but it didn’t happen overnight.

Perpetuating the Cycle

Prior to me starting at that manufacturing facility in early 1996, and for the first fifteen years I worked there, one of the largest and most reliable sources for identifying new candidates was through referrals from respected employees. As you can likely imagine, the referrals from the best employees dried up with several new managers on staff mirroring the behavior of the engineering manager I described before. The folks who had previously been some of the most trusted referral sources no longer wanted to bring anyone they cared about into that atmosphere and the folks who were still willing to refer others they knew weren’t necessarily ones with outstanding credibility. The Law of Magnetism was working double time! A management team made up primarily of individuals with no real ties to the area and unwilling to develop connections with the workforce, looking more at how they could position themselves for the next rung on their career ladder, was attracting far more candidates who were only interested in immediate compensation rather than the folks who wanted to be part of a historically reputable culture.

Through the time I left the organization in late 2014, order fill (the percentage of orders shipped to customers from each business unit) was one of the primary metrics discussed in daily production meetings. If that number fell below 95% in any business unit, it was considered an all-hands-on-deck emergency - and rightfully so! Any business that fails to meet customer demands all but joins their competitors’ marketing teams. In talking with friends still with that company several years later, I learned that it had become common for the order fill rate to be as low as 75% on any given day.

How that handful of new managers modeled their own core values, rather than aligning with the values the workforce had rallied around for years leading up to that, quickly impacted the discretionary effort their direct reports were willing to contribute to go above and beyond the call of duty; and in some cases, just to meet normal expectations. The lack of quality candidates being referred by our most trusted team members soon made staffing a much more challenging process. Over time, the reputation that management team became known for in the community resulted in that company being a place people applied when they couldn’t get a job anywhere else, despite it continuing to offer one of the best overall compensation packages in the area. 

The challenges in recruiting and drop in discretionary effort, leading to such low order fill rates, contributed to the loss of several large accounts and how the entire company was viewed on Wall Street. None of this occurred right away, but each piece impacted the other, perpetuating the cycle. How we, as leaders in our respective organizations, model the values that matter the most to us will gradually show up throughout our teams, soon after for the customers we serve, and eventually for everyone else who knows anything about us - regardless of the message we share in our commercials or on social media…

While I’ve detailed a company with a once strong reputation that spiraled downward when a group of new managers chose not to exemplify the longstanding values it had been built upon, the inverse has just as much potential for impacting results. Either way, be it through living out our core company values each day or by preaching one thing while doing another, our reputations will eventually reflect our behavior. As leaders, it’s critical that we’re intentional about walking the right walk, recognizing others who do the same, and addressing issues that don’t align with our values - and doing all of that consistently.

A Clear-Eyed Look

During a conversation Cindy and I had with Carly Fiorina several years ago, she emphasized the importance of taking a “clear-eyed look at our existing state” if we wanted to have any hope of achieving our desired future state - personally, professionally, and with the entire team we’re leading. The engineering manager I mentioned before seemed to believe he hung the moon, as did several of his peers who were even newer to that management team than he was. That kind of arrogance didn’t really set well with anyone he dealt with, especially the ones who reported to him. The engineering, maintenance, and tool & die shop had fewer employees than any of the production areas but the service those folks provided was absolutely imperative to maintaining workflow throughout the facility. While it didn’t align with the core values that served as a foundation for the reputation the company had built locally over the decades leading up to that point, his behavior (and the behavior of several others serving on the management team with him) made it very obvious to everyone around exactly what he did value: himself. The longer that went on, and the more people who were impacted by the behaviors of the managers like this, the more it spilled over into the results we were able to achieve, the quality of candidates we could attract, and what the company was now known for in the area; the cycle was definitely perpetuating!

If we really want our core values to serve as a solid foundation for what our team is built on, our clients and community rally around, and the reputation we’re known for far and wide, the clear-eyed look at our current state that Carly emphasized is something we need to do consistently. Regardless of how much any of us strive to model the values we hold up for everyone to see, there will inevitably be times when we miss the mark. The engineering manager I’ve referenced here certainly wasn’t the first person to join the local management team from outside the area. In fact, Terry Ward (who taught me the importance of choosing the harder right over the easier wrong) was in a very similar situation fifteen years prior. He rubbed some folks wrong at times too, but he was very intentional to do all he possibly could to build relationships, earn respect and buy-in, and he routinely sought input from folks with more or different experience. Terry worked to be very aware of how he exemplified the values of the organization he was a part of, and he was willing to take responsibility if he dropped the ball in some way.

Terry didn’t earn respect overnight and the fellow who filled the engineering manager role more than a decade later didn’t alienate everyone overnight. In each case, the relationships they had with their immediate teams as well as others they interacted with throughout that facility were cultivated over time - for good or for bad - and were a direct reflection of the values they each modeled. The reputations our entire organizations are known for grow stronger or crumble the same way. When, not if, we give someone even the perception of not being aligned with our values, it’s critical that we own it and do all we can to make it right. If one of our team members isn’t living up to our core values, we need to address this as well - with them and with anyone who may have been impacted. A few years ago, Mark Cole told me that he “trusts someone who makes mistakes but not someone who makes excuses.” We also need to be just as intentional about acknowledging when our team members go above and beyond to model our values; that’s what helps solidify a good reputation and recognized behavior gets repeated.

As we do all this, we’ll also need to be very clear in explaining exactly why; for our team members, our clients and local community, and for everyone our reputation reaches. We can’t count on anyone else to tell our story, or explain why our values are so important to us, the way we want it told so that’s what we’ll begin working through soon.