Human Resources
Positive environment
TWC Group’s Terry Williams on how a culture of fear can kill ambition
By Brian Horn
Smart Business Philadelphia | March 2007
In 1999, TWC Group LLC was growing by leaps and bounds thanks
to other companies that were also growing. Companies were calling the recruitment and HR outsourcing company to help them beef up their staffs, leading TWC to open offices all over the country
to accommodate them.
“We were hired left and right,” says president and CEO Terry
Williams. “It was out of control. We were being overpaid to open
offices. In retrospect, it was a big mistake because with the
Internet bubble, what happened was you have these offices and
nobody is hiring and the economy was in a state of flux.
“We had to circle the wagons and shut down those offices. We
came back to the corporate headquarters, rode the storm and now
are growing smarter.”
For Williams, growing smarter means opening one office at a time
and not letting outside sources entice you to another location until
you are ready to grow. The $10 million company of about 100 employees grew 45 percent from 2005 to 2006.
Smart Business spoke with Williams about how to create an
environment where workers can excel.
Q: How do you become a good leader?
Drive strategy, develop culture and surround yourself with great
people.
The goal or role of CEO is the strategy in terms of new markets,
new locations and new verticals, and driving the culture you want.
One of the philosophies we preach is, you hire right the first time
and provide them with the best training, development and tools,
and then you empower. The empowerment piece allows the execution. If people have a fear of the ability to execute, things will not
get done.
You don’t jump on them if they make a mistake. Fear of making
a mistake will not provide any sort of ambition and will actually
curb any ambition or drive. Some CEOs drive with the iron fist,
and individuals on the staff are afraid to make mistakes.
Q: How do you handle an employee making a bad decision?
It’s more of a learning experience for that person. There is no fear
of failure. If they do fail, we take the course of letting them make
the decision, and they tell me what went wrong with it.
It’s not for me to tell them what went wrong. It’s a self-assessment process. The best way to get people to solve a problem is for
them to tell you the solution.
I do the same thing with compensation reviews. The best way for
me to work one’s compensation is for them to tell me what they
did well and to tell me where they should be based on what they
did well and what they did wrong.
Q: How do you develop a corporate culture?
Being visible as a CEO helps. Being able to communicate
with all levels of staff and deal one-on-one with all levels of
staff. The ability to be seen, and people can see how you act in
public and in the corporate setting.
Culturally, the key for us is to make sure the top 10 to 15 percentile of our company are above par on the compensation
package. You can always keep people in a nice culture and a
nice environment, but we want to make sure that we’re going
to do a top 10, bottom 10 approach. Like the GE approach.
Really look at our top 10 performers and make sure we go over
and beyond this year.
One thing that can really disrupt a culture is if you start losing a percentage of your top talent. We feel that if we don’t lose
anyone within our top 10 percent and build around that staff
and team, that will reinforce the culture because the mid-part
of the group is certainly led by example.
Q: What are the some pitfalls CEOs need to avoid?
Do not hire your likeness but hire your weaknesses. A lot of
the pitfalls people make are they hire people like themselves or
people with the same strengths.
When you get into building an organization, it’s really important that I can get through a process and I know what my
strengths are. I can bring in three other people that know they
have different strengths and will reach the right solution.
Q: How do you find employees?
As CEO, I have a resource team involved in that process. The
resource team is made up of a couple different parts within the
company. We have a dedicated team that is solely responsible
for sourcing and identifying skills for us.
It’s identifying profile skills, looking at the competition, calling in to the competition and corporations that aren’t our
clients, and trying to establish and find the best talent possible.
You have to be very proactive to find the best people.
HOW TO REACH: TWC Group LLC, (866) TWC-1500 or www.twcgroup.com
