Mike Barth III has made a life out of listening and observing. Whether it was following in the footsteps of the two Mike Barths
that preceded him in the family’s electric business or listening to his 300 employees as president and COO of Barth Electric Co.
Inc., he’s always open to everyone’s side of the story. To Barth, that’s the only way you can really be sure that you have all the
information to move forward. That ability has been kind to him on more than one front as Barth Electric has pushed past $48
million in revenue, and, according to Barth, he’s one of the few guys on the planet who has a wife who admits he’s a good listener.
Smart Business spoke with Barth about keeping his ears open and coaching his staff.
Let your staff do the work while you coach.
I like the word coaching. It’s very rare that
I actually head a project.
I think that with them having the freedom
of heading the projects, there is a lot more
self-satisfaction for them. A little bit of personal pride equals a better job. Every one
of our projects has a final scorecard after
it’s done, from the biggest job we do down
to the smaller stuff, and I try to put notes
on those to share some thoughts with people.
That certainly helps with their pride and
self-satisfaction. Those are probably more
important than the compensation. It’s not a
quantifiable bonus, but it’s huge. If they feel
good about what they do, they work harder at it, and they do better at it. And they’ll
carry your message to the people around
them.
I like the flexibility and the freedom to let
people do their job, instead of telling them
how to do their job.
Listen to all three sides of the story. I listen,
and I pay very close attention to my surroundings. And, from that, it’s like the old
joke about the three-sided story. I let all
three people tell me their side of the story,
and I’ll listen to it and decide which one, or
one-and-a-half, reasons sound like the
thing to do, and that’s what we run with.
But I make sure everyone is in on it, and I
hear what they’re saying.
Then I try to follow up. If it’s something
they need to do their job — a new computer program or a new tool — I listen to it,
and if it makes sense, we’ll happily do it. If
it doesn’t make sense, I make it a point,
after I look at the situation, to go tell them
why.
Keep track of your employees for the future.
Positions don’t really come around every
day, so it takes some patience on their part
because we can only move people up as we
have a need for them.
Along with that, I’m painfully quiet about
not making promises to anybody. People
know they can come in here and talk, and
they can tell me their aspirations and I’ll listen, but I won’t make a promise if I don’t
know when or how I can come through on
that. Most people see that the opportunity
is here, and if they do the job, I will try to
give them a chance.
A lot of our people start off as electricians, and they do a very good job, and they
work their way up, and as they learn, they
will come and put a bug in my ear about
how they might be interested in a higher
position when one comes up. I keep a file
of names of people who have come to me
and some notes on those matters. Whether
it happens in six weeks or three years, I do
know their aspirations.
And if he’s an existing employee, I probably already know him pretty well — or at
least somebody on my key staff does. So I
kind of already have a preconceived notion, but I still listen and talk to them.
Don’t wait on the tough decision. The hardest thing about being a leader is making
tough decisions about people — especially
when it’s not working out. But I pace a little bit and just decide that I have to do it, so
I do it. When I get done with it, I know it’s
the best decision for the company and the
other employees here.
I’m generally pretty swift about the
actions. I put out a memo within the
department with a slight delay and then let
it go out through the rest of the company
from there.
It’s just easier on my mind that way. For
the company, it’s going to be disruptive one
way or another, but if you give somebody
two weeks notice or something, it would
be pretty hard for that person to care to do
their job. And it’s even more destructive to
give that person time to talk to others; that
can be detrimental.
Believe in your gut, but double-check. I
joke that I grab my posterior and let my gut
lead the way on big decisions — it’s usually out in front of me anyway. The way the
whole thing feels is very important to me.
But we also go through the pros and cons
list of why we want to pursue a venture.
Once a potential project comes in the
door, we’ll decide which team is going to
do it, and we’ll get that team leader, our
head of estimating and even our financial
guy, and we’ll gather them together and ask
why do we want to pursue this job. And
then we’ll knock around the pros and cons,
and we’ll go from there.
I can sit here and decide that we want to
go pursue that new factory, but if I get the
team in there, it makes them feel better,
and they will do a better job if they’re in on
the final decision.
HOW TO REACH: Barth Electric Co. Inc., (317) 924-6226 or
www.barthelectric.com