Recently, I met a very talented individual from a company called Satmetrix Systems. When I asked her to tell me about her organization, she focused most of her comments on the "extraordinary leadership qualities" of the founder and CEO, Andre Schwager.
 Intrigued, I requested an interview with Andre and he did not disappoint. The leadership and team building concepts that he articulates illuminate the gifts he has for leading and inspiring people to achieve a high level of personal and professional success.
Satmetrix is a provider of software solutions for real-time customer satisfaction measurement, analysis and improvement. Prior to founding Satmetrix Systems, Andre was President of Seagate Enterprise Management Software; President and CEO of NetLabs; and the General Manager of the Information Networks Division of the Hewlett-Packard Company.
What really caught my attention is Andre's innovative mix of management styles, designed to pull the very best out of his team in any given situation. Andre encourages collaboration, but imposes autocracy if that's what's required to keep things moving forward. He invites tension, and then cuts it with humor. He makes sure that his people not only are smart but that they fight for what they think is best -- even if that means fighting with Andre himself.
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I'm collaborative as well as autocratic. My main style is probably collaborative and then I move into a backup style of being autocratic. When I turn autocratic, it's usually because I have a sense of urgency that is not necessarily shared by the rest of the team.
I become autocratic because making progress is absolutely essential -- but sometimes the collaborative team is unable to arrive at a conclusion. Sometimes it's that the person on the team who should be making the decision is not stepping up. So, I step in and make the call.
That type of situation tends to happen with new managers or people who are working for me for the first time, early on. Or, sometimes there's a certain timidity, where people are not willing to take risks -- they're still trying to find their footing. In that case, I move momentarily into the autocratic mode, make some decisions, and watch for their responses. In some cases I find that when I turn autocratic it snaps them into taking charge. Then they challenge me, and, as far as I'm concerned, that's a success.
I need to have very intelligent people around me, people who love to learn and experiment. But the key is, there has to be a fundamental wattage between the ears -- that's number one most critical. Number two, they have to be somewhat of a warrior. By warrior, I mean they are willing to take some risks and they are willing -- based on their strengths and their convictions -- to stand up and move.
They need to be system thinkers. By that I mean that when they make a decision, or when they are trying to do something, they not only think of the act itself but what the impact is. They also must look at a situation and try to go back to the root cause, so that they aren't simply reacting to the immediate data in front of them. They try to understand the root cause for any given situation or behavior. They are looking at the situation in a broader framework.
There absolutely has to be some competition. It's very much like a rubber band. Unless there's some tension, it's lethargic and it doesn't go anywhere. There has to be some force that's trying to pull you in some direction.
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To "walk the talk" means that we really share among ourselves how we're doing with our customers, and what they think of us.
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Obviously, if you go too far, the rubber band will break. So, it's always that fine balance between needing enough tension to really create the challenging, creative environment -- without pulling so far that the rubber band breaks.
You have to have some playful sparring, with the edge cut with some humor. Everybody's bright. Everybody's got great ideas -- they piggy-back on ideas, extend ideas, they challenge each other. One of our ground rules, however, is that we absolutely do not permit personal attacks. You can attack a problem all day long, but you don't attack the individual.
At times things do get pretty intense. I try to tone it down a little bit at those moments. I'll say: "All right, everybody is not listening and hearing everyone else. Let's make sure we listen. Let's not judge ideas right now -- let's just listen for the next ten minutes, and anything coming out of your mouth has got to be perhaps an extension, or a question for clarification, but not a judgment." That seems to work.
I look for people who really want to face the customer. I have a sign in my office that says, "nothing happens until somebody sells something." It's a constant reminder that we're only in business to serve our customers. The attitude that I'm looking for is that customers are important.
One of the founders of Satmetrix Systems is the head of our engineering department. I've had hundreds of engineers working for me over the years because I was an R&D manager and I grew up in that rank myself. I can honestly tell you that I've never seen anyone like him -- who is so externally focused. He really gets high on satisfying and having satisfied customers.
That orientation is very important. I want to see that throughout the organization. To "walk the talk" means that we really share among ourselves how we're doing with our customers, and what they think of us. We really look at what our customers are saying about us and then try to serve them better -- and to align that with compensation.
We talk to our customers and ask them how we're doing at least every quarter. Then we publish the results so that everybody in the company can see how we're doing. In some cases, our people can go see how they're doing themselves, on an individual basis. And then we tie this overall performance back into part of their compensation. Top management has the largest percentage of compensation tied to customer feedback. The higher you are in the organization, the more your compensation is based on customer satisfaction.
Dennis Troyanos is the founder of The Troyanos Group, an executive search and consulting firm specializing in recruiting senior-level relationship-marketing professionals. Dennis has led many highly- acclaimed management workshops for the DMA and National Center for Database Marketing. He has facilitated CEO roundtables and written numerous articles on the subject of interviewing, hiring and retaining top performers. Dennis can be reached at dennis@troyanosgroup.com or 914-997-1907.
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