Build a team
Your company needs a compelling mission. But in order to keep that compelling mission alive and thriving, you need employees, particularly at the management level, who will embrace and promote the mission.
At PMSI, Auen wanted her staff to place a renewed emphasis on customer relationships and customer service. It was one of her top priorities after taking over PMSI’s top post, and she made an early decision to hire customer-service-minded leaders with complementary skill sets.
“Here at PMSI, our mission has really been trying to restore the luster to what was an industry pioneer, a company that had lost its way and had gone through a series of ownership structures and changes,” Auen says. “We really needed to go back to our roots, refocus on the customer then re-emerge in the marketplace. If you’re going to do that, you have to understand the mission and the kind of people you need to get there. You need people who are industry experts or functional leaders, whether it be in sales or operations or wherever your key holes are. You try to understand that, and you try to bring together the people who have the right brand of skill sets. Most of all, you need people who are energetic, tireless and enthusiastic and really focused on excellence.”
To find those types of people, you have to recruit them. Then you have to learn how to spot the right kind of candidate during the interview process.
Auen observes one hiring rule above all others: When it doubt, don’t make the hire.
It’s better to take a little longer and make the right hire than to hire someone simply to fill a hole, and then realize a short time later that you made a mistake.
“You need to be personally focused on recruiting,” Auen says. “Not just through interviews and sourcing people but making sure you do all the references yourself. I personally reference everyone I hire, both formally and informally through industry contacts. You also need to have discussions on both a formal and more informal basis with management candidates. Do it in both formal and informal settings so that you can get a feel for whether you can really work with the person.”
When evaluating executive-level job candidates, Auen meets with her executive team prior to the interviews. The meetings are aimed at ensuring that every member of the team is in lockstep with regard to the questions that need to be asked of the candidate, and the qualities that are needed for the position.
After the interviews, Auen and her team meet again to compare notes and impressions, developing a final consensus on whether to pursue a given candidate.
“You need to meet and come up with a series of traits and skill sets that everyone is looking for,” she says. “Nobody has everything. What you find is that you get a slate of candidates and one person might have a really strong sales orientation but they might not be a good manager. Another person might be a good manager but not as good in another area. That’s why you meet before and then meet again afterward, to really dig into personal references and find out whether someone is a good fit.”
Once a new hire is made, Auen and her staff put the new manager through what amounts to a weeklong saturation bombing on all things PMSI — company policies, culture, goals and objectives, and how the newly hired manager fits into the larger puzzle.
It can be a bit much to absorb at one time, so following the intense first week on the job, each new hire is given the several ensuing weeks to put what he or she has learned into practice. After a few weeks of hands-on experience, one of PMSI’s established executives checks in with the new person.
“You meet with them again once they’ve gotten their feet under them and you go through a new set of observations,” Auen says. “You tell them, ‘Here is what I see, here is where we need to go, here is where we’re going to focus.’ Then you let them go off on their own, build their team and you check back with them periodically.
“I like to talk with the new hires and with all of our people frequently. I want to hear what they’re thinking, give them an opportunity to understand all the various challenges facing the company.”
