Ron McPherson and his employees at The Antigua Group Inc. were gearing up to celebrate three decades of business.
The company had become a familiar name with followers of the PGA tour and sportswear consumers alike. Many employees were close to their 15 or even 25-year anniversary with the company.
Then, perhaps not so suddenly, hints of an economic crisis became too great for anyone to ignore. McPherson knew that the merchandising industry and, therefore, the company were in for a huge fight.
“Our type of business, you know businesses that are based on disposable income of consumers,” the president says. “Buying a golf shirt at a pro shop or buying a shirt or a jacket at a retail (store) is a disposable income item.”
Instead of panicking, he turned to his employees to come up with a course of action.
“The first thing is, you bring your team together, you know your key managers and you put together a consensus and get everybody on board as to what has to be done to ensure that the business continues,” McPherson says. “The first thing we did was get each manager to buy in; so that there wasn’t a manager that was out there going ‘This is wrong.’ We had everybody agree on the plan.”
Listening to your managers will help when reaching a consensus. Recognize that not everyone is going to think or work the same way.
“Trying to mesh all of those personalities together into a team is a challenge, so having the one on ones, listening as opposed to just talking to people and hearing what they need to do their jobs well has been successful for us at Antigua,” McPherson says.
