Identify problems
Hallman quotes Warren Buffett to explain the balance between your team and your goals.
Buffett said, “When a management team with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”
But Hallman says the right team can improve a mediocre strategy. So as he was building his team, he was bouncing ideas off old and new employees alike.
“I tend to use the team I have, both the new people and existing people, and ask a lot of questions and challenge them to help me figure out what we can do better,” he says. “It was not a one-person show by any means.”
Rely on your management team, but don’t forget about the front lines. Employees who interact with customers, for example, can share valuable perspectives about the strengths and weaknesses of the company.
That means you have to build up their trust immediately so they’ll share their thoughts. Make yourself approachable by being responsive.
“It’s very important that people know that you’re just open to talking about anything and you’ll listen to them,” Hallman says. “I’m very, very anal about returning [phone calls and] e-mails from anybody in our organization. I will return it [the] same day, even if it’s late at night.”
You also have to get out of your office. Visit each location and chat with employees face to face. You have to play detective, following up on issues that employees raise.
“You wouldn’t have known if you just looked at our financial statements whether or not we were collecting everything we should collect,” Hallman says of one of the problems he identified. “It was really being out in the field listening to people. Not just listening and letting it drop; hearing somebody raise a concern and then following up on it: ‘Well, what do you mean by that?’”
But that’s not to say financial data isn’t a good place to start your search.
“Look for where you see large problems — where the large dollars flow, both on the expense side and the revenue side — and where you see erosion of revenue,” he says.
Look also at previous goals the company set and failed to achieve as well as problems that are common in your industry or similar companies.
Several years ago, for example, InSight identified that it wanted to condense its footprint. But it took awhile to complete the transactions to strengthen InSight’s position in certain markets. So when Hallman stepped in, it became his priority.
“I looked for where the problems were,” he says. “Where I saw big problems, I figured there were big opportunities.”
