When Michael Perry joined IndyMac Bancorp Inc. in 1993, it had just four employees.
Today, Perry, chairman and CEO of the company, oversees 6,500 employees and $1.1 billion in revenue, making IndyMac one of the Top 10 mortgage lenders in the country and a Top 10 thrift.
Perry shares his thoughts on how the company’s growth has changed the way he manages the company, how he’s built his staff and why management training is pointless.
The great thing about leading this company today is that I have a team that is so strong and talented that when we have an idea, we’re able to execute on it. Back in the early days, when we had an idea, it was difficult to execute because our management team was too small. We had too many good ideas for the size of our team.
My job isn’t so much to roll up my shirt sleeves any more and actually do the work myself. That’s not really productive. My job is to make sure the top senior managers are organized properly, they have the right goals, their pay plans are aligned to those goals and that I’m working with them so that they can succeed, hit those goals and blow through their pay plans and are extremely motivated.
When you’re looking to hire somebody, at any level, what I’m looking for is a level of success commensurate with their age and education. If they’re 22 years old, they’re not going to have a lot of career success. You’re looking at their academic success and their extracurricular success. If I’m looking at a 40-year-old, I’m very focused on their career success. And I want to see them have some wins, not someone who has bounced around from place to place. I’m looking for, what achievement have they made with the opportunities they’ve been afforded in life? We’ve all not had equal opportunities in life. I’m looking for people that have made the most out of the opportunities they’ve had.
The great thing about difficult times is you find out who are the rats that are worried about going down with a sinking ship. And you find out the people in your organization who were really only there for the good times. It’s like when you have friends and you go through a difficult period in your life — no longer are they calling you, inviting you to dinner. You find who your real friends are. In tough times, you find out who the people are who are really committed as managers and leaders at your company. It also melded our team together in a much greater way. We know we can fight through anything.
