Every once in awhile, you’ll find Keith Olsen sharing a bowl of ice cream with his employees.
It’s one of the ways he tries to lighten the mood for his 330 employees at Switch & Data Facilities Co. Inc., a provider of network-neutral data centers that house, power and interconnect the Internet.
Olsen, the president and CEO, sees the ice cream breaks as a way to bring together people who may not normally interact at the company. It’s a way to get people who might otherwise not spend a lot of time talking to each other to come together in a nonthreatening environment.
“Sometimes people just don’t like to kind of step forward,” Olsen says. “Some people feel, ‘I want to be more reserved.’ But, if all of a sudden they see everybody else participating, it becomes a bit contagious.”
Of course, giving away ice cream to employees isn’t the main stimulator of the company’s success, but it’s one of Olsen’s leadership ideas that has helped the company grow. By focusing on hiring the right people, having a solid plan and empowering employees, he has created steady growth — highlighted by a 24 percent increase in revenue and a 34 percent increase in EBITDA between fiscal 2006 and 2007, increasing revenue projections for fiscal 2008 and a projection to hit more than $200 million in revenue this year.
Here’s how he did it.
