Local Leader Spotlight – Ernie Sweeney
By Patricia Kopec
At Intrigue, we believe in empowering leaders and strengthening communities — that’s why we have decided to spotlight a ‘Local Leader’ each month!
Our Local Leaders are individuals who have shown both professional leadership and leadership within the community.
We are proud to live and work in communities with many amazing people who exemplify these qualities!
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Ernie Sweeney is the President & CEO at Würth Canada. Würth’s core product range consists of everything from DIN fasteners, to electrical connectors, to tools, to the complete Würth line of chemicals, all of which have a well-received reputation for high quality worldwide.
Watch the ‘IM in a Car’ segment below to see Ernie being interviewed by Intrigue co-founder Rob Murray — it’s all about leadership, management, growth, and communication.
Can you give the audience a snapshot in terms of where you’ve come from, how you became involved with Würth, and what you’re up to today with Würth Canada.
Würth is a privately held, German-based company with a lot of long-term employees. Everyone is involved every day in sales and partnering with companies around the world. They visit over three million customers every day, are the largest employed salesforce in the world, and they are the leader in sales and distribution of fasteners.
Joining in 1988, Ernie joined the company as a finance manager even though he has a degree in sales and marketing. He likes sales, marketing, and being in front of customers. There are four Würth companies in Canada with 100 employees in Guelph and 27 companies in North America.
For 11 years he was a finance managers, and in 1999 his former boss left the company. At this time, Ernie was given the opportunity to be the Commanding Director and in charge for the entire company in September 2013.
Did you know it was coming, that you’d be the head of the company?
No, you don’t know these things in advance, you try to position yourself. You have to be in the right position, at the right time, with the right attitude, and with the right results. The right attitude and results is very important.
We were a company of 26 when I joined and next year we’ll be over 570. We still have growing pains today and you have to adopt and adapt.
How many people were in the organization when you took over?
There were approximately 330 employees. We’re on our way to doubling.
There’s not a lot of people that I’ve had an opportunity to talk to who are managing 500 people. There’s a lot of people who might be watching this that do content around startups, and people talking about how to grow a business, but there’s not a lot of content around how to manage a large group, and create change in a way that doesn’t get a lot of friction. I’m curious, when you have a large or small organization change, what things do you keep in mind?
We all have to be decision makers and have the right vision. You also have to surround yourself with the right people. I’m very fortunate because I was able to find myself a great group of individuals who work closely together. The decisions we make are in a group. No idea is thrown away, we review everything and make ideas in teams.
We have different groups for different matters. We get together and review what’s best for the company, for the strategy, for the targets, and the vision. We communicate decisions in a very clear way, with as much advanced notice as possible. It’s important to have everyone onboard.
Change management isn’t a selling job, it’s getting buy-in from everyone where they can see the benefits for themselves, for the company, and for their department — and they can feel their part of the solution and decision-making process.
I find it can be difficult sometimes to take the time to articulate the message to everyone. When you have a team of 500 people how do you go about making sure the individuals understand their impact personally and organizationally?
It’s all about team. We have many different teams at Würth Canada. We focus on a 10:1 ratio, one manager is responsible for 10 individuals — the manager works for the individual which is very important. In this manner we are able to share ideas and benefits for each individuals and communicate it across the organization, and quickly.
It’s important because we need to understand that any organization is only as good as its employees. Certainly Würth Canada wouldn’t be anywhere without them. In our case, we always look at our customers first, and employees are a close second. Our customers pay for our employees and without employees we can’t achieve anything. Regardless of how long it takes for a manager to explain, the changes must be done clearly and sufficient time allowed for everyone to understand, accept, and move on. In the end everyone must move on and adapt to the changes.
At Intrigue it’s similar, we’re upside. Ownership is on the bottom, managers, front-line staff, and then customers at the top. I’d love to touch on what you just said — I feel like it’s subtle but remarkably important. The managers work for the team of 10. Can you break that down a little bit for us?
I’ve seen a lot at Würth Canada over the years, and have been around many different people, managers, staff, and salesforce, and I can tell you that different ideas on how to manage people and control or deal with different issues. In the end, the team is only as good as the members and the manager is put in place for a number of reasons. One important reason is to lead, train, coach, mentor, guide, instruct, and educate employees. I keep telling our managers that people don’t just report to us. However, managers must be working for employees because this is the only way we can create faster ownership, a sense of belonging, and accountability between team members.
There’s very few business people who in a 15 minute conversation will bring up the importance of belonging. Can you help us understand what that means at Würth Canada? I feel it’s very important in a work, family, or social setting, but I find it gets dismissed in a corporate environment. So to hear someone like you talk about that as being core to the success of the organization: First, what does it mean? Second, what does it mean?
From my perspective it means, employees and colleagues must feel that they are a part of Würth and Würth is a part of them. What goes on in the company is the result of everyone’s actions and everyone’s efforts. It’s important for each and every colleague, and the organization, because people will be more willing to commit, to engage in different activities, and they’ll go a step further to get things done when they know the company will benefit and they will benefit. This is why belonging is so important to be spread out across the organization, especially managers. It will be difficult to achieve goals if they don’t feel like they don’t belong.
To change directions, being such a large sales organization, and being the head, what’s at the core of successful sales from your perspective?
What I tell many colleagues, one common element of almost all successful sales reps and managers is organization. Without proper organization they would not be able to properly service all of their customers. We have 85-90 active customers per sales rep so this is extremely important.
Also, without the right attitude you will never be successful. Some days you will have rotten days, but you still need to get up the next morning, put a smile on your face, have the right plan, follow the plan, and be organized. This will put you in a position to be much more successful than leaving home lost. If you’re not organized and don’t have the right plan, then it won’t work.
We have to flexible because if you think of going after the same goal, day in and day out, with the same process and always expecting better results, it will never happen. You have to be flexible and adapt to change. Change is the only thing that is constant and redirect yourself when you need too.
If Ernie were to go back 19-20 years, and tell yourself something you know now that you wish you knew then, what would it be?
I would have focused on improvements in communication. We talked about how do you share the plan and get colleagues to buy-in. Tthe importance of proper communication and clear expectations. I would focus on improving communication in the organization. This would have created more opportunity for growth at Würth. Communication is one of the areas of improvement for any organization.
Can you give us an example of where communication impacted results? Why is it so important?
It’s important because as we continue to grow, and with growth comes change, and to have everybody to accept change communication is extremely important. The more people who understand the need for change, and can adapt to it, will be more productive and help the entire organization.
We support 500 employees, but we also support 500 families. Having the courage to make tough decisions is very important and when you make them, you need to communicate them properly. The management team meets on a regular basis to implement change and share news. I don’t say to them we need to do this. I try to explain the reasons we’re doing it and how can we get there. We empower people to take risks. If people don’t take risks, they won’t know the extent of their abilities. Empowering people, taking risks, and proper communication is a lot of work but it’s a lot of fun.
