The calendar could not
have flipped to 2009 fast
enough for Art Dauber.
Between the economy going in
the tank and the recovery
efforts from damage caused by
Hurricane Ike, 2008 was not
the best of times at American
Electric Technologies Inc.
But you wouldn’t have
known it by talking to Dauber,
the company’s chairman,
president and CEO. If he had
any anxiety about whether his
company would make it, he
made sure his 500 employees
couldn’t see it.
“You have to take the fear
out of the crisis,” Dauber
says.
Total sales at the provider
of power delivery solutions
were $55.7 million for 2007.
That was up 22.6 percent
over 2006 sales, and he anticipates another increase in
2008 sales.
Smart Business spoke with
Dauber about how to get buyin from your employees, in
both good times and bad.
Q. How do you earn the
employee loyalty that will
help you through a crisis?
You don’t have to be the first
one to work, but you almost
have to be the first one to
work. You don’t have to be
the last one to leave, but
almost the last one to leave.
You can’t have any special
things that you get that the
other person doesn’t get. The
benefits are the same, the
cars are the same. There are
no big expense accounts.
I go to their meetings and
listen to both their business
and personal problems. We all
meet out in the hall about
11:30, and whoever goes to
lunch, from vice president to
hourly employee, we all go to
lunch together.
On a social basis, it’s almost
a flat organizational structure.
There isn’t any, ‘You’re the
president, I can’t do that.’
Live the life. You can’t have
a story that is different from
how you live. People will talk
to other people. It’s much easier to tell people to be here at
8 in the morning when you
show up at 7. It’s much easier
to tell people an hour is
enough for lunch when
you take an hour for
lunch.
I wouldn’t even accept
a private parking spot. I
get the best parking
spots every day
because I’m in early.
Q. When a crisis hits,
how do you keep people
calm?
Be fearless. People
have to know that you
are fully committed. In
a military organization,
when the captain says,
‘Follow me up the hill,’
you’re not sitting at the
bottom of the hill saying, ‘Hey, tell me how
things worked out.’
With Ike, I was here before
the wind stopped blowing. I
may be the leader, but I share
the same values as they share,
and they know they can count
on me.
Be 100 percent truthful. I
gave them an overall plan to
how we’d respond, how we’d
focus on the business and
how we may have to change.
If they followed that plan,
there weren’t a bunch of
things they would have to
worry about. You went from a
bunch of concerned people
before the meeting to people
who were smiling when they
left the meeting realizing that
life would change a little bit,
but they would survive.
