It wasn't that he felt inadequate in any specific management skill. Flohr liked the OPM program because it embraced a passel of subjects -- finance, marketing, leadership, human relations, even the matter of "satisfying the owner's goals."
It was part of his new "visionary" role, a way to hear fresh thinking from Harvard professors, bounce ideas off fellow executives, and argue issues with people he respected, all the while insulated from the daily grind. "My people had my phone number," he says, "but nobody ever called."
It was no country club. One of Flohr's classmates, Jay McCabe, president of a Boston-based logistics management firm, INTRAL Corp., calls it "an emotional boot camp, an Outward Bound for middle-aged businesspeople." Flohr lived in what amounted to a monk's cell in a dorm. The work was rigorous and demanding, not only because of what the profs expected but also because of what his colleagues and case-study groups expected of him, too.
Flohr evidently pulled his weight. "I was impressed with Bruce right from the word go," says classmate Derek Oland, president of Moosehead Breweries Ltd., in Nova Scotia. "He was a pretty complete guy when he arrived there. I think he grew during the thing -- we all did -- but certainly he didn't need it as much as some of us."
Jay McCabe seconds that. "Knowing Bruce, I imagine OPM helped him develop new ideas. But more than that, it probably validated some concepts he already had."
It was exactly the idea of reinforcing his convictions that Flohr found most valuable about his Harvard experience. "We were doing some things at RailTex that I wasn't totally confident were the right ways to go," he says. "For one, we were trying to empower the local manager in the field to be his own boss. I believe people perform better when they feel they are the players, not the pawns. That hit home in some classes where we'd study a company going through organizational problems. They addressed the issue of centralized versus decentralized management. And generally, the ones that seemed to work best were decentralized. So it gave me another way to argue my case if anyone challenged our management style."
The faculty, Flohr says, was sharp, experienced, and thought provoking. But the "unpaid faculty," the 120 students in his class, was just as key. The lectures, study groups, and living quarters were all designed to give students a chance to get to know everyone else. "After three years," he says, "you knew everybody's story. At the end you got a certificate of graduation. But what you really got was a network, a group of people you trusted whom you could tap for help."
Flohr doesn't hesitate to use that network. A case in point: RailTex already has the railroad in Ontario, and it's trying to buy one in Nova Scotia from Canadian National. Railroad privatization is a new and emotional issue in Canada; the deal hinges on approval from the provincial and national governments. Aware of the controversy, Flohr called on Derek Oland at Moosehead for guidance. Using his contacts, Oland lined up consultants willing to go to bat for Flohr. "Bruce still has a tough row to hoe because the provincial government is leery about doing this," Oland says. "But at least he now knows who the players are."
Eagerness to help one's classmates is a hallmark of grads of OPM, says McCabe, who likens it to a fraternity. "I'd hate to call it a mystical experience, but there's a lot of emotion."
Perhaps it was that emotional lift that energized Flohr to keep challenging his team. Perhaps not. In any case, the status quo would never do. "We had to keep moving," he says.
Reflecting his lack of complacency, last year Flohr pulled Mac Irvin from his regional-manager post and gave him a new charter: question every single thing RailTex is doing. "We did things one way when we were a little company," Flohr says. "Now that we're much larger, there have to be better ways."
Irvin still works with Luby's and the H. E. Butt supermarket chain, comparing RailTex's operations with those larger fast-growing companies'. He works with other railroads when called on. He analyzes the issue at hand and writes a report, acting almost like an extension of Flohr, who has the final say.
An example: Along its railroad rights-of-way, RailTex leases space for billboards and easements for utility lines, bringing in some $500,000 a year. A consultant had been managing that work on commission. Irvin recommended bringing the job in-house and backed up his conclusion with solid analysis. Flohr agreed with him. The net savings for RailTex? An immediate $50,000 a year.
Irvin has a long list of missions ahead of him, and it keeps growing. He'll be looking at everything from improving the way bonuses are allocated for general managers to saving money by consolidating diesel-fuel purchases. "Mac knows as much or more about these issues as anyone else in the company," Flohr says. "He'll be hitting them off one at a time."
* * *
Nothing Flohr has done as corporate visionary is of mind-bending dimension. But together the moves have given RailTex a firmer foundation for growth and kept it rolling on.
Now his role is evolving yet again. He's preparing for the time when revenues reach $50 million and assets hit $100 million. At that point he plans to take RailTex public in what he hopes will be a $30-million initial public offering. When that day comes, probably early in 1994, he'll be ready. Of late, he has carved out 10% of his time to study other companies' IPO road shows -- he's learning what he'll need to know to create his own presentation.
Flohr and RailTex appear to be one of those rare cases in which the founder does indeed grow in tandem with a booming company. Which returns us to the old question: Is there a natural limit to an entrepreneur's effectiveness? If there's one for Bruce Flohr, he hasn't reached it yet.
