While Chris Waits was a student at Kennesaw State University more than 20 years ago, he took a job at the returns desk of his local Home Depot.
Eight positions, nine states and 11 moves later, Waits is now the vice president of the company’s Mid South region, responsible for parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana. It took two years for his college career to play out, Waits said, and his Home Depot career to begin in full force.
From the returns desk, he became a department supervisor in lighting and fans, working his way to assistant manager in three years and store manager in four.
Waits, an Eagle Scout, said he learned early on to always be prepared for whatever opportunities came his way.
“You can’t just react to things all the time,” the Marietta native said. “Life’s a lot more enjoyable when you are prepared. You tend to have better results.”
Q: Tell me what you learned as a store manager that helped inform you in your job now.
A: The most important thing I learned from mentors in the company was take care of your people. Focus on your associates and genuinely get to know them and care about them. ... If you’re like that even when people aren’t watching, you have a good career. It’s not so much what you do when everyone’s paying attention. It’s when there’s no one else around, are you doing the right things?
Q: Did you end up going back and getting your degree?
A: No ma’am. ... I would love to go back and finish up. I have a couple years left, I guess. ... Right now, things that are important to me are my current job and my family.
Q: Did you always intend to return to Atlanta?
A: I enjoy coming back to Atlanta because this is the company’s hometown and where we started and we should have a lot of pride in our stores. We should have the best-looking stores, we should have the best associates, we should be setting the pace for the company and really representing the brand well. ... I think the challenge is more to get the team morale back up and getting motivated again, rallied around [Chairman and CEO] Frank [Blake]’s focus and vision. ... Those aren’t just things you can send an email out about; they’re things you have to change at the core.
Q: What are some of the things you’ve done as a leader to change morale?
A: My focus has been around empowering store managers. First, showing them the vision, give them the direction ... then empowering them to make decisions and not Monday-morning quarterbacking them, but allowing them to make some mistakes and have their back. ... You take care of your people like that and give them that empowerment and show them positive recognition, they’re going to do well. But you also have to be in the stores to recognize them, to catch them doing something right.
Q: How do you reward them?
A: You just recognize them in front of all of their peers, on the floor, during a walk.
Q: What’s their reaction?
A: It’s unbelievable. You can’t underestimate how powerful giving someone positive recognition is. Giving people confidence that they’re doing the right thing and that you support them is really big.
Q: Do you think someone starting off on the returns desk now would have the same opportunities to rise through the company?
A: Sure, absolutely. We recognize talent regardless of where you start. ... If you have any type of leadership skills at all, we can work with that and next thing you know, you’re a department supervisor. ... It’s still possible today.
Q: When you started, did you have aspirations beyond store manager?
A: I went to a department supervisor training class and they talked about setting goals. ... That’s when I really wrote out some long-term goals: become an assistant manager in three years, a store manager in five, a district manager in 10, a [regional vice president] in 15. And then that was as high as I’d really thought. ... I really caught myself when I got promoted to RVP, thinking, what’s my next set of goals?
Q: What are the next set of goals?
A: Well, the first thing is, I do want our region to be the best-performing region. ... I think when I’ve gotten to that point maybe the next job — if it’s available and they’re willing to give it to me — I think I’ve earned at that point. I’ll definitely take that. Division president. [There are] three. So it’s a pretty lofty goal. So if it takes time, that’s OK, too. And in the meantime, I’m having a great time doing what I’m doing.
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