How can a group of Type-A personalities lead together?

When Stellar Industrial Supply, Tacoma, WA, announced it was adding Larry Davis, former president of ORS Nasco, to its executive team, people in the industry began asking that question. Would Stellar President and CEO John Wiborg be scaling back his role in the company? Where did COO Steve Slater fit in?

"We are a bunch of crazy Type As," Wiborg says in an exclusive MDM interview. "But we have a very common understanding of core principles that we intend to stick to. … We want to win, and we want to do it right."

Davis agrees: "At the end of the day, we want to win more than we care about being right."

Rather than stepping back, Wiborg says his enthusiasm and energy are increasing thanks to the opportunities the addition of Davis brings to Stellar.

Wiborg says Stellar brought Davis on board to help focus the company's strategy. "We know how to grow," he says, "but we want to do it faster and more effectively. Larry brings a proven skillset around sustainable growth."

The key is to not get bogged down in whose tactics are the right ones, Wiborg says, but to understand how they're all working toward the same goal.

"I don't care if I'm right about tactics," he says. "I want us to be right in the long haul about delivering value."

Read more from Tom Gale's interview with Stellar Industrial Supply's executive team in the Sept. 25, 2014, issue of MDM Premium.

Listen to the entire interview at https://www.mdm.com/stellar-interview