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The culture game
How to hire and retain the best employees
By Kristy J. O'Hara
Smart Business Chicago | May 2008
Charlie Besser
Founder, president and CEO, Intersport Inc.
Growing up, Charlie Besser
wanted to be a professional golfer, but it became apparent
to him pretty early on that professional competition wasn’t in
the cards for him.
Despite the death of that
dream, he still had a huge interest in sports, and that passion
directed his career. Over time,
he developed a love for media
and event marketing, as well, so
in 1985, he married his loves
by founding Intersport Inc., a
company that specializes in sports television programming,
fan and corporate hospitality,
and digital media and event
marketing.
As he’s grown his company to
more than $100 million in
annual revenue, another passion has surfaced — supporting his people. With 130
employees, this president and
CEO wants to make sure that he
hires the very best people and,
just like a loyal fan, gives them
his unfailing devotion.
Smart Business spoke with
Besser about why you have to
give potential employees the
unvarnished truth and how,
once you hire them, you have
to protect them.
Be really sure before making that
hire. Hiring people is the most
difficult thing in business. Invest
the time upfront. That’s really
spending time checking references, asking hard questions,
putting the candidates in uncomfortable positions and seeing if
they really can stand up.
We’re tough in the interview
process. If there’s somebody we
really like, we tell them, ‘You
may have said some things here
in an effort to convince us
you’re great, but I would truly
ask yourself, before you commit
yourself to this organization,
make absolute sure that what
you’ve told us is what you’re
going to deliver because we will
know in two months whether it
is or if it isn’t. Then you will be
disappointed, and we will be
disappointed, and you will have
wasted your time, and we will
have wasted ours.’
If it turns out that you’ve mis-represented yourself, then
you’re not going to last long.
There’s absolutely no place to
hide. We make sure that there is
so much information provided
to the candidates that we really
like so that they know exactly
what they’re getting into. We’ve
told you everything and given
you the unvarnished truth;
you’ve got to make sure that
what you’ve told us is the unvarnished truth because it’s just not
going to work out.
It is such an important exercise because there is so much
time associated with someone
who turns out not to be good.
You invest six months of the
year in the person, hoping. You
flat out have to take the hope
out of it and get as much reality
into the process as you can and
not hope that somebody is
going to be great. Making the
wrong decision has such an
impact because they’re with you for six months, and they don’t
do anything, and then you get
rid of them, and you have to go
through the process of finding
someone else.
Care about people. We just flat
out protect our people if they
need to be protected if something has gone wrong. If somebody gets stranded or something happens, we’re there. We
just are.
That’s nonprofessional stuff,
too. If somebody’s mom is ill,
we take time out and make sure
they’re getting the best doctors.
It’s great to talk about it, but if
you don’t do it, the culture will
never develop, so it’s years of
actively supporting our people
and bringing in folks.
As a result, damn near everybody, they don’t just go the extra mile — they go the extra 10 miles
because they know that everybody in there cares about them.
There’s a passion that permeates the place, and there’s an
absolute passion to make a difference, make an impact, and
take advantage of where we are
and the opportunities we have.
Don’t tolerate politics and gossip. We have zero tolerance for office
politics. There’s no talking about
people behind their back. ...
It’s contrary to the concept of
supporting each other if somebody is tearing somebody down.
It gets exposed easily and, in
fairness, because we support
everybody, we ask the people
that are doing it to stop. If they
don’t, and it has a negative effect on the organization, then we ask
them to leave.
It doesn’t happen often. We’re
not walking through the halls
and throwing people out. But I
can think of one instance about
eight years ago, we fired all
three of the people that were
bad-rapping each other. It had
gotten to the point where we
told them to stop it ... and it kept
going. We let them go.
It’s when they’re starting to
have the negative effect on the
people around them and a negative effect on the organization.
There’s no specific line in the
sand — you just know.
Generally speaking, rarely do
you have someone that’s great
that’s doing it.
You have to be honest and
keep your ears open. Be conscientious of how folks are interacting with each other — if
you’re paying attention, it becomes pretty obvious. If you’ve
set the culture of support and a
culture of shared interests, and
you’re paying attention and
you’re managing the culture,
deviations from it stick out, and
then you move to stop it.
If it continues, you just ask
them to leave. They’ll be happier
somewhere else, and we’ll be
stronger here. In our company,
there are too many great people,
and one of my No. 1 obligations
is to make sure these folks are
getting the opportunities that
their greatness deserves.
They’re entitled to work in an
atmosphere that is supportive
and where there’s shared interest.
HOW TO REACH: Intersport Inc., (312) 661-0616 or www.intersportnet.com
