Oct 5, 2022
Audrey Darley Welch heads up the
partner program for Darley Defense, W.S. Darley & Company’s
military distribution business and its largest division. Her team
manages the company’s partnerships with key suppliers of tactical
and fire-fighting products and services. In this episode, Audrey
shares lessons she learned from working in various industries and
now at Darley. She tells how she adapts to working in a
male-oriented field, how she applies sports metaphors to her team,
and what she learned from bad assumptions.
https://bit.ly/TLP-327
Key Takeaways
[2:09] Audrey originally had
intended to become a high school math teacher and volleyball coach.
But she didn’t realize you had to be a calculus whiz to teach
algebra! She decided to go into finance, instead. She is still
passionate about sports and coaching.
[3:01] Darley, a family-owned
business of four generations, has a family employment policy that
requires family members to work outside the business for a period
before joining Darley. Audrey had not planned to work at Darley.
She started a banking career after college. After three years, she
considered joining Darley. For a year she went to board meetings
and shareholder meetings and researched Darley.
[3:53] When Audrey decided she
wanted to join Darley, she wrote an application essay. The open
position was a dealer development person for Darley’s legacy pump
division. She got the job and spent a year working in that area but
it was not the ideal position for her background in finance and
relationship management.
[4:28] Audrey was interested in
getting exposure to different areas of the business. She found a
position in supplier relationship management in the Defense
Division. It was a job she was weel-qualified for and she has been
working in the supplier relationship function for the last seven
years.
[5:40] Working at a large bank
before coming to Darley allowed Audrey to see how big companies do
things, their policies, and their structure. She was able to see
what her strengths were at work. The largest thing she learned was
the discipline and accountability of being part of a professional
organization.
[7:03] Audrey feared before
joining Darley that she would have to follow her father’s
leadership style. He is an extrovert and Audrey is introverted.
Audrey’s advice to the next generation would be to be natural. She
also advises the next generation to find out what fresh ideas the
business needs to set it up for success, respecting the secret
sauce, the family. Darley has had 300% growth in the last five
years.
[10:01] Audrey doesn’t have a
problem with being an offspring, the fourth generation, or being a
woman in a male-dominated field. She works well with her male
cousins and men in the industry. She goes on pheasant hunts,
fishing, and to the Wisconsin supper clubs with the men, so being a
woman didn’t make a difference to her career. Audrey describes a
Wisconsin supper club, for those unfamiliar.
[12:34] Audrey talks about one’s
personal responsibility to pursue professional development.
Especially in the family business environment, it’s all about
initiative. She doesn’t expect her generation to be nurtured in the
business. Each person needs to pave their own way. Audrey
recommends a career map with a “From-To” statement and figuring out
what kind of experiences you need to get there.
[15:26] Does Audrey want to be
President? At Darley, there is no job description for President;
currently, the CEO, President, and Chairman are all the same
person. So Audrey went ahead and developed a job description for
the President as she sees it and as she thinks she would do well in
that role, and where they can split off CEO responsibilities. She
finds those types of exercises to be very refreshing.
[17:25] Soon, the fourth
generation will get together to talk about all the positions and
get clarity on succession planning. Everybody at Darley has worn a
lot of different hats, and it’s time to separate their roles,
especially of the senior leadership team.
[18:51] In a mid-level role like
Audrey’s, leadership is tough. She has five direct reports and will
soon have six. The company is trying to scale, with top-level
goals, and every team is checking that their goals align with the
company goals, but managers may not realize they do not align with
cross-functional team goals. Audrey shares a misstep she had made
with goals that impacted the Sales Team’s goals.
[22:11] Audrey presented to
senior management in a virtual meeting the initiative she had
developed. When she heard “crickets,” she knew something was wrong.
She started getting pushback from sales and business development.
Her incorrect assumptions had damaged her trust level across
departments. Sales reps started having friction with account
managers. Get feedback! Silence is not compliance!
[24:46] Audrey ties a lot of her
leadership to sports and the volleyball she played in school. She
was the setter in volleyball, setting her teammates up for success.
The setter is usually named the captain of the team because they’re
running the plays. At work, she considers herself the captain of
her team, and the coach. Audrey is concerned about perfecting the
fundamentals.
[25:46] Audrey’s volleyball
coach had her do 1,000 repetitions against the wall before coming
out for a game to start setting people up in the warm-up. She uses
repetition at Darley, focusing on strategies and core
competencies.
[27:30] Sports metaphors may not
work for everybody. Audrey says something that applies to almost
all sports is never to sacrifice form for speed. That’s how you get
injured. Slow down to speed up.
[28:45] Government contract bids
need to be submitted within 72 hours. Audrey says that cutting
corners on supplier due diligence can cause problems. Darley’s core
value is integrity, and speed is not integrity. Never bypass your
core values.
[31:54] Audrey tells how she
achieves work-life balance. She has her priorities straight. Even
so, when she chooses personal over business or business over
personal, sometimes there is some guilt felt. Her husband helps.
Figure out work patterns with your partner or whoever is helping
you with all this and get into a routine.
[34:38] Audrey does not think
remote work will go away. Audrey prefers hybrid to all-remote.
About 60% of companies are offering remote work. It’s not a fad.
Audrey values in-person collaboration.
She values in-person
collaboration time in the office. That can be managed in
two-to-three days. Remote doesn’t work for every position. Audrey’s
quality of life has drastically improved through hybrid
work.
[37:08] Audrey comments on what
veterans can do to have a successful transition to business life.
Veterans at Darley are very aligned with and connected to the
mission, which catapults their careers forward. The biggest
challenge is understanding the business world. You need to be
flexible and wear different hats. You may be uncomfortable. Getting
an MBA before coming to Darley helps a lot.
[40:21] Three points that will
help anyone transitioning into the business world:
1. Be curious, 2. Be adaptable, and 3. Figure out ways to be
confident without knowing everything about everything.
[41:04] Audrey’s closing thought
for listeners: Build your sounding board early. Besides joining
forums, having mentors, and tapping the knowledge of the board of
directors, it is most important to participate in a peer group to
help you get where you want to go.
[42:37] Closing quote: Remember,
“There is only one corner of
the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own
self.” —Aldous
Huxley
Quotable Quotes
- “I found out that I’m very detail-oriented and
I do like relationship management on the customer side.” —
Audrey
- “Are we setting up the future of the business
for success with the way that we have it? Right now, we’ve had 300%
growth over the last five years.” — Audrey
- “When it comes to building trust and
relationships, I’m out there doing the pheasant hunts, and the
fishing, and the beer-drinking, and the supper clubs in Wisconsin
up near our plant, and all that. So I don’t think [being a woman]
really did play a role.” — Audrey
- “I ran through, ‘This is what it means for the
division, this is what it means for sales.’ I was trying to
highlight all the good things that would come from an initiative
like this. … It was like ‘crickets.’ … Sometimes not hearing
anything at all can be a message.” — Audrey
- “[Sports] is where it all started. And I still
do, I tie a lot of it back to sports, or even just fitness, in
general. I was a setter in volleyball, very much the quarterback or
the point guard equivalent. You’re setting people up for success.”
— Audrey
- “You won’t hear me say I don’t value that
in-person collaboration time.” — Audrey
- “We’re a distributor and we sell a lot of
different types of products, we call on a lot of different types of
customers. … They may not feel as comfortable. … Everybody’s bought
into the importance of the equipment we sell.” — Audrey
Resources Mentioned