If it’s the day before a
three-day weekend, the
employees of Kelmoore Investment Co. Inc. will be
getting out of work early.
Chairman Ralph Kelmon
allows them to leave early to
show that he cares about
them and that he realizes
how important they are to
the company.
“If they are going someplace,
they can get a head start and
they can not be in the thick of
traffic,” Kelmon says.
Kelmon says his company,
a licensed general securities
broker/dealer with $250 million in assets under management, does everything it can
to accommodate a family-comes-first mentality.
Smart Business spoke
with Kelmon about how a
family atmosphere helps
Kelmoore succeed and how
he deals with bad decisions.
Q. How has the family
atmosphere benefited the
company?
We’re small, so it would be
nice if all work were linear.
There are times I need something extra, so they will all
pull together to make sure
we get projects that we
promised out on time.
They will stay extra and do
extra things because I’ve
made an investment in extra,
if you will. It all comes back.
Basically, because I’ve made
a heartfelt gesture toward
them, they make heartfelt
gestures toward me as well
as providing the work they
can. There is an aura of they
actually want to please me,
and they want to please the
company.
Q. How do you handle bad
decisions?
As soon as I think we’re
wrong, I open up discussions
of what we ought to do.
‘What do you think? If this
isn’t working, what do we
need to do?’ Get contributions from people. Basically,
tell them that the blame goes
to me.
Leadership means you take
the blame. Leadership also
means that when there
is credit, the credit
goes to everyone.
Human nature is that
people are afraid that
the risk/rewards, in
some businesses I have
been in, in the past, if
you were to blame, you
certainly would not be
anxious to contribute
again.
For us, I need my
whole 20-cylinder
engine pumping and
not being afraid that
when I walk down
there, I’m going to go,
‘Well, you missed this.’
If anyone missed it, I
missed it. If it is working well, then we were
very successful in doing
what we do.
Q. How do you communicate
your message?
I manage by walking
around. I do have an office,
but it is not the kind of executive office where I call people in. I actually go to each
one of their stations, talk to
them and ask them how they
are doing.
I will ask salespeople what
the messages on the phones
are. I will ask the performance people, ‘Are you having a good day; what do the
numbers look like?’
Basically, I try to lead by saying, ‘Is there anything I can
do to help you? Is there anything I can do to make your
job easier?’ If, in fact, the
best thing I can do is get out
of your way, then I will get
out of your way.
Q. Why is walking around
more productive than sitting
in your office?
They can see in my voice
and in my heart that I want
this to be a successful operation, and I want the success
not only for me but for them,
and that the big effort is a ‘we’ effort. We can make it
happen — I can’t make it
happen by myself — and
how important they are to
me.
They have direct access to
me, so whatever they’d like
to talk about, it’s not going
to be they have to wait for
their yearly review or whatever to talk. I look to see if
people have something bothering them. I try to keep as
few secrets as possible, so
they are used to dealing with
confidential information —
what I am trying to accomplish and what the goals are
and how we are doing on
them, I think they ought to
know that daily if I could do
that.
Q. Has being open been a
drawback at your company?
If you try to keep secrets,
there’s a human nature
around it where people want
to know stuff. Part of leading
people is to keep them as
productive as possible.
There is no productivity in
the currency known as gossip. There is no allowing
people to think that they
have some kind of edge on
information.
Do I keep what I pay people a secret? Yes, I do that.
That is a privacy deal
between the company and
them. Other than that, what
we are trying to accomplish
or what is facing us, most
good, intelligent employees
kind of know what is going
on.
The more you keep them in
the know, the more time they
can be productive and keep
the machine going.
HOW TO REACH: Kelmoore Investment Co. Inc., (877) 285-1026 or www.kelmoore.com