After Hurricane Katrina, Cindy Pasky knew she had to do something to help the employees of Strategic Staffing Solutions Inc.’s
New Orleans office. The founder, president and CEO of the company — which provides information technology professional
consultants — split the corporate team, with half working as part of a disaster group while the other half focused on moving the
business forward.
Pasky says that even though there was a tremendous tragedy in New Orleans, it was important for the
company to keep a focus on the day-to-day operations of the business. One executive went to New Orleans a week-and-a-half
after the hurricane, while Pasky, who led the disaster side, went down two months later to assess the damage.
Pasky said it was
important to send the message that the company — which posted 2006 revenue of about $140 million — was going to take care
of its employees.
Smart Business spoke with Pasky about how to earn respect and how to grow a company while maintaining a
personal life.
Earn respect by making tough decisions. When
you make a tough decision, people shouldn’t be surprised. You should be willing to,
within reason, explain why the decision
needs to be made, and you need to be consistent across the board as you make decisions.
You have to be more interested in having
people respect you than like you. Usually,
when people decide if they like someone, it
is your personality. Are you fun to be with?
Do you make me laugh?
My objective in the business world is to
be viewed as a businessperson first and be
respected for that. Then, if my style happens to fit with someone’s and they decide
they like me, that’s an extra benefit.
If you are yourself, then I find that people
like you more anyway.
Realize growth isn’t easy. You have to recognize how hard you are going to work to
make that happen. You are going to get it
done through other people, but you mostly
start by getting it done through yourself.
What I’ve seen is a lot of entrepreneurs,
they reach a certain point where they think
they should be able to live the life. But,
what happens is, they have to become a
CEO, and a good CEO should always work
harder than anyone else in the company.
That is a mindset. You might be able to go
out and buy the nice car, but you aren’t
going to be able to drive it often.
Then you have to say, ‘Can I do it? Where
do I think my voids are, and how can I supplement them with other team members?’