Growth
Rock-solid competitor
How Manu Shah sets goals that fuel growth at M S International Inc.
By Brooke Bates
Smart Business Orange County | September 2009
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Manu Shah doesn’t measure success in a vacuum. When it comes to setting and achieving goals, he believes that comparison fuels improvement. So he uses competitors as benchmarks and even encourages employees to stack themselves against each other.
“We try to look at our competition, and then we can tell pretty much whether we are growing or whether we are not growing,” says Shah, who founded M S International Inc. after he emigrated from Bombay, India.
That quest for superiority fuels Shah’s goal-setting. He sets targets that push his 400 employees to improve, driving growth for the natural stone distributor.
Educated as a mechanical engineer, the chairman and CEO is understandably meticulous about those goals — not only in setting them but also in measuring progress along the way. For example, he gives his employees access to a slew of statistics — measuring MSI’s gross profit margin on more than a dozen different scales and a handful of various timelines — so they can monitor their own progress.
By empowering employees to adapt the company’s long-term goals, Shah taps into their potential.
“Employees are the most important assets you have as a corporation,” he says. “It’s up to the management to use the assets the best possible way.”
He maximizes that asset by involving employees in goal setting, which he says is one of the most important priorities of a CEO.
So by using one to achieve the other, Shah makes the most of both — and unlocks his secret to success.
