Rochester, NY
10:22 AM
Last night I went to hear an author talk about his recently released book. The author, Arunas Chesonis, is also the CEO of PAETEC, a billion dollar company based in Rochester. I was drawn to this talk for a couple of reasons. I wanted to see what it is like to have your book in front of you and people asking you questions about it. Of course, I imagined myself in that situation in the not so distant future. More so, I was intrigued by a guy who writes that his business succeeded because of their philosophy of focusing on their people.
That motto is what I share during my business talks. His is another company who has proven the model to work. And work during a time when most telecom companies were going belly up. Trust me, I know what my shares of Global Crossing did. Thousands of shares now equals zero dollars.
Arunas fielded questions for about an hour. There was some good interaction and I asked a question about why it is difficult for other companies to grasp the people power idea. He then signed his books. I was glad I went. He reaffirmed that the focus on people works. I may interview him for book #2. It will be interesting to see how they can keep the focus as they continue to grow. I think he said they are 2,300 strong right now.
If you own a business or are a manager of people, don’t lose hold of the simple, yet hard to implement fact: motivated people produce amazing results.