TOUGH MAN, TENDER CHICKEN: Business and Life Lessons From Frank Perdue by Mitzi Perdue

Author:Mitzi Perdue [Perdue, Mitzi]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Significance Press
Published: 2014-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

Finding and Hiring the Future Leaders

Frank cared deeply about human resources, and the person he relied on for heading the HR department while I was there was Rob Heflin. Joining the company in 1977, Heflin got to witness the company’s growth from 3,000 associates to what it is today, 19,000.

Heflin came in contact with Frank a fair amount during his career, partly because his office was located close to Frank’s and party because, as Heflin put it, “Frank was absolutely avid about insuring we were hiring the best talent available, because they would be the future leaders of Perdue.”

To get the best talent, Frank used to insist that Heflin and his colleagues check at least ten references for any managerial candidate they were considering. As Heflin delicately put it, “Frank was not fun to be around” if you told him you had a finalist candidate and hadn’t yet done the required amount of reference checking.

Frank talked with me about his reason for wanting ten references. “When a person gives five references, he or she has chosen people who will line up like mynah birds to give the story he or she wants told. Instead, ask the references who else knows the applicant, and then talk with the individuals the applicant hasn’t already coached on what to say.”

Besides being unusual in his insistence on ten references, Frank was also innovative in his college recruitment efforts. Frank instituted the most extensive college recruiting program in the industry, and he started doing college recruiting a decade before his competitors.

According to Heflin, company representatives would visit between 15-20 college campuses annually, and Frank would sometimes come along. “He was always the greatest hit with the college kids, partly because of his celebrity status, partly because of being such a successful entrepreneur, and partly because of his great personality and persona around the college folks.”

Heflin admired that Frank, as well as Don Mabe “cared tremendously about every associate in the company, including our hourly production folks.” For Heflin, as a human resources practitioner, “It is most unusual to have senior executives at the President and/or CEO level be this visible to the hourly workforce.”

Heflin has an all-time favorite memory of Frank. They were flying on the company plane on their way to the Cromwell, Kentucky plant. Frank had been on vacation, attending the tennis matches at Wimbledon, which we did every year.

“It was early morning and still dark in the plane,” Heflin recalled. “Frank was sitting right next to me. He had this large black satchel that he had carried with him for decades, and he began pulling papers out of it. I noticed that as he began reading the papers, he was mumbling to himself.

“‘Damn,’ he’s say, and then he’d flip the page to get to the next one. ‘Damn!’ he’d say again.”

“After several repetitions of this, I was getting curious. ‘Frank, what’s going on?’”

“‘I’m reading these production reports,” he said, “and obviously I’ve taken my eye off the ball. It’s clear I need to talk with our manager at Cromwell about what’s been going on since I’ve been gone.

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