Douglas Clark runs his business like he’s driving a race car. The president and CEO of AmeriQuest Transportation and Logistics Resources
says that as the head of a company, you can’t just look 20 feet in front of you or you’ll end up in a crumpled heap. Instead, you should
be looking way down the track so you’re ready for whatever happens next. Having the vision to stay ahead of technology in the
transportation industry is a major advantage for Clark, who has grown AmeriQuest — which offers fleet management services — from
2002 revenue of $42 million to 2006 revenue of $205 million. Smart Business spoke with Clark about how he keeps his team moving full
speed ahead and eliminates the fear factor for his employees.
Assess your employees carefully and continually. Don’t make a snap decision, particularly
when it comes to personnel and rearranging
the seats on the bus.
We’ve had fantastic growth over the past
five years, and as you’re growing as a company, you’re continually assessing the people
— what they’re doing today, whether they’ll
be able to do what they’re doing today next
year because of the growth of the company.
And if you have a fast-growing company,
the roles change. New talent has to be
brought in. The current talent you have
might have to be doing something different
in the future.
Find the true cause of the problem. The biggest
pitfall a CEO can have is what you see on
Wall Street: the knee-jerk reaction.
Say we didn’t hit our numbers; therefore,
the stock drops 10 percent. Well, if somebody
didn’t hit their plan, you’ve really got to
understand the reasons why. Really step
back and double-check and reassess — particularly in the personnel side of the business.
What are the real reasons it’s not happening? Is it because the company hasn’t provided the resources or created a situation where
it’s almost impossible to attain results?
Don’t lay blame on a scapegoat. You’ve got to
try to avoid any kind of knee-jerk reaction to
any kind of business situation, whether it’s a
crisis or just a person not meeting the plan.
Really try to understand why that is happening. Don’t just say, ‘It’s X person’s fault,’ by
laying the blame on a scapegoat.
Really understand the business relationship
to that shortfall or crisis. Dig deep to make
sure you understand what is really happening.
That means you have to go to different
sources and do a little more homework than
you would typically do if you really want to
understand the true meaning of what’s taking place and what your next step should be.
Stick to your guns. The transportation industry is a late adopter to technology. We are
embarking on the technology to make all of
our customers paperless in their payable
transactions.
The challenge is, even with my board and
my customers, if you’re convinced that this
is really good for your constituencies and
stakeholders, but they may not get it just yet
— if you’re convinced that this is something
worthwhile and of value to your stakeholders — you have to do it. You can’t cave in
under criticism or cave in under the ability to
foster change.
One of the biggest challenges is creating
change in an industry that is full of late
adopters. You’ve got to move them up
because, in order to survive, the embracing
of technology is key.
Therefore, if you’ve done your homework
and you’re convinced you’re right, you have to
keep hammering to get everybody on board.
Don’t give up on change. Not everybody is
going to follow you. You can’t develop a business model that’s going to work for all people.
We’ve all got this ego where we say, ‘Man, I
want everybody to be happy about what
we’re doing.’ Impossible. You’ve got to find
who you’re going to impact, bring the early
adopters on, and the rest will follow.
I know I’m talking empirically, but the point
is this: Don’t give up. Keep pushing your initiatives, and if it’s right, the big dogs will
accept it and move forward, and the rest will
follow. It’s really important to not give up.
Do your hiring homework. You’ll find there are
three types of people you are trying to hire or find. After you’ve found them, you try to monitor them to see if they are doing the job you
thought they could do.
There are the very good people; you can
determine their capabilities because they do
all the things in the culture that you’re trying
to embed.
Then you have the person who is not-so-good, who doesn’t fit the culture. Those are
easily detectable, too.
The ones who are challenging are those
who say all the right things in front of you.
You think you’re making progress, and you
find out your head has been detached from
your body when you go to turn it because
they haven’t executed it as they indicated.
We go through a fair amount of interviews
[in the hiring process] to avoid that. I try to
limit my conversation to 10 to 20 percent of
the conversation and ask questions that
determine whether the person can do and
will do the job we’re asking them to do.
We do use personality testing to round out
the process.
Let employees make mistakes. We always talk
about collaboration transparency and giving employees the ability to run this company under the guise of authority and
responsibility.
Everybody knows they have that ability, but
they also know they have the ability to do a
gut check, to talk to me about a critical decision. We’ve eliminated the fear factor. That’s
what really impedes it.
You can talk about authority and responsibility, but if you’ve made a decision and it
turns out wrong, and you get criticized or you
get penalized, that just embeds a fear factor
to go forward. I try to communicate with our
team that we’re going to make mistakes. The
issue is really to recognize the mistakes and
move on. Correct it and move on.
Don’t try to cover it up; don’t do the things that
paralyze a lot of other companies. They have
the fear of, ‘Oh, I made a mistake.’ Well, I make
mistakes every day. Let’s just get on with it.
Constant communication is how we embed
that. It’s a cultural thing that you live every day.
HOW TO REACH: AmeriQuest Transportation and Logistics
Resources, (856) 773-0600 or www.ameriquestcorp.com