Transportation and Logistics
Steve Burns
Chairman, President and CEO, Wheaton Van Lines
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business Indianapolis | May 2007
Steve Burns and his team came up with a five-year plan for Wheaton Van Lines Inc. to reach $95 million in revenue by 2007, but the plan
was way off the mark. Instead, Burns, chairman, president and CEO of the moving company, watched as the moving needs of the military
pushed the government affairs end of his business into a boom, and Wheaton hit that goal in 2005. Suddenly, Burns’ job was to reorganize
the company plans to keep symmetry in all of his departments while restructuring goals at the $170 million company.
Smart Business talked
with Burns about balancing growth and listening to employees.
Balance the structure to grow. Our business
is made up primarily of several different
groups, and at a meeting, I tell the executive committee that in order to go forward,
we need to keep a good balance between
those.
And then I give the high-water marks of
where I want each of those to be. Then I let
them then discuss the formula for balancing each section of growth, and we make
our goals from that.
We don’t want to become too reliant on
one section of business. Over the last few
years, the group that’s grown the most is
military, so we had to revise our goals and
understand that’s a little bit larger segment,
but we have to be mindful of growing the
others.
You never want to stifle one section of
business because something else is successful. We just keep saying, ‘Let’s get a little bit more in balance here.’ We never
want to cut back; we want to work on
growing the other segments faster.
We let our executives feel individually
responsible to figure out how to keep that
balance. One of the things we do is have
quarterly checks to see how we’re doing on
that balance.
We give each department head the independence to make the decisions how to get
that job done. When you have the right to
make those decisions and are held
accountable by the other groups, that
makes them want to come to work and
they have a participatory interest in the
company.
There is some competition that comes
with that. It’s never to the detriment of the
team, but I want them to be able to set the
pace, and brag and say, ‘Gosh, look at me,’
a little bit.
Update the plan before adding new people. At the end of every year and the beginning
of the next, we revise our five-year plan.
Once we do that, we have each of the vice
presidents go to their managers and say,
‘What will be needed to reach these goals?’
Then we can add people or do other things
to match those results. Then they can
come back and indicate that, ‘We have this
need for more people because of this new goal.’ And they can indicate what these
people will do and give us a solid job
description.
Have a cup of coffee with employees. We
have a once-a-month ‘coffee with the
chairman’ meeting where I get up and
tell them what’s going on and take questions. It’s something that they look forward to, and I do, too.
We acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries, we talk about new developments in the industry, and I let them
know where I’m going to be in the next
month and if we have anybody coming
into town.
Then we acknowledge recent superior
performance and then I open it up to
questions. And I also ask my vice presidents and others to also stand up and
give presentations on recent moves.
It gives everyone a chance to see what
they’re a part of so they don’t come to
work and just say, ‘We’re just going to do
whatever Steve tells us to do.’ We have a
suggestion box that they can put ideas
in, and I answer those at that time.
I give them answers right there. I tell
them, ‘We’ll look at this, or this is my
answer for right now.’ I deal with all of
them so everyone knows what I’m thinking and what we’re planning.
Really listen. I think the ability to truly
listen is the most important quality. You have to convey to whatever group you’re
speaking with that you’re listening and
you don’t have some preconceived
notion of how you’re going to answer
them.
And once you’ve listened to their side
of the story, give direction or feedback.
Let them know if what they’ve said is
acceptable or not, and then listen again.
I always make eye contact with them. I
reassure them that I will replay back to
them what they told me.
I always ask follow-up questions, and if
we end the meeting and something has
to be decided, I get back to them in the
time I tell them that I’m going to.
Lighten up. I think the hardest thing is
probably not to take yourself too seriously; there are some ramifications to
that. One is if you put yourself on a
pedestal, you start to think that just
because you have been successful that
you can take everything for granted, or
that you have all the right answers.
Success breeds success, but it can also
breed complacency. Humor to me is a
great release. There are people around
the office that I go and just talk to and
joke with, and you can ask them what
they’re hearing. And when you have that
,it allows people to be a little more open
and to bring up new things and they
know they can do that without retribution.
The other thing that is important is that
you have to admit your mistakes. I’m
very free to admit that decisions are
made that didn’t have the results we
anticipated, and I’m sorry for that result,
and we’ll move on. Be willing to adapt to
that mistake.
In conversations with people I tell
them, ‘If you don’t think my idea is right,
let me know.’ And usually what I like to
do is let everybody speak first, listen to
their ideas and oversee the discussion
rather than me leading the discussion
and telling them, ‘These are the ideas
we’re using.’
HOW TO REACH: Wheaton Van Lines Inc., (800) 932-7799 or
www.wheatonworldwide.com
