Guilford Capital Corporation (GCI)
Lead from the front.
Tranum Fitzpatrick of GCI believes that the most powerful of all the elements of leadership is to “lead from the front.”
“To me this means that—always keeping in mind that you are the leader of a team and not an actor—you must:
- Determine the business principles which will define your company.
- Closely communicate those principles to your people, then keep finding new ways of continually communicating those same principles.
- Then you yourself always abide by these principles.
“Simple? Yes. Always easy? No. Powerful? Very. “Be aware that, over the course of your career, you are going to encounter periods of business crises—some of them probably very great crises. When those crises occur, it is critical that, while letting your people know that you recognize the crisis, you maintain a demeanor of calmness and of the assurance that ‘we are going to come through this.’
“A recent example occurred in March, during a record cold snap in our part of the country. Two of the most important principles of our company quickly came to the fore in this crisis, principles that are known to everyone in our company, including our regular contractors. They are:
- Always put the best interest of the customer first.
- The job descriptions of everyone in our company all start with the same phrase: ‘Whatever it takes.’
“At 5:10 AM on a Thursday morning, I got a call from Tom Latimer, our partner in three buildings in a city 100 miles from our office, including a fifteen-story downtown residential building. It was hard to hear Tom for the incessant ringing of the fire alarm. Tom had gotten a call at his home from the alarm company 45 minutes earlier, called Brian Crawford, our maintenance chief for all three buildings, and gone directly to the building where they learned, that, in the record cold, a sprinkler line on the 14th floor had burst, pumping out an inch and a quarter stream of water.
“The fire department, following their procedures, would not allow us to shut off the system until they had inspected each and every room in the fifteen-story (plus basement) building to determine that there was no evidence of fire. This procedure, because a number of apartment residents were out of town and because a bank occupies the first floor, took over 2 ¹/2 hours.
“During this entire time, the pump pushed water through the break, onto the floor, down the hallway, and into the elevator shafts. We estimate that, due to a metal lip at each floor, about 60 percent of the water that ran into each shaft ‘got off’ at the 13th floor and ran down that hallway until it reached a depth of roughly eight to twelve inches—a level at which the water pressure became sufficient to hold the rest of the water in the shaft, a process to be repeated on each successive floor.
“To return to the hallways, that water was rushing three ways: under-the apartment doors, where it flooded the apartments; down the interior stairwells, where it began to freeze; and out the outside fire escapes, where it really froze! Meanwhile, as the 14th floor apartments got flooded, water began to pour through the ceilings of the 13th floor apartments, just as those apartments were being flooded by water pouring under their doors, a process repeated on each floor.
“The alarm wouldn’t stop ringing. The power was off, except for the emergency lights, the alarm, and the pump. There was ice on the stairs. And the elevators didn’t work. It would be very difficult to exaggerate the extent of this problem.
“Normally, one call to Howard Upchurch, president of our development and management company would have gotten this off my plate. But Howard was on his way to catch a plane.
“Britt Bender, asset manager for this property, was leaving shortly for Louisiana with Bill Porter, a building consultant who had worked with us for over 25 years. One phone call and they’d changed and were on their way to Watts.
“Fred Clifford is vice president of F&C Construction, which often does work for us and does it well. In 30 minutes, he was on his way to Watts with a full crew following right behind. Wylene Craft, who is always great in a crisis, assembled a three-person team headed by her, and they were on their way to Watts within an hour and a half. Tom and Brian were there and stayed there.
“Together, they did it all:
- They looked after the customers first, as always. We had more than one set of customers—in this case three sets: our investors, our lenders, our tenants.
- They did whatever it took. What could have been an absolute disaster was handled beautifully by good people following sound principles.
“It seems to me that the best way to become a better leader is through a combination of reading, observation, and application. Books such as this one are highly valuable opportunities to learn. All of us are exposed almost daily to different styles of leadership. Become a keen observer. What seems good to you? What seems false? Then try the ones that seem good, and put your own stamp on them.”