Small Is the New Big

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A buzzer goes off in the area where the fitters are working on high benches. A supervisor steps over to a timer and resets it, then starts writing numbers on a whiteboard as people call them out from their workstations: "three Monday"; "one Saturday, one Monday"; "four Saturday"; "one Monday."

"It's how we keep track of daily production," Goltz explains. "They do it every hour. They say how many they've done and for what day"--that is, the day the customer is expecting the finished product. "Our goal is to do 100 a day. This allows people to see how they're doing. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and nips problems in the bud. If a customer needs a frame job by 1 o'clock, and a meeting runs late, or someone forgot, we catch it right away."

"There are three stages to every business," says Goltz, "the start-up phase, the throw-up phase, and the grow-up phase."

The company wasn't always so tightly managed. Goltz is the first to admit how much he has learned over the years and how hard it was to learn it. "I tell people there are three stages to every business," he says. "The start-up phase, the throw-up phase, and the grow-up phase. I went through 10 years of being overwhelmed until I got things under control. I finally figured out that managing isn't just about learning how to motivate people. It's also about learning how not to demotivate them."

Education aside, Goltz says he has matured as a boss. "I'm proud that when we moved to this facility, I didn't do much," he says. "I was barely here, because we were moving three companies at the same time. We have a new truck that we bought for the move. One of our employees, Armando, and his wife were backing it up over there." He points toward an indoor loading dock. "He hit a beam, and it came down and crushed the roof of the truck. When I arrived, Armando was beside himself. He said, 'I'm so sorry. I'll pay for it.' His wife was freaked out, crying. All I can say is, I'm glad I'm older now. I knew I had to come right out and say it was okay. They'd been putting in 14-hour days and now this. You can imagine what they were thinking: 'Omigod, we totaled the boss's new truck.' Before, I wouldn't have yelled, but I would have looked disgusted. I've learned that one of my biggest responsibilities is letting people off the hook in situations like that. I told both of them, 'Don't worry. I could have done it myself.'

"That has a big impact. There were a lot of other employees standing there. They see how you behave. You could be doing bonus plans, holding rallies, having parties to build morale. Then you scream at someone and throw it all away. Did I scream when I was younger? Yes. I didn't understand the role of the boss. I had to learn the difference between a mistake, which I can live with, and haphazard conduct. Backing into a pole is a mistake. A crooked label is careless."

Goltz's role in the company has changed dramatically in the past two and a half years. He speaks with a certain incredulity about his success in making the transition. "I've gone from being 75% entrepreneur and 25% manager to 75% manager and 25% entrepreneur," he says. "Now I recognize, which I never did when I was starting all these businesses and new things, that my major job is hiring and training managers. Before, I never had the time to do it, and my head wasn't into it. The idea of management would just bore me to tears. But I'm feeling very good about building depth in my organization. I have found it very satisfying."

Goltz's employees have noticed the change. "He's definitely more content with the size of the company," says Renoir Battle, the company's operations manager. "He's not trying to take over the world anymore."

"It just seems a much more gratifying place," says Jeff Grabowski, vice president of marketing for the Goltz Group. "I always loved coming to work for the exciting, fast-paced, creative energy part of it, but now it's...it's... I'm shying away from saying the word family, because it's not really a family, but there's just this greater community sense that we are all on the same mission together."

Goltz, too, is feeling good about the changes. "Somebody said to me last week, 'Oh, so you're having a midlife crisis.' I said, 'No. My whole business life has been a crisis. Now I'm having midlife contentment.'

"I look around the company, and I get tremendous satisfaction out of the fact that I have wonderful people working for me, and they're doing great things and making customers happy. I realize that I've got it big enough that I'm doing just fine. I'm making enough income now that I can live a very nice life. I don't need to be off starting new businesses. I just want my business to run itself to a degree, so that I can be free to go out and do speeches or whatever. That's happiness. For me, happiness is not about building a $100 million company."

Adapted from Small Giants by Bo Burlingham by arrangement with Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), © 2005.

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