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The $16 Billion Company Run By A National Champion
How one former national champion is running his $16 billion company like a "4,000 player basketball team."
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Friends,
Last week, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) announced plans to go public later this year through the highest-valued SPAC transaction ever at $16.1 billion. The mortgage lender plans to merge with Gores Holdings IV, a blank check company, or SPAC, from serial sponsor Alec Gores.
United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) underwrites loans for mortgage brokers, banks and credit unions. Founded 20+ years ago, UWM has become the #1 wholesale lender and #2 overall purchase lender in the nation, behind Wells Fargo.
Great, but what does this have to do with sports?
Mat Ishbia, UWM’s President and CEO, is a four year letterman for the Michigan State Basketball team — winning one national championship under Tom Izzo and attending 3 Final Fours in total.
(Source / Forbes)
As a preferred walk-on, who played a total of about 40 minutes in live game action throughout his four year career, Mat Ishbia wasn't exactly a star basketball player. But still to this day he credits the game of basketball, and coach Tom Izzo specifically, with teaching him the invaluable life lessons of leadership, teamwork, and humility — qualities that he displays daily through his role as President and CEO of UWM.
Obviously years of adversity, hard work, and determination got Ishbia and UWM to this point, and I certainly don’t want to diminish that, but today I’ll keep the background short.
Ishbia originally thought he wanted to follow in Tom Izzo’s footsteps, spending his 1st year post-graduation as an assistant on the Michigan State Basketball coaching staff. After a discussion with his father, Ishbia decided to join UWM, which his father had founded years earlier.
But if you think the position of CEO at a $16 billion company was handed to him, think again.
A small family business at the time, Ishbia was employee #13 of UWM. Now a company of almost 4,000, Ishbia has worked a variety of different roles, rising all the way to CEO and President.
While doing some research on Ishbia and UWM, I stumbled upon an interview he did last year.
One response that suck out?
Here’s what Ishbia had to say when asked “What are 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture?”:
Thank people and express your appreciation. Every day, I call at least one or two team members to say thank you for doing a good job. It costs me nothing — a few minutes out of the day — but it means so much and sets a positive tone that lifts the entire company.
Encourage collaboration. I truly believe that we all get better when there are more ideas. To foster greater idea sharing, we have an open workspace, which we’ve arranged so that leaders sit in the middle of their teams. Also, team members in every department meet for a 10-minute daily huddle, which I consider the most important 10 minutes of the day.
Limit the work week to 40 hours and encourage team members to maximize those 40 hours. We call it the Firm 40, where you work hard every minute you’re here and the nights and weekends are yours.
Check in with team members to see how they feel and use that feedback to strengthen the company. Twice a year, we send out a survey to measure how much people like working at United Shore. We ask what we can do to get better. Then I work with my leadership team to implement those changes.
Always be positive. Team members take cues from their leaders, so leaders need to be positive 100% of the time. I always try to be the ultimate teammate, the best CEO among CEOs. We can’t control where we come from or what innate abilities we’re born with, but there’s a lot we can control — our attitude, energy and work ethic.
Although Mat Ishbia chooses to run his company like “a 4,000 player basketball team”, these type of concepts can be applied universally to almost any industry or business.
As sports have continued to become a lightning rod of controversy throughout almost all spectrums of society, it’s refreshing to see a former athlete applying the positive concepts and traits he learned throughout his athletic career in business.
Have a great weekend, and we’ll talk Monday!
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