Picture: Keith Mackie and his three Western Region teams
Our early career years, and the people for whom we work, have a great influence on the skills we develop. I had the privilege of spending my first 20 years of my career with American President Lines (APL). The culture at APL was phenomenal. Strong leaders, great customer culture, core process focus, execution focused.
During my early years at APL, I had the privilege of working with some great leaders. Their guidance, advice and the example they set daily in their leadership, stuck with me for my entire career.
Joel Greenberg – When I was finishing my management-training program in New York, I had a job waiting for me there. The company decided my first job should be in LA. The head of the New York District, Joel Greenberg, went to bat for me. While Corporate argued that my training program commitment required that I move to where the offered job was, Joel pushed hard that I start my career in New York, because that is what I wanted. He put himself on the line about an arguably unimportant issue, given all his priorities. I never forgot that.
Brian Black – When I got my first Management job as a warehouse supervisor in Atlanta, Brian was the District Manager. We were a small office, 8 people, but we were growing fast. I noticed an opportunity with a customer and brought it to Brian’s attention. He agreed and told me to drive to Charlotte and pitch the idea to the customer. I wasn’t in sales and this was one of our largest customers. Brian supported me and the customer accepted our recommendation! Brian taught me to give people the stretch space to try new things. I could have messed that call up, but Brian trusted me and wanted me to see my idea to fruition.
Rick Barbaria – Rick was Vice President of the Southern Region in Atlanta. We were expanding quickly. Rick had taken a chance on me and promoted me to run operations for the Atlanta district. I had been in the job for a little more than a year when the company announced a management internship program to develop Logistics Managers. I wanted one of those coveted slots. And yet I knew that I had not yet delivered on the investment that Rick made when he promoted me into my operations manager position. Rick didn’t hesitate. He didn’t express concern about backfilling my position; instead he actively supported me and was absolutely instrumental in my getting one of those four coveted slots. And it changed my career! Rick taught me that as Leaders, our goal is to develop our people, to selflessly position them for success and opportunities.
Keith Mackie – When I was in Seattle managing vessel logistics, Keith ran the Western Region. He decided to run his three districts (LA, San Francisco and Seattle) through self-directed management teams. He abolished the Director position, and created a team, consisting of the operations manager, sales manager and logistics manager. As a team, we managed the district, reporting into Keith. Not only did Keith take a risk with this structure and concept in his three key districts, but also he took a risk on us. I learned a lot about working as a team as well as what it takes to let teams run and still have the structure required to assure quick execution and decision-making.
Mike Diaz – Mike was one of the senior executives in the company, tasked with leading the biggest organizational re-engineering initiative the company had ever seen. My friend Bob Ehlers and I were on the Customer team, responsible to reinvent our customer service processes and structure. This was the nascent internet age. There was one browser called Mosaic, and only a handful of companies had built webpages. Bob and I decided that APL would be the first shipping company to offer its services on the web. We asked Mike for $80,000. He called us in, asked us to explain this thing we wanted to create. None of us could articulate exactly what we would do, but Mike had the foresight and trust in two young managers. He listened and replied “I will give you $160,000 but I want it done in half the time”.
In our career, we will work for and with many types of people. We learn from that experience. Our privilege is to glean the nuggets from those very special Leaders that we have the privilege to work with, to learn, to develop our own style; and then to impact those people we have the honor and privilege to lead.
