Require innovation through stretch goals. You have to set the goals so they’re achievable, but there’s got to be what I call a stretch component. It has to be achievable, something that’s realistic, otherwise people aren’t going to show up. They’re going to feel like you’re out to get them; they’ll say, ‘They’re out to fire me obviously, look what they’re asking me.’
I would say probably 60 to 70 percent (of their job expectation) is if they’re paying attention, they’re present, they’re leading their people and they’re focusing on the right areas. I would say the 30 percent is the stretch; you’ve got to create some kind of change to get through the organization to the next level. Take the sales example: You’ve got to create a buying opportunity or a design opportunity or a new product development opportunity with a customer to take them to the next level.
It gets your people to do things they haven’t done before. With the sales guy, it’s walking that shop floor or working with a customer and asking kind of the out-of-the-box questions, ‘Why do you do this a certain way; why is this a certain way?’ and finding some kind of competitive advantage that’s innovative.
Hire people who get it. If there is someone to be hired, the person doing the hiring will actually write the job description, work it out with HR, select a number of candidates, and what we have is a leadership or management imperative — by adding this person, what are we trying to solve, what’s this person going to do, what’s their mission? Obviously, you can’t do this for somebody that you’re hiring in the plant as a machine manager, that’s a pretty defined process. But this could be for your first-level supervisors, a staff engineer, a salesperson or even a senior accounting person.
They’ll come ask me and we’ll develop a job description. And if it’s something new, you do your best. You leave it open as much as possible but still give the person some idea of what performance will be required, what their metrics will be.
Then we have a cross-functional group interview [with] the person. So we put together a packet that tells the management imperative what impact this person’s going to bring and communicate that to all the people.
And it’s a two-way street. They also get a chance to view and see a lot of people in our business, some of which they’ll work with, some they might not work with, but they get a feel for our culture. … And it’s an informed decision by both parties. An individual would spend anywhere from 10 to 16 hours talking to people, not doing tests, but just talking to people, touring the plant, etc.
How to reach: Mar-Bal Inc., (440) 543-7526 or www.mar-bal.com
