Don Hoff is always trying to push his workers to be better. It’s not that he thinks they aren’t working hard or putting their best effort forward at American Slide Chart/Perrygraf, but he doesn’t want his employees becoming complacent.
“It’s not dissatisfaction with the way it’s done,” says the acting president of the 75-employee company, which designs specialized dimensional tools that help companies sell. “I try to position it in a very positive way that I think we can do things better.”
Smart Business spoke with Hoff about leadership and getting the most out of your employees.
Q. What are the keys to good leadership?
Evaluation and assessment of the talent. As a leader you can communicate, you can have the passions, you can have the energy, but you also have to have the right people in place to bring it all together. I think you need to be constantly looking for talented people. You need to have talented people surrounding you — people who can do the job better than I do it.
If I communicate the vision, I may not know all the ins and outs, but that’s what I need the people for. I need to tell them why and let them figure out the how.
Then, just kind of stand back and make sure it happens. Then, along with that evaluation and finding of talent, is making the changes when they need to be made.
Q. How do you find the best talent?
I network a lot. I look at our competitors in some cases. I look to people who are selling to me. I look within the company as well to see who I’ve got, what their skills are, and who’s got the drive and the passion to go to the next level. Who’s got that attitude?
But, I’m constantly looking around. I have the luxury of having a number of years of experience so I network with other people and I see what is going on at companies, and I look at their people and see if there are any opportunities that we have that I could tap into that.
Q. How do you monitor something without micromanaging?
You have to clearly communicate what it is you are trying to do — what the timetable is, what the end result might look like in your mind, in your vision, and what resources we have at the outset.
Sit down with the person or the group or whoever is involved and just lay it all out. What do we need to get this done? Why are we doing it first of all, and then just lay out the timetable and make sure everyone buys upfront and agrees to it and address whatever issues you can address right there with the group.
