101217_Blog134_Gant words

One of the joys I’ve had covering the textile industry over the years is being in the presence of passionate, visionary leaders. One of those chief executives is Allen Gant Jr., who just retired as CEO of Glen Raven, the family-owned company founded by his grandfather in 1880.

I’ve had the opportunity to interact with Gant many times over the years, including last year when I conducted a video interview for a special project I’m working on. As was the case after every time I’ve heard him speak publicly, I came away inspired and excited by the wisdom he’s gained from a lifetime of leadership in the turbulent world of textiles, which he so freely dispenses.

So to honor and remember him as he opens the next chapter of his life, I thought it would be appropriate to share some highlights of speeches he’s given in recent years. I think you’ll see from these culled comments why and how Glen Raven was able to transform itself in less than two decades to become a true global leader of the industry. It starts at the top.

I pulled some key quotes from three speeches he gave: 1) At the 2013 Southern Textile Association meeting, when he was presented the association’s highest honor, The Chapman Award, at Isle of Palms, S.C.; 2) At the 2015 IFAI Outlook Conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.V.; and 3) at the Wake Forest University Center for Private Business panel, in which he participated with Parkdale CEO Andy Warlick in April in Winston-Salem, N.C.

As you can read, change and innovation are key themes, regardless of the audience he is talking to.

So here in the boxes on this page is Gant, in his own words. Hope you come away equally inspired:

“On 9/11, we woke up one morning and for seven days our company didn’t get an order. Not one order. And when you have 3,000 people that you’re taking care of and you don’t get one single order for a week, it gets very exciting very quickly.

“And we decided we had to change and we had to change dramatically. We were 90 percent apparel and we discovered we were not smart enough, quick enough nor had a cost position to be competitive on a global basis in apparel. So we set about changing our company.

“Today we have less than 1 percent apparel and the apparel we have is extremely technical. It’s fire retardant, it’s chemical resistant, and hopefully every person who’s on an oilrig on some platform in this world is wearing it.

“And I admire the people who have the ability to compete in the apparel industry. We just didn’t have the organization to do that. So we turned our people loose – absolutely turned them loose. And we figured out how to unshackle the brains of our employees.”

“A billion people in this world in the last five years have moved from severe poverty into another level of income. Now what does that do for us? It does some very basic things. When you are no longer consumed with the effort of eating – in other words, when you don’t spend your entire day trying to figure how you’re going to get enough food to eat, then you can become a productive, innovative, creative business person.

“And understand that business is the largest social entity in the world. More people are involved in business than they are in anything else. It is the social fiber that holds so many things together. And when you add a billion people – 1/7th of the world’s population – into that productive mode, things begin to happen.”

“At one time, we were in the pantyhose business. My father invented pantyhose. We changed the world of fashion. But we haven't been in the pantyhose business for 30 years. We walked away from that. You have to have the courage to move away from those things that no longer yield the results for your economic stream.”

“Figure out how to have an environment in which you can unshackle every single brain you have to become creative, innovative people.

“When we said a decade again that we would not have a lost-time accident, I never dreamed we’d go 10 years without a lost-time accident. I never dreamed that there’d be facilities that would go years without a single incident or injury. I’m talking about not even a bruise. It’s amazing.

“When we said we were going to go landfill-free by the end of this year, every facility that we have in the world would be landfill-free. Our Anderson, S.C., plant is a million square feet, 675 employees, and not one pound goes to the landfill and hasn’t for years. And that includes the food that comes out of the commissary. It’s all recycled one way or the other.

“Innovation, innovation, innovation – it’s the key for us. It’s given us a new lease on life at 133 years old. And the company is growing, prospering and it’s like living a dream. I can’t tell you how excited I am to go to work every single day. And every single employee feels the same way. We’re laughing, we’re having fun, and I have no idea what we’ll be doing next year. But it will be fun, it will be innovative.”

“In society, every time we’ve shackled someone, we’ve taken away their innovation. It is the key for us. I think it’s the key for this industry. I think we’ve got to innovate beyond anything we’ve ever dreamed of. I don’t know what fibers we’re going to be using, I don’t know what markets we’re going to be in, but it’s going to be a fun business if we have the courage and the strength to unshackle our people and turn them loose.

It takes a great deal of confidence, because every now and then you have to watch them fail. And as long as it doesn’t cost the company, you’ve got to grit your teeth and let them learn. That’s just part of it. But in doing so, you end up with an extremely strong company and industry.”

“The answer to the question that you might have about anything, in my opinion, is leadership. It’s all about leadership. And do you have the courage to do something different with your assets, with your people or with the industry you’re in or do you have the courage to move away from the industry that’s no longer productive for you into a business that is globally competitive and productive for your employees, associates, families, etc.?

“And it all to me falls into the category of leadership. One simple word. Unfortunately, not many of us get to practice that in a way because we blame so many outside influences over our business that make us non-competitive and not fall back and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Go look in the mirror. It’s leadership.”

“We need to think of things in terms of paradigm shifts because for some reason we’re attracted to paradigm shifts. We’re attracted to things that really move the world and shape the world. And don’t move the needle just 2 degrees, but move it 30 degrees or 40 degrees. And if you’ve ever handled a boat, it takes a lot of energy once you’re on a plane to turn a boat one way or the other. And that same thing is true with everything we do in life.

“The reason I use the words “paradigm shifts” is I want to push you out of your comfort zones. I want you to recognize that your business is a paradigm shift. I want you to treat the changes that you have to make in the next six months as a paradigm shift because you’ve got to move the energy of your people and associates down the continued path your on or a new path. And you have to make that decision. You have to decide whether or not you have continued excellence in a way that will make you globally competitive. And if you do, then how do you make it better? And how do you open it up and how do you make it successful?

“I want to impress upon you the importance of the journey that you’re about to take. And you might say to me, ‘what journey am I about to take?’ The world is going to change while you are here and unless you’re prepared to change with it and get more competitive, you will lose the fight you’re in by tomorrow. There are no less than 100 million people that would love to have your business today. And, quite frankly, they would be happy to kill you to get that business.”

“In my opinion, the reason the United States has the economy it has today is because we have had the ability to innovate freely for 300 years. We have been unshackled. We have been able to create a business and we have been able to fail at business. We have been able to invest. We have been able to have real property.

“And now we've gone through a period of time where we've put shackles on our businesses. Every time we have a regulation, some restriction, that's a shackle. But if I walk over and put a shackle between you and me, we would spend the next 24 hours trying to get out of those shackles. We wouldn't spend the next 24 hours innovating our business to try to figure out a smarter, quicker, better way to run our business. That's where you win.

“If you're able to harness the emotional energy of the people and give them the responsibility to innovate, you win. I'll take that team every day. It's all about people.”

“Every single thing that you sit in, live in and do has had a design factor. And how do you create an environment in which those design factors and innovations can bloom inside your company, bloom inside your industry and bloom inside everything you’re a part of? And the secret we have sitting here tonight is how do we create that environment? How do we create an environment with our associates to thrive in, who will have continued excellence?”

“We (at Glen Raven) have a culture that’s so unique. If I hurt, they hurt and if they hurt, I hurt and we truly care for each other in a very deep way. We’re also tough on each other and throw each other under the bus in a matter of seconds. But at the same time we pick each other up every day.”

"Most of us hire our associates in our own image, and that can be one of the worst things you can ever do because you all think alike and you think through problems alike. We've spent a great deal of time trying to make sure that our teams have different people with different strategies and different ways of thinking about things – introverts, extraverts, across the board. We have great diversity so that all of the issues on the table are looked at from every angle.

“You can't run all your plants by yourself. You have to have thousands of people who have the same vision, who have the same understanding, who have the same passion. But they have the ability to make decisions on their own every day. It's people who make the difference.”