Gauge employees’ visions. When I joined the company, I sat with every staff member. It was necessary to start at the staff level to understand people’s perceptions. And then [I sat] with the different groups to ask them some key questions from an internal standpoint: ‘What would you change if you were in my role? What things would you leave the same if you were in my role? And what things would you suggest everybody else do that somebody in the company’s doing?’
[The] staff had to know that what they told me stayed with me. I took a lot of efforts and a lot of time to make sure that people had time to spend with me and they got to tell me what their feeling was about the future. From an external viewpoint, like knowing the market, I also talked to the sales and marketing folks and then [our competitors].
One of the best things you can do is talk to the competition about the strengths and weaknesses of the company. We needed salespeople at the time. I was in the interview path of sales candidates, so I could talk to those from competition nationally about where the market was but more specifically where they saw our company.
Discover your core. To be successful, you have to know what your passion is, you have to be great at it and you have to be able to make money at it. So I was looking for what our company was truly passionate about, not only from internal [standpoint] but what the people from the outside saw. I was really looking for what we were great at on our best day and our worst day.
The direction was more about seeing the need in the industries that we service. And then after seeing the need, go back to all the feedback, both internal and external, to see what our real strengths and weaknesses were. I wanted to come from a place of integrity on what we could truly do, not what we wanted to do.
So I got the idea of where we were, which I think is one of a leader’s greatest strengths, if they can truly know where they are and then get a vision of where they want to go. The vision for our company is to make a substantial difference in health care through care management software. That’s a big vision. To do that, we can’t have just a local or regional focus. We have to have a national focus. That means that we have to step up and talk to large customers.
And then secondly, I had to figure out what the core was — meaning your strategic people, processes and technologies, the things that are really going to get you to what your vision is. If you can know your core, those are the things that you protect and grow relentlessly, without question. And then, of course, the last thing you have to execute, you have to figure out how you get your core things to be leveraged so that you can meet your vision.
How to reach: CH Mack Inc., (513) 936-6000 or www.chmack.com
