Ted Peters loves getting up
every morning.
The chairman, president and
CEO of The Bryn Mawr Trust Co.
enjoys his job so much that he’s
often in his office on weekends
and holidays. What motivates
him? Leading the 255 employees of this high-performance
business.
Leading a publicly traded
company comes with its own set of challenges, and as a
result, Peters says he has
become a disciplined leader as
he concentrates on keeping the
company profitable, efficient
and brand-savvy. In 2007, The
Bryn Mawr Trust Co. posted
2007 revenue of $56 million,
with $1 billion in bank assets,
$2.2 billion in trust investment
assets and 15 locations.
Smart Business spoke with
Peters about how to share your
corporate vision, focus on the
big picture and maintain an
upbeat attitude, even in tough
times.
Sell your vision. You have to
have a vision as a leader, and
you have to sell it.
First of all, you have to
repeat it over and over again.
It has to be in a lot of your
communications to your
employees — when you talk in
front of them, when you write
them a note, in your annual
report, all those types of
things. We constantly, in a consistent way, remind people
what our vision is as an organization, and after awhile, people know it.
It doesn’t matter whether
you are the coach of a team,
the president of the United
States, or you’re running a
nonprofit or for-profit organization, people want to be part
of something where they
know where they’re going. The
vision is where you’re going
and what you’re trying to do.
It benefits your company
because the people are motivated, and they’re all working
in the same direction. When
people start a project, they say
to themselves, ‘Is this part of
our vision?’
The CEO has to convince the
directors of the organization,
as much as the staff, that this
is the right vision. It is a matter
of making people know the
vision is relevant, that it is
doable and that it makes sense
for the shareholders.
The vision is the CEO’s job:
Have the vision, sell it and then
get the organization going in
that direction.
Avoid the Jimmy Carter complex.I’ve got to make sure that the
major things we do — build a
branch, start a new company,
buy another company, come
out with stock offerings — I
have to get right.
As you move up through the ranks, you have to realize your
job becomes less about detail
and crunching numbers and
more about making major
decisions. The board is not
paying you to crunch numbers; the board is paying you
to make the major decisions
that take your organization in
an upward direction — more
profitable and growing.
I always talk about the
Jimmy Carter complex. He
was probably one of the most
intelligent and most decent
men we’ve ever had as a president. However, everybody
regards him as a total failure
as a president, and part of his
problem was that he couldn’t
get away from the details.
There is a story that is probably apocryphal — that he was
organizing the tennis court schedule at the White House.
There was stagflation, and foreign relations didn’t work well;
he just didn’t get anything done.
On the other hand, Ronald
Reagan wouldn’t read anything
over one page in bullet points,
took a nap every day for two or
three hours and is generally
credited by people, both on the
right and the left, as being a
very effective president. You
have to be very careful of having the Jimmy Carter complex.