My first leadership charge in business was in 1995 at KCI Technologies. The employee was Rick Talley. My boss, Richard Cullum and I interviewed Rick together. Shortly thereafter I was promoted to manager of the tower engineering and inspections division.

The first hire that was entirely mine was Mike Lassiter. Then I brought Andy Haldane to my department on a lateral move. I stole him from Darryl Kroze who ran KCI’s telecom/civil engineering division.

Rick, Mike, Andy and I made up the tower structural engineering and inspections division. I referred to them as my horses because they were pulling the wagon.

The four of us were very productive. As such, clients sent a storm of work. It was not unusual for us to invoice $100,000 in a month…in 1996 dollars!

To keep the gold flowing, company headquarters sent temporary help from the KCI corporate headquarters. That “help” was anything but…

The temps could not keep pace with my horses. That was slowing production. Interfering with production was a deal-breaker for me. I had almost no deal breakers in business leadership, but that was one. I would not tolerate it. Not at KCI nor later at TEP.

None of those temps climbed towers. Tower mapping/inspections was done in pairs for safety and for production. One member of the team did the groundwork while the other did the tower work. The pair alternated those duties with each tower. It helped to keep the crew fresh over multiple towers and multiple days. With the HQ temps not being climbers, nor experienced groundmen, my horses had to do it all—while also training them.

Once I met one of the temps in Pennsylvania for a week’s mapping of 12 towers. I knew beforehand that I would have to climb all twelve. What I did not realize was that I effectively had to do all the groundwork too. The guy showed up on-site late, then left early.

Outside work requires daylight. That’s why my division’s practice was to arrive on-site at dawn then leave after dusk. The HQ guys would not work those hours. My ground man from HQ not only arrived after dawn, but he was also wearing dress slacks. After the second tower I told him that I’d map the remaining ten alone. Without a peep of protest, he ran to his Infiniti to hightail it back to the comforts of the corporate office.

However, even in the office my division and the corporate culture were not equally yoked. (To be fair to the HQ guys, almost no one ever met my standard for production with urgency.) Whether in the field or the office HQ’s interruption of my division’s production was unacceptable. It was an issue that I decided to solve because as the leader, I owned the problem. But I had no power, no influence, no way of getting urgent attention to my problem.

My solution: I sent a letter to HQ. The letter described why the guys they sent did not work out. As was my way, the letter was direct. In it I used descriptors such as “lazy,” “apathetic” and “poor work ethic.” For the salutation I wrote, “I Love You, Pete” with a red Sharpie. It included several red valentines.

Within minutes my boss, Tim Donohue, called me to his office. He wanted to see the letter that angered the entire planet earth.

I had their attention…and they would not fire me because my division was making them cash in buckets.

From that day on I was allowed to hire my own people. I went for more Thirsty Horses. One of them remains at KCI as that division head some quarter century later. Another is the CEO of TEP.

Apparently, my Valentine letter worked out okay.