John Johnson is a people person. And that doesn’t just mean he
likes to shake hands a lot.
As the CEO of David Weekley Homes, a $1.5 billion multistate
homebuilder, Johnson leads with the belief that the company will
only go as far as its people will carry it. If the company’s employees aren’t put in the best position to succeed, the company won’t
be put in the best position to succeed.
“It’s critical that we find the leaders we need to run the business,”
he says. “We develop and grow our own leaders for the most part.
Over 80 percent of our leaders have come up through the company rather than from the outside.”
Cultivating leaders that embrace the company’s vision and values
is extremely important to long-term success.
With that in mind, Johnson has helped construct programs aimed
at identifying and cultivating the best managerial minds in the
company. He says the earlier you can find the next generation of
star performers, the better your company is going to be in the long
run.
As the leader, your job is to make sure the talent pipeline isn’t just
full but trained and prepared for the coming challenges that will
face your business.
The right match
When forming a company culture, the people you bring in to perpetuate the culture are as important as the culture itself. Without
the right people in the right places, particularly in management, the
culture will never grow.
“The owner or the CEO creates the culture of a company,”
Johnson says. “After that, the management team either reinforces
it or destroys it. I believe that leaders must walk the talk, they have
to be good role models, they must live it every day, always be diligent and passionate about preserving the culture.”
With that as a guiding principle, Johnson and his staff are meticulous about interviewing potential management candidates,
including a series of lengthy interviews, screenings and evaluations.
By the end of the process, Johnson and his staff should have
been able to get a real picture of how the candidate thinks and performs in a variety of situations.
“One step in the process is a three-to-five hour interview,” he
says. “Usually after three to five hours, people will get tired, and
they’ll pretty much tell you how they feel. We invest a lot of time
and energy in that since it’s so critical that you hire the right people the first time.”
It’s especially critical in management positions because an
employee’s boss is usually the one who sets the tone for the culture.
“To our 1,400-some team members, their boss is the most significant person,” Johnson says. “That’s who they report to and communicate with daily. That person has to be walking the talk, they
have to be representing the culture of the company. They are the
eyes and ears for me out in the field.”
Johnson says high integrity and a strong will to succeed and well-developed communication skills are three of the most important
characteristics any manager should have, and that factors heavily
into the interviewing and screening process at David Weekley
Homes.
For current employees, even before they develop an interest in
pursuing a management-level job, Johnson’s staff is evaluating
that person as potential management material.
“We look for folks who exhibit those (management) traits and
sometimes give them leadership opportunities while they’re in that
job to see if they really want to do it before we put them into a
training program,” Johnson says.
Once a managerial candidate has been selected, the next step is
to train him or her. To make sure the same values and culture are
passed on to the new managers, Johnson has helped set up a mentoring program that allows experienced managers to interact one
on one with incoming managers. It’s called a leadership pipeline
program, and it exists in each of the 18 cities where David Weekley
Homes does business. The program emphasizes training across
various disciplines, so the new manager receives lessons not only
in the area in which he or she will be working but also in other
areas of the company.
“We typically set them up with a mentor to help further their
skills,” Johnson says. “Once that is over, we’ll typically take the
people we feel have the most potential and put them in cross-training functions. For instance, we might put a builder in the sales
office or put a salesperson out building homes, so that gives them
a better understanding of our business.”
Johnson says managers need to know as much as possible about
the jobs of the people they will be managing, either directly or indirectly. It’s the only way they’ll be able to build any long-term rapport with their subordinates. In a larger company, it is likely impossible to give an incoming manager a slice of every job performed
under your company’s umbrella, but the wider the perspective you
can give your employees, the better.
“We might not expose them to all areas, but we give them as
much exposure as we can because they’re going to be managing all
those different functions,” Johnson says. “So you at least have to
have some understanding of the skill sets and the challenges that
the team members have. We try to make it as well based as possible, so at least they’ll have some understanding of the jobs of the
people they’re managing.”
Consistent communication
Having a formalized training process for new managers is important, but it will only work properly if you set the ground rules in the
first place.
It goes back to Johnson’s belief that the leader of a company sets
the tone for the culture. Your managers can carry the torch, but
you have to light it and keep it lit. The way you do that is through
good communication.
Johnson places a priority on in-person communication, which
requires diligence and a willingness to amass frequent flyer miles
if your business has locations in many cities.
“I get out to each of our cities at least once a quarter, visit
every one of our divisions every quarter, and when I’m out,
I get around to almost all of our sales offices, construction
offices and division offices. I spend a lot of time out in the
field, face to face with our team members. That is by far
the most effective way.”
Johnson is a proponent of face-to-face communication,
but he recognizes that it can be a time-consuming method
of getting your messages across. If you want to engage
your employees in person, there is no magic formula. You
must make it a priority, even with all the other tasks, projects and items that beg for your attention on a daily basis.
“Every quarter, my assistant and I set up my travel schedule, and we make it a point to make sure I get around to
see every city,” he says. “If we have to give something else
up, we give something else up. It’s not difficult to do if you
understand and appreciate the importance of doing it.”
Face-to-face communication is important because it
gives you a front-row seat as to what is going on in the
field. It also allows you to really listen to what your front-line employees and managers are saying.
Johnson says listening is a major key to becoming a
good communicator. You develop listening skills through
practice and through interacting with your team. After
meetings, Johnson asks his managers to grade him and
offer advice on his listening and communication skills.
“The only way to determine if you are effectively communicating is to ask questions and listen to the responses,” he says. “A good communicator should properly identify who his audience is and adjust his style to best fit their
needs. I usually find that the simpler the communication,
the better.
“You should also remember that communication is more
than just verbal. You should keep in mind body language
when communicating and use all forms of communication.”
Keeping it simple allows your messages to stay consistent. Messages that need to reach a companywide audience can’t get bogged down in jargon or unnecessary
wordiness or you run the risk of it getting lost in translation. Johnson uses every opportunity he can get to sand
and polish his messages for simplicity’s sake.
“It’s through the training programs and quarterly meetings, so all our management team hears the same messages,” Johnson says. “We pray from the same hymn book,
so to speak, and it’s through consistency of training, consistency of measurements and communication. We work
very hard at that.”
A leader that delivers messages that are hard to follow or
messages that seem ambiguous or noncommittal is a
leader that will lose credibility. That is a dangerous area
for anyone to tread.
“People can spot a phony from a long way off,” Johnson
says. “One of the first things people lose respect for is
someone who doesn’t speak the truth. That’s one of the
most grievous sins you can make — not walking the talk,
not being consistent and being a phony.
“You build credibility by walking the talk over time. I can
talk and talk, but until someone sees what this company is
about, there are going to be some doubts.”
Motivation matters
Even after you’ve selected, trained and established communication with the future leaders of your company, your
job isn’t done. Enabling employees to succeed is a process
that requires constant maintenance.
If you have placed authority in someone’s hands, there is
a large trust factor involved. You must trust employees to
do their jobs on their own unless they prove they can’t.
Johnson says trust is a form of respect a superior shows
to his or her subordinates. If you don’t trust the people you
have chosen, they won’t feel respected, and your company will suffer the consequences of poor leadership.
“To show respect, there are three ways to do that. One is
you show trust to someone. Showing trust to someone is
showing you respect them, and part of that trust is the
freedom to do their jobs without interference. The second
way of showing respect is care. Showing them that you
care about them and are going to treat them fairly. The
third way is recognition. That’s when you tell them they’re
doing a good job, and here, we love to celebrate success.”
At all of the David Weekley Homes offices, there are
scoreboards displayed. Employee performance and team
performance are measured through many different criteria and the leaders are rewarded.
“Recognizing someone is a reaffirmation for them,” he
says. “It shows them that the company or their boss recognizes that they did a great job and really appreciates it.
Giving out money or a trip is also nice, but it doesn’t have
to be money or a trip or an award. It’s just acknowledging
that they did something. It’s something human beings
crave — respect and recognition.”
HOW TO REACH: David Weekley Homes, www.dwhomes.com
