Food & Beverage
A leader of leaders
How to stay on the same page with your senior managers
By Erik Cassano
Smart Business Indianapolis | April 2008
Mike Weaver
President and CEO, Weaver Popcorn Co. Inc.
Mike Weaver is president
and CEO of Weaver Popcorn Co. Inc., which means,
of course, that he’s the leader
of the company.
But that’s not how he views
himself — not exactly, anyway.
As CEO, Weaver — grandson of
company founder Ira E. Weaver
— says that he really views
himself as the person leading the leaders. At Weaver Popcorn,
it’s up to the managers of each
of the 400-employee company’s
divisions to lead as they see fit.
Weaver’s job is to stay in frequent contact with his division
managers, make sure everyone
is on the same page with regard
to company goals and, above
all, provide his managers with
the resources they need to get
their jobs done.
Smart Business spoke with
Weaver about the best ways to
lead your company’s leaders.
Make time for communicating in
person. The best way to make
time for face-to-face communication is when it’s on a schedule and laid out in advance,
and everything is planned
around being present at meetings. The second thing is
reaching out to the senior
leaders, and they to me, as
needs arise.
I was raised that way during
my early years in the company.
My dad especially put a lot of
emphasis on the face-to-face
[communication]. It’s kind of in
my DNA, and I’ll be honest, I
probably don’t do it as much as
I should do it because it is difficult with your time demands.
You just have to find out how
important it is to you, and if it
is important, then you make
time for it.
In addition, you should
coach your senior leaders to
speak up when they have
needs. My responsiveness
when they want to meet face
to face is important. I try to do
it when they need to meet.
That sends a key message to
them that I’m really here to
support them in helping them
achieve what we agree they
need to accomplish.
That’s important because
they’re responsible for being
accountable for achieving certain goals. I work really hard
on it because I’m not really as
good of a listener as I need to
be. Perhaps one of the disadvantages of being in one company for years and years is the
more you know, the poorer the
listener you become. So what I
have to remind myself of is
that my senior leaders are
responsible for achieving certain goals and objectives, and
it’s up to them to figure out
how to do that.
It’s incumbent upon me to put more emphasis on listening than for me to tell them
what they should be doing,
unless they ask for advice.
Keep your messages consistent.
Consistency of message is a
challenge. The different divisions of our company represent many different types of
businesses.
You need to be consistent
with your values and your overall mission, but when you get
down to the individual division,
it becomes a lot more specific
with regard to the customers
the divisions are serving. You
really rely on the leaders for the
most part to take that message,
the goals and objectives, and
make sure that it is applied, carried out and achieved in a way
that is consistent with your values and mission, but that it fits
those customers and senior
leaders. That’s where the
responsibility really falls with
the senior leaders.
Hire managers who mesh with
you. First, we look for values
and alignment with our values.
That is the first and most
important because out of
alignment of values comes
trust. Without trust, things
break apart pretty fast.
To keep trust, it takes a lot of
work, so if we have alignment
of values, then we have a good
opportunity to grow the relationship to one that is based
on trust. Without that, we’re
doomed.
Once we have the values
alignment, then we look for smart people who are really
able to adapt to changing challenges and opportunities. My
experience is that smart people will adapt faster and
understand situations faster
and almost welcome a changing environment. That’s what
we have in business today.
The third thing is commitment. The folks we have, I
want them to be committed to
becoming the best at what
they’re doing in their lives,
including being the best division leader.
However, it is really difficult
to identify those characteristics
during the interview process.
There is no guarantee. It’s
about the time you spend and
who is involved. When I don’t
include other people in the
process, it’s amazing how my success rate tends to drop off.
I include different people at
different levels. I don’t think
there is any other substitute
for the time you spend face to
face in the interview process.
Also, we promote from within. There is nothing like bringing people up through the
organization. We’ve had success in filling roles both ways,
but when you bring someone
up from within, you really
know them a lot better than
when you bring someone in
from the outside.
In any case, it’s the amount of
time we spend together that
determines to a great degree
the probability of the relationship being successful. But it’s
tough. There is no magic formula that we have found yet.
HOW TO REACH: Weaver Popcorn Co. Inc., (765) 934-2101 or www.popweaver.com
