Investing In Your Employees: Clark Lowe Of O’Connor Company On The Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Rising tides: the more your team grows, the company can also rise with those tides. Rarely, does any company succeed through individuals — companies rise and fall on the backs of teams working in the same direction. More organized and well-executed development leads to higher and higher tides.
Investing in team development has become increasingly crucial for forward-thinking companies, who understand that their greatest assets are their people. From implementing innovative training programs and wellness initiatives to cultivating a supportive work environment, these strategic investments play a vital role in enhancing employee satisfaction and retention. As the business landscape evolves, mastering effective methods to support and retain employees is pivotal for achieving long-term success. I had the pleasure of interviewing Clark Lowe, President and CEO of O’Connor Company.
Clark Lowe is a seasoned leader with a distinguished background in the United States Marine Corps, where he honed his leadership skills and developed a passion for guiding others toward a shared vision. With a Bachelor’s in Business, an MBA with a Finance specialization, and certifications in Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Project Management from Villanova University, Clark brings a robust blend of academic and practical expertise to the team.
Thank you for joining us. To start, could you share a little about yourself, and how you got started?
Ever since I was young, I wanted to have my own business. In the Marine Corps, I received my undergraduate degree in Global Business Management, and when I was working full-time, I obtained my MBA. Owning the results of my growth was important to me. I started by reading an immense amount of literature about business and leadership. At this point, I’m likely close to 100,000+ pages on the subjects and still continue to read and research.
What was your biggest challenge in those early days?
In the early days, just trying to get some bearing on how to make my dreams come true was very difficult. One thing that became quite clear early on, was I needed to change HOW I think. This was likely the biggest unlock in my younger years, as the people writing the material I was reading simply had very different thoughts and perspectives than I did. I started adjusting my frame to understand how they think — not necessarily always agreeing with what their position was.
Was there anything specific that inspired you to prioritize CPD initiatives in your company?
Through my journey, I understand how difficult organizing your success can be. Most importantly, everyone is different, learns differently, and has a different way of growing. Now, I teach a lot of frameworks — and thus, I do my best to grow and teach new leaders how to think. I don’t want the executives and managers around me to agree with or think like me; I want them to have genuine individual thoughts and perspectives!
Can you explain why this is important for the success of a business?
To churn new ideas as a business, you need to constantly be churning new leaders. Time catches up with us all, and eventually, we all fall victim to our own experiences. We solve today’s problems using the solutions we used yesterday. For me, this is why leadership development is vital to the success of a company: new ideas are truly the only profitable widget in our global economy that quickly commoditizes opportunities.
Can you please share with us, and briefly explain the first major initiative you started that directly benefited your employees?
One aspect I love doing with our employees is start, stop, and continue meetings. This meeting is all about process improvement and understanding what aspects of a process should continue, what we need to stop doing, and what new ideas we need to start doing. These types of meetings allow our employees to present new perspectives and voice concerns and allow leadership to see possible development opportunities for future leaders.
Do you have an example of a situation where you didn’t get the result you were looking for, and tell us what happened as a result?
Early in my career, when I exited the Marine Corps, it took me several years to understand that the hyper-competitive dynamics of the military did not transfer well to the corporate world. While corporations are competitive by nature, how people interact within teams, and how a company wins is more important than the actual winning itself. When I worked my first leadership job at Target, I amassed great results, but at the sacrifice of peer relationships. I operated in a silo and sought only for my team to succeed. I now realize how short-sighted that position was, even if I was a great performer on the scoreboard of metrics within the company.
What has been the most impactful CPD initiative you’ve seen other companies offer, and how did it inspire or influence your own approach?
The Marine Corps is a foundation of incredibly well-done CPD, in my opinion. Many experts assert the Marine Corps is one of the best organizations in the world in churning out high-quality leaders. In the Marines, leadership development starts early and is reiterated often throughout your career. From boot camp to leadership courses to day-to-day activity, aspects of leadership in consistently intertwined. Leadership and self-development are a way of life — not just a plan. That’s what I attempt to create out of O’Connor: a corporate culture where development is essential and is DNA to the company and day-to-day activity — not just a quarterly training, monthly newsletter, or bullet point in weekly meetings. I am always trying to find teachable moments that expand and uncover broader landscapes of the business and industry we operate.
What challenges might companies face when implementing these initiatives, and how can they overcome them?
The biggest challenge is organizing the effort and driving accountability. I view this as my primary goal as a leader. Even above and beyond company results, my job is to find and develop tomorrow’s dynamic leaders. As a result of doing this well, the company results will take care of themselves. In short, I make development the priority, and as a symptom of that success, we achieve company results.
Can you share a story of an employee who significantly benefited and how it affected their performance or career trajectory?
We had an amazing site supervisor who had a very promising career. He led a job for us — we certainly had lots to learn and grow. He was always easy to work with because he was so accountable for his own growth. He had foundational traits that leaders love to see: initiative, intellectual curiosity, an extremely solid work ethic, an outreaching perspective, and an empathetic vision for success. I worked with him daily and weekly, consistently finding teachable moments and giving him room to make his own decisions — at times, not great ones. Developing leaders is expensive and usually comes at the cost of poor decisions or missed opportunities. I have come to realize that most people learn far more from a mistake than they do from success.
Could you please list the “Top Five Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees”? Can you explain what you mean?
1. New ideas: developing new leaders and expanding the capability of current human capital always yields new ideas and perspectives.
2. Energy and productivity: Most people have renewed energy when they feel they are growing and getting appropriate, actionable, and consistent feedback. A well-executed teachable moment truly has a superpower in driving new energy into teams!
3. Cohesive teams: many companies operate through silos that have difficulty having cohesive strategies and outlooks. Developing leaders within helps tie your business together — especially those leaders who can generate strong lateral relationships.
4. Rising tides: the more your team grows, the company can also rise with those tides. Rarely, does any company succeed through individuals — companies rise and fall on the backs of teams working in the same direction. More organized and well-executed development leads to higher and higher tides.
5. High-quality people: In the words of John Maxwell, “People quit people, not companies.” To focus on curing turnover problems, really focus on people — especially those interfacing leaders. People really bring companies together, and most of the time, if you are experiencing a turnover issue, those issues are people-related.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these CPD initiatives?
I believe ROI is why many companies struggle with CPD programs. Not everything in business should be measured through ROI. The success of the company, meeting performance goals, being able to stretch teams to tackle new problems, and the growth of engagement are better indicators of strong CPD programs. ROI is tough to track because so many factors go into what “return” is and what costs are.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of CPD evolving in the next 5–10 years?
My hot take is that the business world will move towards what I call “individual self-regulated contributors.” This idea is something I push with my teams as we have a majority of our team working hybrid, remote, or travel. This idea is that we need to develop human capital differently in 2024 than in 2004. You start to see this indication of single contributor roles by the boomer “gig” economy, more people wanting to work remotely. Those types of leaders need new tools and perspectives. Even large companies such as Tesla and Amazon have had difficulties tackling these problems.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitating to make these changes?
Start with yourself and your own journey. You had to get where you are today through an amount of investment and growth. Imagine what you could do with your company if you had several more or dozens of people who continued to grow as you did. To me, growth is all about paying forward what I once received. Servant leadership is about continuing to help people on all levels grow and achieve their personal goals.
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further investing in your employees?
We are working rewriting everything in our company to support remote work. Job descriptions, training programs, compensation policies, etc. We are all in on this idea that remote work is coming to a business near you, and we want to be a leader in making that happen. We have some very unique ideas and perspectives that certainly go against the grain in our industry. So far, we are seeing great success with the new programs and we are excited to expand upon those opportunities.
How can our readers follow your work?
You can follow me on LinkedIn and check out our website. We discuss things both specific to the construction industry, and general leadership and management topics. Also keep an eye on our “in the Media” page where you can see various perspectives I have with a wide range of topics.
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur and Thought Leader with over 25 years of business experience. He has founded, operated, and exited multiple companies and now builds into a handful of high impact CEOs. Chad has launched multiple online communities, including a recent leadership development platform, and also serves as a strategic advisor for Authority Magazine’s thought-leader incubator program.
To learn more and connect with Chad visit: chadsilverstein.io
Investing In Your Employees: Clark Lowe Of O’Connor Company On The Benefits of Offering Continuous… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.