Show employees you trust them. It’s by letting them lead their
area. You really give them a
long leash to lead in the area
that they lead in.
Then you meet with them,
often, and talk to them
about what’s going on in
their department and help
them. You more help them
than discipline. But you
have to believe you have the
right people in those places.
If you don’t, you’re going to
have a lot of sleepless
nights.
Look beyond the resume. You are
looking for certain things
backgroundwise, from education to experience. But
even more than that, it’s just
the fit. It’s just the fit with
your style.
You can hire the smartest
person in the world, but if
they don’t fit with your style,
you can’t work with them.
You’re not excited to be
around them, you’re just not
going to be productive. So I
look for people that I get
along with well but also
meet those other qualifications because you can’t make
money in this industry without working hard and sticking to your plan.
You need to be around people that you like, that you
enjoy being around and then
you have to trust them to do
what they do.
I’m not an operations guy,
so I hire people to do that,
and I trust that they know a
lot more about it than I do
and just hold them to the
numbers. As long as you’re
willing to do that — let the
experts do what the experts
do — I think you’ll be successful.
Keep an eye on progress when delegating. You concentrate on
the details. I manage pretty
strictly, so as soon as the
details are getting lost, then
you have to jump back in
and see what is going on.
Some of the things that we
do here that might be different from other companies is,
at least monthly, I’ll meet
with departments about the
department heads, and just
(say), ‘Hey, do you have any
questions about what is
going on? Do you have any
questions about the directions of the company?’
The things that they may be
fearful of saying to their
direct report, oftentimes,
they’ll come out and say, ‘I
do’ … and then you can
either see if the message is
coming down the right way
and everybody’s on schedule
or if it’s not.
More times than not, it’s
not the manager; it’s the
company’s fault. It’s the
company’s fault for not educating and grooming that
person the right way. So,
you have to go back and
train.
HOW TO REACH: Avantair Inc., (727) 539-0071 or www.avantair.com
