Ronald L. Stewart had advantages some other senior leaders didn’t have. When he was CEO of five-year-old FS-Elliott Co. LLC, he didn’t have to deal with all of the levels of management and rank that other companies develop as they get older.
Instead, Stewart used a free-flowing organization where ideas were exchanged without hierarchy or positions getting in the way.
“Older companies, they have a lot of older structure and bureaucracy,” says Stewart, who was recently promoted from CEO of FS-Elliott to vice president of Fu Sheng Machinery Division, the parent organization of FS-Elliott. “We try to minimize that. We try to break down the walls and not create silos. When I see departments trying to set up barriers to doing things, I try to break them down. We want to keep a small, loose organization, keep a minimum management staff to cut out the bureaucracy because, as companies grow, they just, by nature, create bureaucracy, levels of management and things in my mind that stop decision-making.”
Because of the more open structure at the company, which manufactures air compressors, Stewart was also able to urge his 200 employees to think outside the box more easily than an older company that is already stuck in its ways.
Such was the case when the company was looking to fill engineer and shop employee positions. The company had no luck with search firms, and advertising in the paper was a waste of time. Through a brainstorming session, the company came up with the idea of putting up a billboard on major thoroughfare.
The billboard was similar to a “wanted” poster, which directed interested candidates to the company’s Web site, where they could apply.
They found quality people to fill the positions and created some buzz about the company, but it also exemplified the type of success you can have with an open-management style. “Companies that get too rigid, that’s where they get in trouble,” he says. “Obviously, as the company gets bigger, you have to have more of that structure in place. But at our size, I think it’s critical to have a very open management.”
Stewart is doing his best to drive that open management style that has so far helped FS-Elliott double its revenue from 2006 to 2007, when Stewart and his team pulled in $107 million.
Here’s how Stewart used that management style to grow FS-Elliott.
