Choosing Workstyle

For many, the road begins in a big company.

 

What kind of a chief executive officer would take his employees skydiving? Or build them a racquetball court? Or give them awards at monthly "Super Person" ceremonies? Some aging hippie, you say? A refugee from the 1960s who somehow strayed into business?

Guess again.

The practitioners of workstyle may be refugees of a sort, but not from the counterculture. By and large, they are men in their forties, fifties, or early sixties who have spent a lot of time in big corporations. Many of them achieved considerable power and wealth, only to decide that power and wealth weren't enough."I resigned because I wanted to start my own company and run it in my own manner," says John Psarouthakis, 52, now president and CEO of J.P. Industries Inc., formerly vice-president of Masco Corp., a $737-million-a-year manufacturer of plumbing and building products.

This is the pattern that emerges in interviews with 20 CEOs whose companies are in the forefront of the workstyle trend. They range from Michael Sachar, the 39-year-old president of Double Rainbow Gourmet Ice Creams Inc., in San Francisco, to Irwin Mintz, the 61-year-old president of JBM Electronics Co., in St. Louis. What they have in common, aside from dedication to workstyle, is experience in big business -- experience that molded their attitudes about management.

"When I was working for a large company," says Mintz, who once worked at McDonnell Aircraft Corp., "I was punching a time clock -- not literally, but I might as well have been. Everything was rules, company politics, one right way of doing everything. I never want to work that way again. I could never run a company that way."

Mintz's experience was hardly unique. "I worked for several large corporations," says Stan Bentley, the 37-year-old president of Diversified Systems Inc., an engineering-services firm in Indianapolis. "I went up through the ranks fairly quickly, and here's what I learned: it's easy to do if you have a good grip on politics. It had little to do with worth or with talent, and a whole lot to do with making few enemies in the wrong places. . . . I didn't want money or power, because I had both, and neither was giving me any satisfaction. I began to realize that I often liked work, but rarely the atmosphere in which I was working. At this point, I was heading up my own group, and that was great. So, basically, I brought the entire group out with me to form my own company."

To be sure, a few workstylists have fond memories of life in the Fortune 500, including Tom Ferrante, the 51-year-old president of Intertec Components Inc., in Longwood, Fla., and a veteran of Corning Glass Works, Texas Instruments, and ITT. He admits, however, that "politics did hamper total freedom and honesty. I was conscious of the need to say and do the politic thing, of the effect my actions might have." Now he is trying to build a company without politics. "Of course, as head of a small company, I can find my own way to express values I believe in, and there isn't much to stop me from trying them."

Whatever they may think of the large companies they left behind, the workstylists do value the wisdom they gained along the way. "Gut instinct is a very important thing," says Bentley. "It's the sum total of everything you've ever learned. I never would have struck out on my own without first piling up experience and dollars."

That goes double for Mintz. In addition to his stint at McDonnell Aircraft, he worked for several years in the oil industry, followed by 15 more as a stockbroker. "Sure, I'm different, and this company is different. For one thing, I'm a lot older than most people with young, growing companies. I've been around more. Also, it's been a long time since I've had to worry about money, so I have a certain freedom to place my attention elsewhere."

In particular, he has the freedom to think about the future. "Until about a year ago, the company couldn't have made it without me. Now we're reaching the point where it could. People here know I'm building something to last, to survive me -- I'm not here to take the money and run."