Scott Mauldin runs his
business like he drives
his car.
The president of Genesis
Electronics Manufacturing Inc.
occasionally glances in the
rearview mirror, but he also
looks out over the hood to see
what lies ahead.
“If you spend too much time
being introspective, the
world’s going to pass you by,”
he says. “Or if you’re too
visionary, you don’t look
down to fix the things you
need to fix.”
Mauldin combines both those
views to lead his $17 million
electronics manufacturing service provider and its 100 employees.
Smart Business spoke with
Mauldin about how to steer
your company in the right
direction.
Q. What are your keys
to growing a successful
company?
There are three key elements
that are the 1-2-3s of our daily
business, and they’re fairly universal: Hire good people,
develop and practice a breakthrough thinking mentality
across your organization and
have crisp action. Then rinse
and repeat.
Q. How do you keep good
people at your company?
It sounds a little cliche, but
there’s no doubt — good people are your most important
assets. A company can invest
all sorts of money in the most
advanced equipment and the
best systems, but inevitably,
those tools are only as productive as the people that interact with them. Mediocre people
given great tools will still, at
best, only create mediocre
results. But great people with
simple tools will create great
results.
Once you hire them, you
have to retain them so you
have to spend time creating a
culture and putting things in
place that make people want
to stay. We have a four-day
workweek, Monday through
Thursday. We started it over a
summer, when our energy
costs are highest, and saw an
improvement in our energy
bills. It helps people save on
gas because they don’t
have to drive to work on
that day. And, if they do
have to work overtime
on a Friday, they still
have a Saturday and
Sunday. It’s a very people-friendly perk.