Smart Leaders
Kevin Hartman
President, Con-way Freight-Western Inc.
By John Nank
Smart Business Orange County | July 2007
When Kevin Hartman was a student at Niagara University, he took a clerical position with an organization called CNF Inc. Today,
more than three decades later, he serves as president of Con-way Freight-Western Inc., a subsidiary of Con-way Inc. — previously
known as CNF — a $4.2 billion transportation and logistics company. In the years since he graduated and entered a management
trainee program, Hartman has held a number of positions within the organization, with increasing levels of responsibility, and in
2005, he was named to his current position. Now supervising approximately 3,500 employees serving 13 states, Hartman’s
leadership philosophy stresses communication and feedback as the means to uncovering opportunities.
Smart Business spoke
with Hartman about the importance of core values and how he prepares his organization for change.
Encourage collaboration. You have to surround yourself with people that are diverse
with points of view and experience, and
you have to ensure that various departments and that the employee and customer
perspective are taken into consideration.
You have to allow people to come up with
ideas and be free to give dissenting opinions, and you can’t kill the messenger. The
intent is that employees come to work and
feel that they can make a difference. They
know their input is valued and that they
had a piece in shaping the direction that we
take.
As a result, we’re more adept at change.
We can stay abreast of what’s going on.
We’re in a very competitive marketplace.
By having different points of view represented, we’re able to stay current and on
top of things. We’ve created an ability to
change and adapt. Change sometimes is
very hard, but by having employees
involved, you recognize why change is
needed and what is changing in the marketplace.
Listening to customers is one of those
things that helps us. We recently met with
customers, and by listening to them, we
found there was a product not being
offered by our industry. A product that, by
talking with them, by listening to customer
needs, we were able to take an idea and
develop it into a product that’s been very
successful for us. If a company doesn’t listen to its customers, it’s at a serious disadvantage.
Develop culture around your core values. Our
culture is strong and built upon our core
values of safety, integrity, commitment and
excellence. They’re more than words.
Early on, as this company was evolving,
we determined that these four values were
our cornerstones. It’s one of those things
that has taken on a life of its own. We don’t
have to force it.
We knew early on that the company was
going to be successful and that it was distinct in our industry, and we shared our
core values across our system. We all have
one common culture, and we took great pains to catch people living the values.
Whenever we could, we thanked them.
We took great pains early on, and today
continue to always view those values in
every decision we make.
Use values to guide behavior. We have an
employee recognition program that is
more positive affirmation than negative,
and it is based on continuing to catch people doing something good.
We have a very simple process where
employees can give each other a ‘star card’
for living our core values. It’s amazing how
many are issued to each other on a daily
and annual basis. There’s no quota system,
it’s not forced, but it’s celebrated to the
point that it’s comfortable and it’s not contrived.
What we also try to do is use our values
as a guidepost to correct behaviors. If we
have an employee who has had an accident
or is mistreating a co-worker, we always go
back to our values. We don’t beat them
over the head with it, but we always try to
say, ‘What you’re doing is wrong in relation
to our values, and here’s what good behavior is.’
I thoroughly believe nobody comes to
work wanting to do a bad job. You can use
your values to say what is expected, and it
always keeps your values alive as positive
instead of a negative thing.
Prepare for change. Change is the most significant challenge a person in a leadership
position faces. You have to have your radar
out for what’s happening in your company,
the industry and the economy.
Customer needs are ever-changing. If
your business isn’t attuned to that, you’re
going to get left behind.
It’s recognizing the need for change. The
status quo is going to be harmful in the long
run. The challenge is preparing yourself
and your people so that change is not a
harmful thing. Human beings don’t like
change. You have to have an organization
that is adaptive in reacting to change, and
that’s the hardest thing a leader has to do.
Preparing for change takes honest communication, feedback, listening, and getting out and talking with employees, trying
to communicate and listen. We try to continue to make examples of changes that
we’ve made that have worked, and even
changes we’ve made that we’ve had to
learn lessons from.
You have to be open and honest in your
approach so your employees recognize
that change is safe and necessary.
Inspire passion. If there is one trait that all
successful leaders share, it’s passion. To be
successful at whatever you do, you have to
believe in it.
You also have to be able to show that passion to your customers and employees so
that they’re energized and comfortable,
and they understand your purpose and
why you’re doing it.
You have to then look to take that passion
and pass it down. Employees truly want to
belong to something. They like being part
of a winning team. You’ve got to take the
passion you have and communicate the
vision and how your employees fit into it,
why it’s important and what they’re contributing. If you can get employees truly
understanding what they’re supposed to be
doing and why it’s important, you have a
formula that’s very successful.
HOW TO REACH: Con-way Freight-Western Inc., (714) 562-0110 or http://freight.con-way.com
