WISDOM AT THE TOP

AuthorHouse

Contents

Introduction................................................1Attitude is Everything......................................5A Family Business Flourishes................................9Little Things Matter........................................13Transforming Lives Through Art..............................18The Client Comes First......................................22The Calculated Risk.........................................26Respecting the Employee.....................................30Stay on Goal................................................34Keeping an Eye on the Big Picture...........................38Leading By Example..........................................42The Chance to Fail..........................................47Working for Lasting Social Change...........................51Transparency and Caring.....................................54Perpetuating a Work Ethic...................................58Preserving Jobs in a Global Economy.........................62Securing the Ship...........................................67Making the Right Bets.......................................71Finding Opportunity in Crisis...............................75Helping the Forgotten.......................................79From the Ground Up..........................................84Outside the Box.............................................88Making Time to Dream........................................93Every Business is a People Business.........................97Money is the Reward, Not the Reason.........................101Nurturing a Culture of Values...............................105Finding a Niche.............................................109A Business with a Heart.....................................113Own What You Do.............................................117The Power of One............................................121Putting Egos Aside..........................................125Providing a Service We Take for Granted.....................130Keeping It in Perspective...................................134The Personal Touch..........................................138A Question of Balance.......................................143Always More Than a Transaction..............................147A Final Word................................................153About the Author............................................155About The Rosen Group.......................................157About Transformations.......................................159The CEOs and their Companies................................161

Chapter One

JOEL ADAMS, PRESIDENT, DEVON CONSULTING

Like many entrepreneurs, Joel Adams started his company in a rather modest setting-his second bedroom.

"I had an ironing board, a washing machine, and my desk," he told me.

Founding Devon Consulting back in 1982 was quite a risk for Adams, who never thought of himself as an entrepreneur. But success, in his view, is all about attitude.

"I thought, 'I'm not that kind of a risk taker,'" he said. "But entrepreneurs don't view risk in the same way as other people. For an entrepreneur, the risk is, 'I'll keep working for this company and my fate is in their hands. If I've got my own company, I have a lot more control over who's going to be laid off, and it won't be me.'"

Adams was working as a software salesman at the time, but was restless.

"I wanted to do something on my own," he recalled. "I wanted to be self-employed so I didn't have to put up with a sales manager I didn't like. That was my original goal, not to make $5 million or something like that."

Adams took the risk.

"Before I started the business, I was a commission salesman and had an incredible first four months of the year. I had the same amount of money in my checking account that I had earned the entire year before. So I had a cushion to get the business started. That's when I quit the software sales job."

Devon, located in Wayne, Pa., has since grown into a full scale staffing company, specializing in placing temporary, professional workers in the information services industry and in clinical trial administration. Revenue reached $11 million in 2008.

But, as with all chief executives, Adams has faced and overcome numerous challenges.

"If someone had laid out for me, step by step, all the difficulties and problems I'd encounter, I would have said, 'Oh my god, we can't do that.' But problems come up on a day-by-day basis, and that's how you deal with them. You solve today's problem today."

One of his first problems was cash flow. As every business owner knows, employees and bills need to be paid every week, but clients don't always pay their bills on a weekly basis. "You're profitable," Adams said, "but you don't always have the cash on hand to cover expenses."

To make up the shortfall, Adams used personal assets-stocks and bonds he had saved to buy a house-as collateral for bank loans during the company's early years.

"Eventually I found a house I liked, went to the bank, and said I needed my stocks and bonds back in exchange for the mortgage as collateral. The big bank said, 'What will we do for the three days between the time you cash the stocks and bonds and pay for the house? We'll have no collateral during that time. We can't do that.'"

Luckily, Adams found a local community bank that understood the needs of small businesses and was willing to immediately lend him $15,000 on his signature. "And they said when you need the other $10,000, come back and we'll put it on the mortgage." (That banker was Ted Peters, now Chairman and CEO of the Bryn Mawr Trust Company, also profiled in this book.)

But the greatest lesson Adams has to offer is not the nuts and bolts stuff, but attitude.

When asked for the advice he would give aspiring CEOs, Adams responded, "Confidence. You have to have the confidence that you will survive or succeed despite the obstacles thrown in your way."

Then, in his open, disarming way, Adams admitted that confidence has often escaped him as CEO. He said he learned to be optimistic only during the last three years, when Devon wasn't doing as well as in the past.

"The company was floundering, and either I didn't know why or wouldn't acknowledge why," Adams recalled. "I was afraid that I couldn't manage the sales process. I didn't have the confidence that I could make changes and they would come out all right. When the company started losing big sums of money, my optimism went out the window. I became very pessimistic and was having trouble sleeping."

Adams realized he had to work to change his attitude.

"I made a rule-I'm only watching comedies," he said with a smile. "No news, no dramas. Only reruns of Seinfeld and Friends because I couldn't take any more bad news.

"And then I picked up a Buddhist practice. Every day I would write down three things I appreciated and could give thanks for, instead of focusing on problems. I really came to the intellectual decision that it was my attitude that was holding us back."

At the time, Adams was talking to a business coach once a week.

"One day she said to me, 'Joel, I want to talk to you about one of my clients. He keeps talking about bankruptcy and saying he might have to sell his company.'

"I said, 'Sheila, I got it. I have to stop talking about that...