Could your business survive in your absence? From the outset, Greg Roper worked to ensure that Integrity Funding, his Sarasota, Florida, specialty finance firm, could. Good thing, too. Because for much of 2012, Roper was out of the office--battling Stage 4 cancer. Entrepreneur Greg Roper told his story to Inc. staff writer Jeremy Quittner.
Back in the 1980s, I was in the military, and I learned about small-unit tactics. The idea is that everyone is important, but nobody is irreplaceable. It's the same for business: If your team can't survive when the king is killed, your business fails.
In 1986, at the age of 51, my father was found to have a brain tumor. His cancer was very serious, and after a few months, he passed away. I left the Army and came home to Charlotte, North Carolina, to help my mother take over his printing business. It was an abject failure and closed the following year. This cemented my philosophy of interchangeability.
In 2012, I was shaving and found a lump in my throat. I had not had a prescription for medication in my adult life, and I have never missed a day's work. I found out I had Stage 4 oropharyngeal cancer. Like my father, I was 51.
I immediately went back to work and called all of my people into our common area. I said, "Anybody who treats me any differently than you did yesterday has to go. We all have jobs to do, and I am just going to be a little less effective at mine over the next few months."
