The Leadership Search Group

19 Lakeside Lane, Suite 220, North Barrington, IL 60010 847-277-0008

Self Administered Interview Guide

While the information you provide is not the only basis for hiring decisions, it is helpful in getting to know you better through your unfiltered communication with us. You are not required to furnish any information which is prohibited by federal, state of local laws.

Mark P. Bidinger

11 Benton Court Algonquin, IL 60102

markpbidinger@aol.com

Education:

(Circle or highlight highest grade completed)

College/Graduate School: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8+ (4 undergrad, 2 MBA)

Gahanna Lincoln High School

~357 in graduating class (class size)

Top quartile (rank)

Extracurricular activities: baseball, wrestling, cross country

Offices/honors/awards:

Part time and summer work: Schaeffer Ornamental Iron, Landscaping.

A. College/Graduate School Name and Location

The University of Toledo: Toledo, Ohio

Grade Point Average: 3.75/4.0

Extracurricular activities, honors, awards:

Dean’s list

What undergraduate course did you like most? Why? Physics The professor was very engaging to a large class and gave real world examples. He would take time after class for any student.

What undergraduate courses did you like least? Why? I did not enjoy any class when the number of students was above 700 and the tests were strictly multiple choices.

How was your education financed? I paid for my own college tuition. I worked part-time and through the summers at Cardinal Industries, Alpine drive thru, Agler Davidson, and Schaeffer Ornamental Iron.

Part time and summer work:

see above

Other courses, seminars or studies: political science, history, civil engineering, mechanical engineering.

Activities: Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Intramural sports, Internship at

Membership in professional or job relevant organizations: ASQC, now ASQ

Publications, patents, inventions, professional licenses or additional special honors or awards:

Business Experience:

Please start with your present or most recent position and complete a different section (A, B) for each of your last two job titles, whether in your current company or with a different employer.

A:

McNichols Company: Metal Distribution of specialty items

Title: General Manager Midwest District.

Staff: Number of direct reports: 10

Indirect reports: 73

Total Staff: 83

1. What do you most enjoy about your job? I enjoy using varying leadership styles and techniques to help my team achieve goals they did not think they were capable of accomplishing. Watching the team succeed brings me great satisfaction. One example is landing the Steffes Account which required not only internal team work, but external teamwork as well.

2. What do you least enjoy? Overall, I've been very satisfied with my job. I've been able to work with some really interesting people. I have to say that I did have a job where there was an inordinate amount of paperwork. The time I spent working with my team was diminished due to the inordinate amount of unnecessary paperwork.

3. Describe the situation when you took the position. What shape was the job in with respect to sales, talent, resources, systems, etc? Specifically, what major challenges did you face?

The major challenges were building bench strength and the leadership talents of each individual manager. Over the course of my time seven Team Leaders, two Area Operations Managers, Sales Manager were promoted. A Fabrication Business Manager was appointed, and a trainer was promoted. These leadership improvements allowed the team to strengthen call presence, understanding buying signals, up-selling, cross-selling, follow-ups and overall District performance. On the operations side this allowed us to increase throughput without increasing manpower. New metrics included picks per man-hour, cuts per man-hour, and other real time feedback. Volume throughput increased double digit, while labor was reduced through natural attrition.

4. What are your key responsibilities and accountabilities?

Key responsibilities included P&L, gross profit, operating income, gross revenue, leadership development, account development, and cost management.

5. List your major accomplishments. Please quantify the information (e.g. 20% increase in sales, etc)

Grew sales 16% and profit 26% via targeted segment approach with specific solutions and sales processes.

Developed next generation leadership talent from within. Created strategic plan based on value proposition, to achieve double digit growth over the next

decade. Used lean initiatives to reduce wasted motion in warehouse by 33%, saving labor expense during

growth. Implemented Oracle eOne across four facilities, increasing inventory accuracy to 99% Established new shop floor layout for expansion of fabrication capabilities, received capital

approval for project.

6. What mistakes have you made in the position? What would you do differently if you could start over in the job?

Early on in this assignment I was too trusting of long term employees and their realized acumen about the business. I learned that just because you have been with a company 25 years does not mean the same as having 25 years experience. I learned even with long term veterans trust but verify.

What do you believe your current supervisor sees as your major strengths?

Due to my experiences in other industries, I am able to leverage my background knowledge to grow the district and increase processes and operational excellence. My strength is leadership and coaching of my direct staff as well as indirect staff. I am able to build a team unit that will generate results. I have the ability to make quick assessments and implement change that inspires long term growth in the organization.

7. What do you believe your current supervisor sees as your areas for improvement?

Early on the area of improvement would be the administrative tasks required by the organization, learning the various reports, processes, etc.

8. What has been your most recent overall performance rating in this job? Please explain the scale, e.g., 5=exceeds expectations, etc.

My most recent annual review was very positive in terms of both my leadership and results. In this organization a 5 is not awarded, in a scaling system I would have received a 4.

B:

Company name and kind of business: Elkay: A privately held international consumer goods and industrial building materials company with sales of $1 billion.

Title: Asia General Manager

Staff: Number of direct reports: 7

Indirect reports: 250

Total Staff :257

1. What did you most enjoy about your job? My most enjoyable experience was a startup in a foreign country. The situation was extremely fast paced and decisions had to be made rapidly throughout the day/month/quarter. I enjoyed building a staff diverse enough to be able to take on the challenge and make adjustments rapidly. I enjoyed working with diverse cultures and business backgrounds. I found great satisfaction in finding common ground to build cohesiveness and trust in the team. I enjoyed learning about entirely new sales processes and distribution methods.

2. What did you least enjoy?

I cannot think of anything I did not enjoy at Elkay I was in the leadership development program and constantly challenged with new and exciting assignments. I was there 9 years because there was no down side.

3. Describe the situation when you took the position. What shape was the job in with respect to sales, talent, resources, systems, etc? Specifically, what major challenges did you face?

At the time the business was losing cash each and every day. By working with the controller and reviewing the product cost structure, as well as customer pricing policy, we were able to identify the issues. Our organization had a major customer which accounted for about 40% of the volume. We were losing money because the customer was receiving their product below cost. We immediately met with the customer, explained the situation and provided several potential solutions. The customer chose to walk away and we were able to replace much of the business in 60 days with profitable customers. We became a cash positive entity. This stabilized the organization enough to allow the team to focus on talent, systems, recourses, etc. The next major challenge was the sales force. Upon investigation, many members of the team were operating their own businesses and not focused on this organization. The first step was to weed these people out, establish a market confident sales compensation program, and hire new recruits. Next, on the radar was the product development area. We used market analysis blitzes to determine demand and rapid prototyping to evaluate solutions. Safety and lean were the primary focuses in the plant.

4. What were your key responsibilities and accountabilities?

My key responsibilities included gross revenue, gross profit, operating income, and team development.

5. List your major accomplishments. Please quantify the information (e.g. 20% increase in sales, etc)

Increased bottom line 92%, by process improvement and organizational sizing. Improved inventory turns 47% via order staging and pull system implementation.

Raised China domestic sales volume 48%, through introduction of innovative stainless steel sinks into retail/distributor channel.

Made organization cash positive in 60 days by evaluating cost structure of product categories and eliminating 20% of SKUs that were non-productive.

Established contracts with top tier wholesalers to secure future revenue. Transformed customer base from small independent retailers to a top five distributor network in largest 10 cities in China.

Recruited multi-national top performers to all levels of the organization (including Controller) to establish financial discipline, cost effective operations and innovative sales / marketing.

6. What mistakes did you make in the position? What would you have done differently if you could have started over in the job?

My initial evaluation of the current staff from the acquisition was dead on. I should have trusted myself and acted earlier to make the required adjustments. In reflection, I discovered that the location of the business really has no bearing, the issue is strictly about business acumen and passion for the position.

7. What did your supervisor see as your major strengths?

My strengths were the ability to work 8,000 miles from corporate and get things done on time and under budget while moving the business forward quickly. He was impressed with my communication skills to corporate. A second strength was my ability to get things done the “Elkay” way in a country with differing views on business norms. In addition, I was able to handle adversity.

8. What did your supervisor see as your areas for improvement?

I continued to work on building new relationships back home as the Division President, CEO, and other key functions changed while I was living and working overseas.

9. What was your last overall performance rating in this job? Please explain the scale, e.g., 5=exceeds expectations, etc.

My score was a 4/5. There were no partial points and my supervisor did not believe anyone was a 5.

General Questions:

1. In the leadership roles you have held in general management, explain the environment in which you worked and how you aligned the various functional areas - sales and marketing, operations, finance, etc – for the betterment of the business.

I have worked in various environments from turnaround to sustaining success. In each of these the path can be quite similar. Some key considerations include what is the current culture? Is it in alignment with what ownership expects? How has the organization performed in the past? How does the team think the organization has performed? How are goals set? What behaviors were encouraged / discouraged? What is the history of change management? Once these types of questions are asked we can determine better gaps in alignment and goals. My methodology with goals and aligning functional areas has been to take my own goals and then work with each function to create goals that support the top level goals, and complete up and down the organization. For example goals for the VP of sales, linked to goals for outside sales, linked to goals for inside sales, etc. Goals for each area are shared with all areas so each understands how the other is trying to contribute to the overall success of the organization. Sometimes goals do conflict and the best approach is to acknowledge the fact and keep the team focused on the win/win.

2. Describe your experience in opening up new markets for your business. Tell us how you set about to identify these markets, how you analyzed them to see if there were a fit for your business and then how you infiltrated them, identified the “right” customers for your business model and built the relationship with them that led to business success.

My main focus has been to understand where we are today and where we might be able to go in the future From there I determine if our current processes and systems can support the new business development. One example would be moving from a transactional customer base to a contractual customer base. What changes, if any, would be required in pricing policies, terms and conditions, credit policies, and sales training. My methodology was to use the team to do much of the research and analysis to create buy in for the new direction. One point of growth was that the transaction cost per customer call was ~$300. As an example a $500 order with 45% GP i.e. $225 is actually a loss of $75. In this example the sweet spot for this business was the midmarket customer which placed orders from $1000-$10,000 on average. We designed the above policies and training around this customer base and re-emphasized the need to up sell and cross sell any customer below the sweet spot. We then attacked these contractual customers by understanding the true decision maker, obtaining and audience, and selling our value proposition. In this case it was our ability to hold their inventory for them in strategic locations and provide JIT delivery. While we were not the cheapest by far, the total cost of ownership for the customer was best practice.

3. Describe a time when you were able to develop and articulate a growth strategy as well as implement it. Describe the role you yourself played in both the strategy creation and implementation phases.

One particularly effective strategy I was involved in related to product portfolio management and proliferation. In this case creating, repurposing product lines to fit specific market segments. Examples are big box retail, wholesale, decorative showroom retail, and big construction. During the initial phase my primary role was facilitator. I found it effective to have each member do a strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats (SWOT) analysis from their functional perspective and then bring all the required market research data off site where the team could completely focus on the task at hand. One important aspect of this is to have all impacted functions at the sessions. For example, if marketing wants to develop a new product line for the big commercial market, design engineering, manufacturing engineering, manufacturing, and advertising need a voice at the table to lay out what is required. Once the analysis is done using SWOT and 5forces, a detailed action plan must be made and signed off on by all. At this point my leadership role switches from facilitator to coaching and command to make sure the team stays aligned and the project stays on track.

4. What analytic approaches and tools do you use?

SWOT, Five Forces, profit center analysis, cost center analysis, cost per transaction, customer profitability, Statistical Process Control, Overall Equipment Effectiveness, fish-bone diagram, material purchase price variance, KPI’s for the specific BU, sales per employee, Q/Q financial performance, Y/Y financial performance, market segmentation, market size, market share, to name just a few.

5. What seminars and/or formal education have you participated in over the last 10 years?

Kellogg School of Business (Northwestern) New Product Development

The New Strategic Selling

Toyota (Elkay) Production System

University of Toledo MBA

6. Have you significantly “raised the bar” for yourself over the last five years? What about for others? For each, explain how you did it: your approach, the problems encountered and the outcomes.

For myself, I believe taking an overseas assignment and a sales/distribution company assignment were significant growth events both of which required me to move out of my comfort zone. An example from a subordinate was moving from sales manager to fabrication business manager. This forced the individual to stretch significantly in their understanding of how fabrication is done, scheduled, how take-offs are done, and how approval drawing are completed. This allowed the individual to be much more effective when selling the product. Another example is moving a Supervisor from a very small facility where the individual was purely a working supervisor to the flagship facility where more hands off and more leadership was required.

In both cases there was a transition from directive leadership to coaching and facilitating leadership and delegating leadership. The lesson learned is that while an individual may be ready for delegation in one aspect they may not be ready in another.

7. If you were to arrange confidential reference calls with some of your major customers and professional relationships, what is your best guess as to what they would generally agree are your strengths and areas for improvement?

The strengths you would hear about are that my teams do what we say we are going to do. If we make a service commitment to land a contract we get it done for the customer. You would get the same feedback from an internal customer or even professional organizations such as Plumbing Manufacturers International or Metal Service Center Institute. Improvement areas might be public speaking.

8. What would reference checks disclose to be the common perception among peers regarding how much of a team player you are?

You win with people, sounds corny but it is true. Whose idea it is matters much less than helping the team get things done for the customer and the organization.

9. Same question, but this time from your direct reports?

Direct reports would describe me as highly supportive of their development and success, and willing to go to bat for them when they have passion around a new way of thinking. They would say I was willing to let them try new things and be all they can be.

10. When there is a difference of opinion do you tend to confront people directly, indirectly or let the situation resolve itself (give specifics)?

With a supervisor if it is a mission critical issue, then open frequent dialog often is the best approach. Same approach with peers. With subordinates it is sometimes appropriate to see if the team can self correct on its own before jumping in too early. For medium or minor differences of opinion that will not significantly impact the business overall it would be best to go along with the team and support any new directives.

11. When you delegate work, explain the process you use to determine what works gets delegated and what work you do yourself? When work is in fact delegated, how do you interact with those to whom you have delegated the work? What is your role in their work, if any?

Work I would do myself would be related to Business Model, P&L, Talent development, process methods and process discipline, and leadership approach. When work is delegated the instructions and expectations should be clearly laid out and documented, including due dates and level of details required. One lesson I have learned over the years when delegating, trust but verify. For example I may delegate the running of a kaizen event and have the team do the presentation at the end of the event, but I would reserve the right to check the analysis for accuracy and completeness.

12. In what specific ways have you changed an organization the most (in terms of direction, results, policies, etc)?

I believe in China the business unit was completely transformed through seeking new channels and new channel partners and developing products that solved problems in each channel. We continued the process on through the plant matching our production and distribution structure to our new sales structure.

13. What was your vision for your most recent job? Once in it was your vision supported by reality? If not, what did you do? If it were supported by reality, how did you make your vision a legacy?

My vision was to transform a significant percentage of the business from transactional (spot) purchases to contractual purchases. This allowed for larger more stable order book and backlog. Over time yes, as we added customer after customer to our contractual business model it became supported by reality. Twenty-five percent of the current business book is now contractual. The legacy is in the procedures and processes followed by outside sales, inside sales, and operations to support the on-going development of contractual business.

Self Appraisal:

Please provide a thorough self appraisal, beginning with what you consider your strengths, assets, things you like about yourself and things you do well. What are your shortcomings and areas for improvement?

A. Strengths:

Arranger: figuring out the right course of action on limited and or conflicting data. Effective flexibility if A does not work move on to B

Deliberative: stay focused stay the course on the strategy execution. Weight the risks and act accordingly.

Relator: able to communicate vision and goals and listen to others vision and goals. Relationships have value when they are genuine.

Self Assurance: I have faith in my abilities. I have faith in my judgment. Never second guess yourself, learn from any mistakes and move on quickly.

Significance: Want to be known for the strengths I bring to the table and have the organization use them to the fullest. Keep reaching for the next level.

B. What are your principal developmental needs and what are your plans to deal with them?

We all have strengths and weaknesses. My strategy in this areas has been to determine how my own strengths and weaknesses impact my current assignment, evaluate my team and their respective strengths and weaknesses, and align the strengths to overcome the weaknesses, i.e. play to each other’s strengths.

C. How would you describe your leadership philosophy and style?

Situational leadership, I prefer to choose the appropriate leadership style for the task at hand and use the techniques that work for each individual. One size fits all leadership will not work for the diversity of direct reports in today’s business environment. One of my primary objectives is always team development, so this is a primary consideration when determining what leadership style is appropriate in the moment.

D. How would you rate yourself – and why – in enthusiasm and charisma?

I have a great passion for business and for manufacturing in particular. I enjoy the business process from request for quote to invoice. I approach each and every day to instill my passion into my team and stretch for achievements that will empower and motivate the team

E. Do you consider yourself a better visionary or implementer? Why? Cite examples to prove your point.

At the GM level both are important. First you must be able to communicate your vision to the team and get them passionate about achieving the vision. Next you must work alongside them and encourage them to execute the vision. In the beginning, I am a better visionary. I need to know where we are going before I can effectively leverage my team for implementation.

One example was due to a new threat from low cost imports. The vision I established was a 25% cost reduction/cost avoidance goal in order to match this threat. Our kaizen event resulted in an excess of $3M cost avoidance for a larger annealing furnace. With the vision set, the team went to work.

This very simple solution resulted in 33% more throughput and removed the capacity constraint and the need for capital expenditure.

F. What do you suppose your subordinates feel are your strengths and shortcomings, from their point of view?

a. Strengths: feedback I have received includes: empowerment, encouraging, fair judgment, hearing all views on a subject before jumping to any conclusions.

b. Shortcomings: early on learning all the administrative tasks from RFQ to invoice. I overcame this by following several types of orders all the way through the process to understand the strengths and weaknesses of current state.

G. How do you work with subordinates? Fair and objective, I attempt to have a relationship to the point of knowing the person and what motivates them. Get the facts, meaning trust, but verify.

When you began your present (or most recent) position:

How many subordinates do (did) you have total, direct and indirect?

83

How many direct subordinates do (did) you have?

10

Of the direct reports you inherited, how many in each of the following categories did you have?

A player (or A potential)

1

B player (without A potential)

6

C player (without A potential)

3

In the past five years, how many direct reports have you hired or promoted who turned out to be:

A player (or A potential)

10

B player (without A potential)

10

C player (without A potential)

1

I have found it is much better to hire potential A players and develop them than having to expend valuable time managing C players. It does not work. One must stay very focused on the vision and the execution in this economy. If I am not sure about a candidate, I prefer to suffer through until I find the right fit. In the long run it is better for the organization and the team.

Career Needs:

What are your career objectives?

To continue my experiences as a General Manager and one day become a COO or CEO.

I certify that the answers given in this Self Administered Interview Guide are true, accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge. In the event that I am employed by the company which is interviewing me for a position, I understand that any false or misleading information I knowingly provided in my Self Administered Interview Guide may result in discharge.

Signature:

Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2013