Ingrams September 2023

Q: How did your growth as a com pany play into the process? A: I became CEO in 2011, and we were a much smaller company then. Not that succession wasn’t important at that time, but when you are much smaller, the pieces are kind of clearer, and the needed expertise is less. Now, we’re a $1.5 billion company, we’ve got departments and aspects of the company that are crucial to our success that we didn’t have back then. That makes it much more crucial to have a better understanding of the process and impact. A: We are a hands-on, get-stuff-done company, so they helped us lift our heads up and look farther down the road to understand the importance of clarifying the vision for the company and then translating that down to actionable steps. The executive team shouldn’t be wading into the details, but letting their teams do that. Leadership needs to be focused on the longer-term vision and the overall purpose and culture of the company. A: It can be uncomfortable. I talked earlier about people’s strengths, but it’s not only about strengths—people do things differently, approach things differently, look at things differently. That can make you uncomfortable when you’ve done things a certain way for 12 years. You want to get in there and speak up, but I learned from the consultant the importance of stepping back, being a trusted advisor and letting the new team execute. I was very intentional and made a conscious decision to focus on that. I continue to provide input to the new leadership team, but ultimately, they are making the decisions. Q: Did anything with your experience leading up the announcement of this plan surprise you in terms of timing, complexity, internal politics or other issues? A: No surprises other than how quickly the new team was capable of taking the reins. You tell yourself that everything will fall apart Q: Did your consultant identify any blind spots in your planning? Q: Is that tough, personally, to let go with a decision so big on the line?

and lo-and-behold, the new team steps right in. It can be difficult to let go, but critical to making the process work. Q: If you had to go back to square one, would you have done anything differently? A: Not really—I think our process over the past three years has worked well. Some things can only be learned by being in the seat. You don’t know what you don’t know. This was certainly the case for me when I became CEO. Q: Outside of corporate ownership, who are the trusted advisers that must be part of the process, and what do they bring to the table? A: Our board of directors was heavily involved in the process and played an important role. They were integrally involved in the final decisions and helped shape our path forward. As mentioned previously, we utilized an outside consultant that was very helpful as well. Q: What about managing staff ex- pectations and the inevitable water cooler talks about how the pieces on the chessboard will shake out? A: Being employee-owned, we tried to be very transparent, and over communicate with our employee-owners. Q: Related to that, what’s your best guidance on managing difficult discussions for those who won’t be moving up? How do you ensure retention of that talent? A: The beauty of employee-ownership is that everyone on the team wants the company to be successful. This strengthens support and collaboration between leadership. Everyone wants everyone else to be success ful because it benefits them and everyone else. Our compensation structure encourages this. Those that may not have received the pro motion they were hoping for are minimally impacted from a financial standpoint, them and everyone else. Our compensation struc ture encourages this and those that may not have received the promotion they were hoping for are not really impacted from a financial standpoint.

Q: So was your overall plan fully in place heading into this process, or did it require fine-tuning before you started discussions with all the folks involved? A: We hired an external consultant about six years ago, to help us with both leadership development and succession planning. The process was continuously tuned, and always evolving and improving. Q: Did you learn anything from that consultation that impacted the trajectory of your planning? A: Yes, the consultant was invaluable. We’re a construction company; for the most part, all of us are people who focus on building things. We didn’t have the same level of educa tion or training in leadership development or succession planning, so it was important for us to hire somebody who did. It was a firm from Dallas, and again, they were invaluable in helping us with what the overall plan needed to be. “You don’t ever really develop a plan and be done with it. Succession planning is a process that is never-ending.” — Mike Heitmann, CEO, Garney Construction

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I ngr am ’ s

Kansas City’s Business Media

September 2023