Curtis Watson on growth
“Our goal is not to say that we’re the leading express company in South America with an asterisk and a qualifying statement behind it. We want to say we’re number one in South America, period.”
“Strengthen your resolve”
When you see Curtis Watson walking toward you in an office corridor, lots of words might come to mind. Underdog would not be one of them. Formidable—certainly. Imposing—perhaps. At 5 feet 10 inches and 210 pounds and with bulky shoulders and a thick neck that rarely sports a tie, Watson could easily be mistaken for a professional athlete visiting the office. A football player maybe. Or a weightlifter. But an underdog? Hardly.
But that’s exactly how Watson—who, by the way, is not a visiting athlete but general manager for Latin America for TNT Express—presents himself, and it’s a term he uses to describe others who are successful within his area of the business. It’s also the kind of person he looks for when he hires people to join his team. “Underdogs are scrappy,” he says. “TNT is by no means the leader in North America, and we’ve got to work really hard to carve out our position in South America. We’re not going to win every day. In fact, we’ll get knocked down from time to time. Underdogs get back up and keep fighting.”
At 37 and already with a 20-year tenure with TNT, Watson is proof of his own theory. He joined the company in his native Canada in 1987 when he was just 16 years old. He started as a “cuber,” a guy who measures boxes to be sure volumetric weight standards are met. “I swam competitively from 5 to 7 each morning, went to school from 8 to 3, then worked at TNT from 4 to midnight.” (That explains the shoulders.) “My job was to determine which boxes would yield higher tariffs based on volume. I had to be accurate and I had to be fast,” he recalls. “I was among the least paid people in the company, but I probably had the biggest impact on revenue.”
That lesson—that an individual’s position or level of formal training don’t determine the value of his contribution—has never left Watson. From his start with the tape measure, he became a loader in the warehouse and later a dock worker before “moving into the office.” Then, at age 19, he faced a crossroads. Shortly after being accepted to the prestigious Royal Military College of Canada, Watson was offered a full-time management position. His father—who had emigrated from Trinidad, spent five years at university then worked as an engineer with one company for 25 years—urged his son to go the traditional route to success that he himself had trod. But Watson chose his own path. “I thought, I’m young. If go with TNT and it doesn’t work out, I can always go back to school,” he says. “My parents were devastated.”
After two decades, TNT has more than worked out for Watson, and his experience has taught him how to spot others who have what it takes to make big contributions to the business. Not surprisingly, degrees from big-name universities are not necessarily on the list; strength of character and determination are. “When I interview people, I don’t even look at their résumés,” he says. “I can tell in an hour or two if a person has what TNT needs. TNT people are special. They have a never-say-die attitude. Never say it can’t be done. They’re passionate, but they’re humble as well. You have to be proud, but not arrogant.” Watson looks for communication skills, leadership qualities, integrity. “Technical skills are secondary. Those can be learned,” he says. “Character can’t.”
For Watson, who recently relocated from New York to Sao Paulo with his wife and three children, one of the most exciting things about the growth in South America is that it means TNT can now offer more people more opportunities. “I want to create a company that all our employees are proud to work for because they have personally witnessed where we’ve come from and where we’re going. I have everything I could want – a great family, a great job, and I love the people I work with. I want to achieve the number-one position in South America so every one of our people here knows—not feels, not believes, but knows—that they have the opportunity to be all they can be.”
Oh, the great family Watson mentions? It also includes two very proud parents and a younger brother who followed Watson’s lead when he took over the job with the tape measure and later moved into upper management with TNT.