A lot has changed since Herb Shear began leading GENCOSupply Chain Solutions more than 30 years ago.
For starters, the chairman, president and CEO of the reverselogistics company only had 15 people with him in the beginning.
“So, obviously, your leadership style for managing 15 peopleversus an organization today that has 7,000 people in 100 different locations — it’s significantly different,” he says. “So, Ihad to evolve my leadership style and my leadership thinkingover that 36-year period because if I was doing the same leadership style that I did 36 years ago, the company would probably implode.”
One of the primary ways he’s found to make sure everyone is staying true to the company’s mission is by relying heavily on data.
“You can’t manage a business without good, good data,” Shearsays. “If you continually manage from your gut, eventually you’regoing to have a problem. So, we like to make decisions based onour data. Sometimes, you don’t have all the data, and you have tojust go with your gut. But, we like to get as much data as possibleto make our decisions with.”
The goal at GENCO is to have great customer and employee satisfaction and to be a profitable company — and each one of thoseareas is measured to see just how well the company is doing.
“It’s more than just words to us,” Shear says. “We actually measure our customer satisfaction, our teammate satisfaction and ourprofitability. We only consider ourselves a successful company ifwe are doing well in all three. It’s like a three-legged stool. If one ofthe legs is broken, we need to fix it.”