It was 2002, not long after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and business was booming at LaSalle Network.
“The dot-com bubble burst, and then it was going again,” says Tom Gimbel, founder and CEO of the professional services firm. “I had a young group of recruiters and the market was still hot. We were going back and forth over whether we should go to more of a condensed work week of four 10-hour days.”
Ultimately, the decision was made to do it. It proved to be a mistake and after a short time, Gimbel reverted to a more traditional schedule.
“We did it to accommodate a couple staff members,” Gimbel says. “We put individuals ahead of what the organizational structure was. We want back to a traditional five-day work week with incentives for people who achieved more. It helped us evolve from throwing things against the wall and seeing what stuck to really saying what we believe and know is the right way to run a business.”
Transition is a part of life for everyone, whether you’re an entrepreneur, an employee or a student trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. LaSalle Network now has four offices, 110 employees and $35 million in annual revenue.
For Gimbel, change meant adapting as a leader to a bigger company that had an evolving culture and different needs than were present when he started the business.
“My skill set had to grow, change and develop,” Gimbel says. “You don’t want to just tell people to get it done. You have to help come up with solutions.”
The moment of truth
In 2009, Gimbel faced another big challenge. The global recession was taking over economies everywhere and businesses were scrambling to stay alive. Gimbel gathered everyone from his company’s four offices and was very honest about the uncertain future that lay ahead.
“We don’t know how long it’s going to last,” Gimbel said of the recession. “I can either really change how we go about our work life today as a company or we can sit here and wait and see how it goes. And maybe a year from now, we have to do the first layoffs in company history. I said I don’t want to do that.”
So Gimbel explained that everyone was going to need to work harder, himself included. Nights, weekends, whatever it took.
“We’re going to really push the envelope and be an aggressive sales organization through this,” Gimbel says.
It’s a strategy that ended up working beautifully for Gimbel as LaSalle Network doubled its sales from $18 million in 2009 to an expected $40 million in 2014. But it took more than just a directive from the top to work harder to make it a success.
“That was the line in the sand and we realized we had to grow as a result,” Gimbel says. “After 12 or 18 months, if you ask people to do that and revenue doesn’t grow, you have a real dilemma.”
In the early days, there were perks.
A keg was brought into the office so employees could enjoy happy hour without having to go out. Game nights became the norm and Gimbel focused on showing employees how much he appreciated their hard work.
“We also continued to hire people and promote people,” Gimbel says. “Everyone was working harder. We pushed people and careers grew and money grew.”
The right fit
The key to having a strong culture where everybody works together as a team is hiring people who fit that culture.
“There are certain companies that say we’re going to attract and retain people by not pushing them hard,” Gimbel says. “Other companies say we’re going to attract people who want to be pushed and who want to work hard.
“The real problem is when a company hires the opposite type person. Then you start questioning what your culture is. The issue isn’t that your culture is wrong. It’s that you have the wrong people working for you. It’s not a matter of management working people. It’s a matter of management creating an environment where hardworking people want to come.”
Gimbel believes one of the keys to LaSalle Network’s ability to retain employees and maintain a healthy culture is a leadership style he calls “corporate grandparenting.”
“I encourage my leaders to manage two layers below,” Gimbel says. “When you can have a vice president talking directly to staff members and having one-on-one conversations or me as CEO having conversations with staff or managers or directors that are two layers below, I think it’s really influential.
“Your manager is your parent. They are raising you and telling you what to do. But the relationship with your grandparents is really influential and often they are very wise. I really try to do that so people can see that the career path is there.” ●
How to reach: LaSalle Network, (312) 419-1700 or www.thelasallenetwork.com
