Andrew Clark pays attention to his employees.
The CEO of Bridgepoint Education, an educational services holding company that owns
and operates two universities,
says that having the right people in the right places is key to
successful growth.
Clark gets to know his 1,000 employees by walking around and
talking to them, hosting a monthly employee get together that includes refreshments and a question-and-answer session for employees and having a monthly
CEO luncheon with a group of
employees. These things have
helped employees know they
are valued and have also contributed to the company’s success as it has grown revenue
4,215 percent since 2003, to
$31.4 million in 2006.
Smart Business spoke with
Clark about how find the right
people to create a winning team
in your organization.
Q. How do you find the right
people for your company?
Look for people who have a
strong background, have operated in a variety of different circumstances and companies of
different scales, and have a track
record of being successful.
Look for chemistry. It’s important that you have a team that is
able to work well together. If
they’re not, that can be a significant impediment to growth and
your ability to execute.
Q. How do you determine
whether a team has chemistry,
and how do you encourage
teamwork?
Get referrals from other people about how the individuals
perform in an organization and their ability to work with others.
Encourage it through transparency.
We try to keep a high level of
transparency among our entire
team and the company, all the
way down to our front-line
employees, so that people are
aware of what we’re doing, how
we’re doing it and where we’re
going. That level of transparency and communication enables
people to work together.
It’s easy to say we all
need to communicate, but
it takes strong leadership
to make sure everybody’s
having the right conversations. Set an expectation
level that there will be
transparency and that people will find constructive
ways in which to work
together and perform.
People are able to work
together when they have
an opportunity to get to
know one another on a
more personal level. When
they’re able to get to know
each other, it helps them to
understand their strengths
and weaknesses and how
best to work together as a
team.
That ultimately benefits the
company because they’re all
moving together in the same
direction and executing well,
and that allows that company to
grow.
The most important thing is to
listen to the people you work
with. They’ll tell you what’s fun
and how you can make your
company better, and that kind
of one-on-one opportunity is
invaluable.
There’s just that kind of level
of consciousness, where you
have to stop and say, ‘Am I listening? Am I doing more listening, or am I doing more talking?’
Q. You mentioned the
importance of staying focused
and planning ahead as key to
growth. How do you do that?
When you have high growth
and a lot of success, it’s easy for
distractions to creep in. You
have to anticipate and have the
ability to stay focused and look
long term, nine to 12 months
ahead, and not live in the quarter that you’re in.
This is the difficult part. Your
company is growing at a significant rate, and you have to think, nine months from now, what
are the needs of my organization going to be? Anticipate
those, and then make sure that
you have in place what you
need to support the needs of
the organization.
Q. How do you anticipate
growth?
It gets back to the core executive team and constant communication about where the company is headed. Make sure to
provide the resources you need.
It also goes back to transparency, communication and the ability to work as a team at an executive level.
We pay close attention to the
key metrics of our business, the
financial metrics, and forecast
those out into the future.
Q. When you get off track,
how do you get back on track
to become focused again?
That calls for going back to
your core set of goals as an
organization. Sit down, determine what your objectives are
for that particular year, and
then start asking the question
of how you are doing on those
objectives. If you are failing on
any of them, find out what you
can do to correct that.
Q. What tips would you give
to other leaders to successfully
grow their companies?
Hire the best executive team
that you can find. Stay focused
on what the goals of the organization are; create a culture
(that) will intrinsically reward
everyone in your organization,
and therefore, reward the goals
of the organization.
HOW TO REACH: Bridgepoint Education, (858) 513-9240 or www.bridgepointeducation.com
