Seeking new growth opportunities while keeping a finger on the pulse of your company requires a delicate balance, says D. Michael
Monk. As Amerisource Funding Inc. began to grow, Monk says he and his partner, Jason Floyd, started to lose touch with what
was happening at the office. Their ability to refocus internally, however, helped the commercial finance and receivable management
company grow from $151 million in 2004 to $225 million in 2006 with more than 50 employees. Smart Business spoke with Monk,
managing director and CEO of Amerisource Funding, about managing internal pressures and relying on your gut.
Be decisive about change. We had some challenges back in 2000 and 2001 that required
both me and my partner to get much more
involved in the business.
We had to create a system that could
function with checks and balances and not
just a couple of key people that knew the
business well that we would count on to
always make the right decision.
It was tough for employees that had a lot of
authority and now were being somewhat
stripped of that authority. It’s tough to be
given something and then have it taken away.
You can’t beat around the bush. You’ve
got to say what it is. We’re all grown-ups.
Deal with personal issues separately from
business issues.
I would compare it to rebuilding highways. There’s two lanes going each way,
and they tear it down and make it three
lanes each way. Five years later, they’re
tearing it down and making it four lanes.
Why don’t they just tear it down once and
make it seven lanes each way and don’t
hassle with it again? The changes we made
were more like tearing the highway down
and making it seven lanes.
It was a structure that we didn’t need at
the time and was very much underutilized
at the time in terms of capacity. But it’s
allowed us to grow into it, and we still have
plenty of room to grow.
Spread out authority. You can have a great
product. But if you don’t have a good management team, good salespeople and good
service to back it up, you’re not going to
have the same success as someone with
not as great a product that has the human
capital, the relationships and the management skills to execute your plan.
Placing too much authority in any single
individual, you really have to watch for
that, including yourself. I jokingly tell our
people, ‘If something comes up that you’re
not supposed to do, just don’t do it.’
The flip side of that is placing too little trust
or authority in your team members.
Empower these individuals to make decisions. Give them the ability to make mistakes
and to grow and to learn from those mistakes
and really develop your human resource assets. The trick is finding that balance.
How do you empower your people to
grow, make good decisions, collaborate,
participate and contribute ideas? How do
you set up the guidepost where they don’t
get too far off track or have too much
authority where they have the ability to
cause damage to your business. In the long
run, balancing the duties and skills and
maximizing the employee abilities is how
you build a good organization.
Train them to succeed. When they come to
you for advice or a decision or an issue, ask
them their opinion. As long as their opinion
is not too far off base, encourage them that
this is a decision they should be able to
make and to go with it.
If they are comfortable with that, then
you’re comfortable with it. Of course, if
their suggestion is way out in left field and
you think there might be a problem there,
it’s your job as coach to give them feedback
and let them know it might not be a good
idea for these reasons.
Make sure the culture fits. A culture has got to
be based on something that the leader feels
from a personal standpoint. You can’t create a corporate culture in a company that is
honest, fair and empathetic if you have a
cutthroat leader or someone that is not
honest with themselves or is deceitful.
To be consistent and really take hold and take shape and grow, it’s got to be consistent with that leader’s personal beliefs and
personal actions.
Your business does have a personality,
much like a family has a personality. The way
that family interacts, it takes on a life of its
own. A business does that too, maybe even
more so because there are so many more
moving parts to a business than there are to a
family.
It bleeds into customer relationships,
employee relationships and vendor relationships. It puts a face or a personality
with your company. It allows your customers, vendors and employees to be a
part of something and to feel a connection.
We don’t want anyone to conduct business
with us or have a relationship with us who
isn’t thrilled to be in the relationship and who
doesn’t choose to be in the relationship.
Learn to read your gut. In the interview or
recruiting process in the past, I’ve sometimes ignored my gut. It’s usually turned
out not in my favor.
A lot of times you see something on
paper, or you’ll be recruiting someone, or
you’ll be in the interview process, and on
paper, things look great. But something just
feels off. Maybe it’s a character flaw or
something that you detect that might clash
with your culture.
Everything on paper says this individual is
a producer or a performer or would be an
asset to the organization. You go with the
facts, and you make the decision and you
hire that person, and lo and behold, your gut
instinct was right and there is a problem.
It may not be a problem with the skill set.
It could just be a personality issue or a
character issue.
I’ve made some hires of people that are still
with us today that really had nothing to show
on paper, but you just had a sense about this
person. That’s turned out to be good.
It depends on how good your gut instincts
are. I’m finding that relying on my gut from
a recruiting standpoint is producing as good
or better results than some evaluation.
HOW TO REACH: Amerisource Funding Inc., (800) 876-6639 or
www.amerisourcefunding.com
