This week’s show we are going to talk about emotional intelligence and we are going to profile and emotionally intelligent president. He’s an executive who is constantly working on and applying emotional intelligence in the workplace. We’ll explore some of his secrets and the practice of emotional intelligence in his organization. You’ll hear actual emotional intelligence tools and practices that have been successful for him. How does he hire? What about downsizing—what are some of the ways that he does that? How does he motivate and deal with foreign owners using his emotional intelligence?
Myron Jones is the President of NMB Technologies. For over 50 years, NMB Technologies Corporation has been a global leader in the OEM manufacturing of precision mechanical and electrical components. NMB is the world’s largest manufacturer of miniature ball bearings, and a volume leader in design and manufacturing of keyboards, cooling fans, audio speakers, precision motors, and mechanical assemblies. NMB is an organization that provides exceptional quality, leading edge technology, and comprehensive services critical to the success in the personal computing, networking and telecommunications field.
I had the opportunity to talk to some of the people that Myron works with—he’s going to be a little embarrassed here. I asked them how they would describe Myron as a leader. One of the people said that he is the Warren Buffet of the emotional bank account. He has billions in equity with people. He has the ability to connect with virtually everyone, one of his employees said. People love his style, he gets more out of people because they feel valued.
So Myron, we are going to hear from you, and I know you hearing this, and you are very humble and I’m sure this is a little embarrassing, but I wanted to kind of at least let the listeners know just how well valued you are at NMB Technology.
Myron Jones: Thanks Relly.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Myron, is that the first time you’ve heard that?
Myron Jones: I have not heard that statement before. I think it’s greatly exaggerated.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Well, I’m not sure if that’s the case, but let me ask you a question. It seems like you and Relly have had a relationship, at least of a professional nature for a while. I’d like to know, for our listeners, if you could give us just a little bit about your background and how you came up the corporate ladder and a little bit about yourself personally.
Myron Jones: Thanks for asking. Well, I started after college in Aerospace. I worked at McDonald Douglas which is now Boeing and Pratt Whitney – United Technologies, airframe and engine guys. I left aerospace and joined electronics at NMB. During that time I went back to school to get a Master’s degree in marketing. I recognized I wasn’t such a good engineer and it was really, one of my better moves in my profession.
Through NMB I started out in field sales and just moved through the organization. I was a really loyal employee and through product management, sales management, and officer jobs until I became president of the company. It’s been a real fun ride.
Dr. Relly Nadler: You and I have known each other for about 10 years. Let me just ask you; when you think about your position there as president of the organization, what is it that excites you the most about that position. What is it that kind of gets you excited about getting up in the morning and getting to work?
Myron Jones: Well, you know a sucky night is not a bad night. I do look forward to going to work the next morning and I’m really grateful for that. There are three things that primarily excite me. The first is certainly achieving success in business. I love to make the numbers for the parent company. The second thing is that I like the relationships – the people side inside the company and with our customers. It’s really important to me.
The third is the cultural influence. I love to be able to influence the culture and make people feel like it’s a great place to work where they can really aspire and achieve. That really means a lot to me. A little later, I’ll tell a story about that.
Dr. Cathy Greenberg: Yah. I was just going to ask you. Can you just expand on this cultural influence component? It seems like it’s a very strong one for you.
Myron Jones: Oh, it’s huge. It is so huge.
Dr. Relly Nadler: Do you want to tell us a story about the culture and how important that is?
Myron Jones: Yes. I don’t think a leader can ever put too much time into the culture because it pays back so much. I’ll just tell you a quick story.
I think back in the 90s we had developed a pretty good culture at the company. On a Monday morning at 4:21 am the Northridge earthquake struck. Anybody in Southern California can remember that it was pretty violent. I lived about 30 miles away and it caused well over a couple of $100,000 damage in my house.
NMB was about 5 miles from the epicenter of that Northridge earthquake and it really did tremendous damage to our structure. We have three buildings on a site and one of them was yellow-tagged.
What was really neat, was that that morning and every morning that week, I was at the company trying to decide how we were going to start out business again. It was quite stressful. Our building was, again, yellow-tagged. We did not have a place to go. Our employees were showing up asking what they could do to help. This is not something that you just clock in and expect somebody to do beyond the ordinary. We had employees actually sneaking in the building grabbing their PCs. We had a big apple project that was due the next week, so we had a few employees actually snuck in, they weren’t supposed to, and took their computer and went back to homes and started to finish their projects.
We, by the end of the week, had found another place about 20 miles away and the employees again, were present, ready to help and wanted to help to have the company resume its business. That Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, that same week, we found some moving vans and had I think it was three of those 40 ft moving vans at the building and we were allowed to go in and take all that we had that we needed in order to do our business.
The next Monday morning at 8:00 am, a week after the earthquake struck, we had moved inventory, moved all our of our business tools, and started anew at this building in Moorpark. It was really exciting to see the employees without receiving extra pay, pitching in and making this move happen. It was really incredible and I think one of the legacies of our company of how the employees think about the company. That culture really paid off.
