John D. Frager does not expect his employees to die in the line of duty at Grubb & Ellis|BRE Commercial, nor does he plan to give up his
life in pursuit of the company’s goals. But the values of servant leadership espoused in the 2003 film “The Last Samurai” do relate to
success in the business world, says the company’s president and CEO. By always keeping his eye on the customers and setting goals
that help his company serve them better, Frager has led the 200-employee commercial real estate firm to $38 million in 2006 revenue.
Smart Business spoke with Frager about constantly raising the bar of expectations and why you can’t do it all yourself.
Build your team. Focus on building a strong
and cohesive leadership team that’s going to
help you run your company. You can’t do it by
yourself. You’re trying to build a team that
can lead the company together.
You have to understand a person’s skill sets,
their strengths and their weaknesses. It takes
time to naturally mold a team in their roles
and responsibilities that fit them the best.
Our main goal is to create clarity in the
organization — where we’re headed, what
behaviors we value within the organization,
what makes us unique with our competitors
and the goals that we want to achieve.
Have real clear and defined roles and
responsibilities for everybody. Build regiment in your team as far as your meeting
times and how you track getting things done,
planning and goal-setting.
Ask questions. What makes an effective executive is when you ask a set of questions. Any
time you come into a situation, you say,
‘Hey, what needs to get done here?’ Develop
some action plans and get people to take
responsibility and communicate the plan.
Focus on the opportunities rather than the
problems. Face issues and try to solve them.
Make goal-setting a priority. It all starts from
the setting of performance standards and
consistent achievement of those standards.
When you do that, that’s what really makes a
difference in the company.
It assists in getting momentum and getting
things done. In the book ‘Good to Great,’ Jim
[Collins] talked about the big flywheel. You
have to get momentum. Those first few pushes of that big flywheel are difficult. Once you
set action plans and you get people moving in
the right direction, that flywheel starts to
spin, and then it gets easier and easier to get
it to move faster, and it builds up some of its
own inertia.
Keep raising the bar. You have to create a high-performance orientation where we’re constantly raising the bar.
Establish written goals and objectives for
everybody. Setting standards, and consistent
achievement of those standards, really
makes a difference in a company.
Look at the roles within the company and
develop performance objectives. We try to do
at least monthly reviews with everybody.
They are not highly regimented. The first part
of it is asking what’s going on in that person’s
life and how things are going. Following up
with, ‘How are you doing on your goals?’
As a leader, you’re saying, ‘What can I do to
help?’ It demonstrates you care for them, and
they know they have a leadership that is trying to help them, and they know that their
performance counts.
You need to create a fun atmosphere at the
same time to inspire everyone to do their
best. Sometimes it can be a fine line between
a high-performance culture and a high-anxiety culture. Our goal is to make our firm challenging, satisfying and a fun place to work.
The atmosphere at the office really helps
create the energy and the synergy to be successful.
Aim high when hiring. You can’t spend enough
quality time hiring the right people. It’s a very
rigorous effort. Look for drive. It’s the need
for achievement, competitiveness and optimism.
Somebody that sets high personal goals, is
ambitious and is prepared to work long and
hard in the pursuit of excellence. Somebody
like Tiger Woods. The guy shoots a 63, and
you interview him, and he’s upset because he
thought he should have shot a 60.
Someone that is going to get into the game and is determined to be a top producer for us
and doesn’t just give up once a challenge has
been accepted. To me, that is somebody like
Michael Jordan. If you were at a party with
him and you played a game of ping pong and
beat him, he probably is not going to let you
leave the party until he beats you.
Help your employees. One key ingredient is
providing strong training because that’s really an investment in people. Share with them,
‘Look, we’re going to help you develop your
skills. We’re going to help you improve and
build a really high-quality resume. No matter
how long you’re here at our firm, you’re going
to leave a better person.’
Instill a strong desire to constantly improve
everybody’s skills. That helps us as far as
improving our reputation. What we’re trying
to build is that individual responsibility for
skills development and personal growth.
We have a leadership development course
that we run eight people through each year.
We have them participate in a monthly class
on basic leadership skills — how to facilitate
a meeting, how to understand different personality types, how to have a fierce conversation, building a team.
They participate in voluntary leadership
roles within our organization until they get
some hands-on experience at running a committee or an advisory board or one of our specialty divisions.
Balance work and life. It’s energy, not time, that
is our most precious resource. You really
want to manage your energy levels.
You have to learn that there is a pulse with
a high-performance environment. You have
to learn to balance stress and recovery periods. Some days are going to be really stressful. You can manage that and sustain that for
a while, but you have to carve in some recovery time.
It’s all about physical energy, emotional
energy and mental energy. All these different
types of energy you really have to manage.
The proper application of all that really gets
you ahead. (Make time for) exercise, quality
time with family and retreat. Break away.
HOW TO REACH: Grubb & Ellis|BRE Commercial, (858) 546-5400 or www.brecommercial.com