Too Big, Too Fast: How We Almost Lost Our Company Culture

By John Fairclough, CEO, Resicom, Lemont, Ill.
When I founded my company in 2001, it had a very intimate feel. I talked to everyone on a daily basis, and we all had a good sense of one another's values and priorities when it came to the business.

But six years ago, our growth took off, so we brought on a lot of new hires at once. We soon discovered that our size was creating friction among the staff and the new employees weren't connecting to the company on a deeper level. I needed to do something to bring the team together -- before it fell apart.

Growing alienation
My company, Resicom, manages facility maintenance for retailers. We handle changes in design elements, like painting storefronts or extending the lifecycle of props. We work with 50 domestic and international clients, and bring in between $15 and $20 million in revenues. We currently have over 70 employees, but we weren't always that big.

In the early days, all our employees knew me and trusted me as a leader. Six years ago we started growing 30 to 40 percent a year, and our new hires didn't have that same relationship with me. They didn't understand the company's goals; to them, this was just a job.

I didn't know how bad the situation was until I had coffee one day with one of my long-term employees. In her mind, the new hires just weren't committed and she didn't think I was doing enough to prevent cancers from coming into the company. She was right. Even though we were growing, we were getting weaker on the inside.

The program
I decided to create a company-wide program aimed at developing trust in the company's leadership and fellow employees. I've always been interested in mentorship, so I developed my own approach and got all of my employees involved.

Here's how it works:

• Get execs to mentor one-on-one: These happen once a quarter and we try to pair people according to their strengths -- so, for example, if an executive is good at staying grounded in any situation, we might pair that person with a mentee who has a lot going on in his life.
• Don't limit the discussions to work issues: We want mentees to feel free to discuss any issue they like in a safe and confidential environment. A mentee once told me, "I want to divorce my wife." I asked him, "Why do you feel that way?" "She betrayed me," he said. Which leads me to...
• It's not about prescribing advice either: Using the phrase "you should" is strictly forbidden. The mentor's job is to ask the questions that help mentees reveal the answers they have within them. In the above example, I talked with him about how I handled a situation where I felt betrayed, and what I did to work through it.
• Don't stop at one-on-one meetings: We also have group meetings where a cross-section of employees from different departments comes together to discuss work issues and challenges. It helps them to understand different roles within the company that are often at odds: For instance, the sales team promises the world to clients, while the operations team needs to deliver on those promises. The human resources department wants a warm and fuzzy work environment, while the finance department is focused on performance.

The company is still growing steadily, and I believe we may double in size in 2012. But with our mentorship program in place, no matter how big we get, we'll never lose our sense of community.

John Fairclough has developed his mentorship program into a curriculum he offers through a consulting company to help other business owners.
-- As told to Kathryn Hawkins