Most leaders lose their best people in the first acquisition. He went through two and kept his.
Most leaders lose their best people in the first acquisition. Darrius Jones went through two in three years and his team grew from 12 people to nearly 300.
He started with two leaders under him. He has about 20 now. Some of the original 12 are still there, promoted into marketing and supervisor roles across the company.
I have known Darrius for years. I wanted to know how he did it, so I asked him.
The first acquisition was a culture problem, not a business problem
His first company was small, privately held, and faith based. There were bible verses on the walls. Then a large public company bought them.
“Just the transition from those startup days where you can lean over to the lady in payroll and say hey, this thing is wrong. Now you have different lead ins, different politics, people you have to keep happy. Identifying those people, and making sure you’re listening to your team through that transition.”
He said the trap most leaders fall into is thinking they already know it all. His answer was the opposite. “Allowing myself to be the lifelong student who learns from everyone around him, and ultimately has a better toolkit because he picked up tools along the way.”
Morale is not money
Ask him how he kept people through the chaos and he does not talk about retention bonuses.
“Far too often we think incentives equals money. What I found out is two hours early release on a Friday is more impactful than 200 dollars to some of these folks.”
“Make sure the quiet person talks. You have to hear from everybody, then meet people where they are.”
“Frequent updates. You can’t leave them in the dark. Lead with the why. And if people understand you have their best interest at heart because you built genuine relationships, kids’ names, anniversary dates, they’ll go to the end of the earth for you.”
Not everyone wants to climb, and that is fine
I asked him about the people who produce but don’t want to move up.
“Every great team has people you don’t remember from the championship games who were pivotal to their success. Everybody can’t be a Michael Jordan. But you have to have the person who can make the three from the corner. Knowing their strengths and allowing them to be that role player.”
For the ones who do want more, his job is different. “If you’ve got ambitions, the know how, the attitude, the effort, my job is to create the path for you. If you can paint that path with people, they have allegiance with you. They know you care and it’s from a selfless point of view.”
His method for targets follows the same logic. He backs into them through conversation until the person has helped set their own number.
“You go from an order taker to a menu maker. If I’m an order taker, I don’t care if the burger is nasty, I’m throwing the plate on your table. If I’m a menu maker, I care about the quality of the food that comes out of the kitchen.”
Players win, coaches lose
“If we’re killing it, that’s because one of my leaders is doing something really good. If we’re stinking it up in an area, it’s because I’m not doing something correct. That’s how I hold myself accountable.”
“I gave up the me, me, me a long time ago. It got me nowhere. When I turned it into your growth, people started producing at a level where our results looked stronger by default.”
The honest part came when I asked what he would do differently. He did not reach for a highlight.
“I would have been bolder with the people who lead me. There are battles I could have chosen to fight that maybe didn’t matter in a year, but they mattered to someone close to me. I would have picked a few more of those battles my team thought were important.”
The hardest promotion is the one where you let go
Every promotion made him a different leader. I asked which version was hardest to leave behind.
“The director. I like to be in the weeds. But you can’t be in the weeds and in the clouds. The toughest thing is letting go of my ability to control the business from the weeds, and figuring out how to control it from the clouds. Part of that is giving my team my tools, so somebody is in the weeds with more tools than I had.”
And success now? Not titles.
“My success as a leader isn’t how many times I’ve been promoted. It’s how many people around me I’ve helped realize their dream. A promotion, a new house, a plane ticket out of the country for the first time. That’s how people remember you. Not Darrius the VP. Darrius as a piece of wisdom they use twenty years down the road.”
Two acquisitions, 300 people, and the answer the whole way through was never a system. It was attention.
How many leaders in your company could name the anniversary dates on their front line?