Manufacturing
Mike Rowlett
Chairman and CEO, Womack Machine Supply Cos.
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Dallas | December 2007
"A rut is nothing but a grave with both ends kicked out" - Mike Rowlett, CEO, Womack Machine Supply
The back of Mike Rowlett’s business cards reads, “Winners succeed by doing those things that losers don’t like to do.” It’s a philosophy
he lives by as chairman and CEO of Womack Machine Supply Cos., which distributes hydraulic, pneumatic and automation equipment. By
taking chances and trying new things that other companies won’t, he’s grown Womack to 2006 revenue of $111 million.
Smart Business
spoke with Rowlett about why you can’t beat people up for making mistakes and why you can’t shove 25 pounds into a 5-pound bag.
Hire good people. After you’ve met enough
people, you get almost a sixth sense of
whether people are good folks. Look for
habits. If it’s a young college graduate, did
they have to work their way through school?
Look for folks that do charity work. Look
for folks that have contributed back to their
community. Ask about their family, and
watch to see if their eyes light up when they
talk about the right subjects. When you ask
folks what they do in their spare time, you
can tell by their reaction to their outside
activities.
Is it someone you’d want to be a friend
with? Is it someone you’d want to spend time
with? Is it someone you’d like to get to know
better? Those are generally indications that
someone is a good person.
Good, confident, honest people expect the
best of other folks, and those are folks that
will walk up to you with an open mind and
stick their hand out to shake your hand.
Folks that you meet, and they’re suspicious
of you and question whether they can trust
you, or they seem to expect you to do something wrong, there’s a reason why people
know those things — that’s often how they
think, and they’re people to avoid.
Treat people like family. Take care of people.
Weddings are optional, but funerals are a
requirement. When someone’s sick, give
them a call and check on them. When someone has a concern, help them out.
People don’t care how much you know
until they know how much you care.
Compensation plans, good work environments and challenging opportunities are
important, but, at the end of the day, the
thing that swings the balance is, do you like
the folks that you’re around? Do they care
about you, make you feel important, make
you feel a part of the family?
In a family atmosphere, everyone helps
each other, regardless of the circumstances.
That means that when your child has a great
day, you celebrate it with them. When they
have a poor day, you encourage and help
them — you don’t beat them up.
The most important part of creating a family atmosphere in a business environment is
to be good to people, encourage them when
times are tough and help them celebrate when times are good. It’s a total commitment
and a total selflessness of putting those people first and always being there for them.
Help correct mistakes. If someone’s not making mistakes, then they’re not trying hard
enough. Expect mistakes. Sometimes we’re
going to fail, and that’s how we grow.
When something doesn’t go right, whether
it’s something I did, someone else did, we as
a group did or something that happened
from someone outside, just analyze the situation. Where are we? How did we get to this
position? Where do we go from here?
If you make it personal, and you’re beating
up on people, they’re going to be hesitant to
try again the next time, whereas if you take
an objective approach and talk about the
issue as if it was someone else and take all
the personality and individual out of it and
just address it as a situation, then now you
have a problem solved, and everyone likes to
solve problems. The most important thing is
objective analysis, fair analysis and do everything to keep it from being personal.
Balance challenging and achievable goals. We
call it putting 25 pounds in a 5-pound bag.
It’s good to have 10 pounds in a 5-pound bag
because that makes it challenging, but
when you start trying to shove 25 pounds in
a 5-pound bag, that’s when the sides split
out. That’s how you tell when people are
overloaded.
Constantly be observing where someone
is with their workload. There is a peak performance level for everyone. Once you
get too much on your plate, then your effectiveness will decline, so constantly monitor
folks. When they stop having that sparkle in
their eye, when they stop coming in with a
smile on their face, when their concern
becomes worried — those are all signs that
someone is overloaded, and obviously when
work doesn’t get done.
When people consistently miss deadlines
— and when they set the deadlines and miss
them — that’s a good indication that someone’s got too much on their plate.
The people that I work with are my
friends. We understand when our friends
are having a bad day and what to do to help
them. We understand when our friends are
overloaded and how to guide them. We all
want our friends to be happy and succeed
and be productive.
Embrace change. Change is one of those
things like death and taxes — it’s always
going to be here. Change is good. Without
change, life would be a rut, and they say a
rut is nothing but a grave with both ends
kicked out.
Everyone’s afraid of change, and so consequently, they pull away from it. If you’re in
an environment where there’s a change
coming, and your competition is all resisting
... use that opportunity instead of resisting
the change. Get on the bandwagon and go
with it, and your competition is three steps
further away because they’re backing up,
and you’re three steps closer because
you’ve embraced and gone ahead. It’s a
competitive differentiator.
Conquer your fears. You just have to have the
constitution to do it. It’s like the first time
you jumped off the high board. Murder and
cannibalism are illegal in the United States,
so at 6 o’clock tonight you’re still going to be
alive, and nobody’s going to have eaten you,
so try it and give it a shot.
The worst that will happen is you will fail
or you miss the mark. If that happens, you’re
still alive and you’ll still have resources, and
you’ll try again tomorrow. It comes back to
confidence and not being afraid to fail.
HOW TO REACH: Womack Machine Supply Cos., (800) 569-9801 or www.womack-machine.com
