Real Estate and Construction
All for one and one for all
How to let employees make decisions
By Carolyn LaWell
Smart Business | November 2009
Page 1 of 2
Paul Franks, president and CEO, Sports Construction Group LLC
Paul Franks knows what it’s like to work with a crazed micromanager.
“We had sold our company a number of years ago and the president and CEO of that company had the complete opposite culture,” Franks says. “I worked around a complete micromanaging freak that changed his mind on a whim and just saw the chaos and the people that were afraid to make a decision.”
When Franks, the president and CEO of Sports Construction Group LLC, repurchased the names and assets of his family’s business and rebranded the operations to focus on installing sports fields, notably for the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians, he also restructured the company culture.
In doing so, he convinced his employees — a number that fluctuates seasonally between 65 and 200 — that he would turn the finger-pointing, colleague-blaming culture around if they stayed.
Franks’ approach is to create a team mentality where discussion is rampant and each player takes responsibility for his or her actions, whatever the outcome.
Smart Business spoke with Franks about how to promote team and individual decision-making processes.
Set expectations right away. You tell (employees) what your culture is, and you tell them how you run your business and what you expect. Then it’s up to them to start proving it to you. If you start seeing things change, that’s when you know you have a problem.
It’s an extremely fast-paced business, so we can see positive or negative signs within a couple of weeks. And then, if you see the negative signs, you address them right upfront and give that person the opportunity to grow into your culture.
I think it’s a matter of communicating with your people or your employees and building trust and an honest relationship. When you start having people that are placing blame on others instead of taking responsibility themselves, I think that’s where you’ve got a problem.
I’ve been involved with a number of different businesses where people will never take (or) admit to any failure, all they want to do is claim success. When you have a culture where people can come in and start saying, ‘I made a mistake. I need your help. How do I correct this or that?’ — when you know if you have honest people working for you that aren’t afraid to say that they make mistakes or not afraid to celebrate in the glory and not pointing fingers at other people, that it’s not their responsibility it’s somebody else’s, then you have that culture.
It goes back to seeing how the people perform. If they have that kind of culture and we can adapt that to them, that they can grow with that ability to be honest, then you have a successful business.
