Richard Manning jokes that he’s a pessimistic Brit, and while he may take the glass-half-empty approach as president of Hanson Building Products — North America, he finds the optimism that most Americans carry wildly refreshing.
But at the same time, that optimism often holds people back from dealing with difficult situations.
“Even when this downturn was upon us, there was a huge amount of denial going on around the country at just about every level you could think of,” Manning says.
He heard it both in other industries as well his own company, which is a $1.2 billion supplier of heavy building materials to the construction industry and part of the German company, HeidelbergCement Group.
“You must have heard people talking to you, ‘Oh, it will all be over by Christmas. It will be over by spring. It will be over by summer. It will be a short one,’” he says. “It wasn’t going to be over — it was never going to be over. It was always going to be a big one, and it was always going to be there for the long haul. There was a huge correction that needed to take place.”
“There was this optimism that prevents people from taking the tough, harsh decisions in a timely fashion. That’s a challenge I’ve had, as well — convincing people around me that it really is serious.”
Despite the struggles facing the economy right now, Manning doesn’t have any fear. He’s been through downturns before in the United Kingdom and emerged intact, so he knows that an upturn will come again. To successfully get there, two of the many things you have to focus on are regularly looking at data and motivating your team.
