Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
If you ask Aaron Muderick what he does for a living, he’s likely to say, “Professional Kid”. Muderick, a fidgety computer scientist, was constantly playing with Silly Putty while thinking at work. One day, he borrowed some textbooks from a friend who had just completed her Ph.D. in chemistry.
He learned enough from the borrowed books to teach himself how to invent what he calls “Thinking Putty”. His company’s mission of occupying idle hands goes beyond creating cool desk toys. Muderick’s other goal is to provide employment opportunities for people living with intellectual disabilities.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
If your employees could vote you in or out as their leader, would you keep your position? That was just one of the many questions that Richardo Semler started to ask when he went to work for his father’s company, SEMCO Partners, in the late 1970’s. At the time, the San Paulo, Brazil-based company built pumps and propellers for ships. Semler immediately noticed that SEMCO employees were clearly boxed in by a hierarchical organizational structure. This was not a structure in which Semler wanted to spend the rest of his career. So, he started asking questions. Lots of questions.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
The year was 2001, just after the burst of the dotcom bubble. Jorn Lyseggen had a big idea for a new business, a coffee machine, some used furniture, and some borrowed office space in a Norwegian shipyard shack. The big idea? Outside insight. Rather than rely on data contained inside a company’s reporting systems, Lyseggen believed that business strategy would be increasingly shaped by insights from the growing world of online data outside of those systems. That big idea, along with $15,000 in seed money, has helped Meltwater grow to become the global leader in online media intelligence.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
For 35 years, Canadian-based Great Little Box Company has created an equally great little culture. What started as a three-person shop in 1982, has grown to 225 employees in locations across British Columbia and Vancouver, Washington. Along with the company’s financial success, Great Little Box Company has consistently ranked near the top of Forbes Best Companies list for the past 10 years.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
You have to hand it to a company that has survived for five decades, fought off imitators, and endured shaming for asking its employees to wear flair. The chain’s signature look – a combination of Antiques Roadshow and Hoarders – actually started in 1965 as one of New York’s City’s first singles bars. Alan Stillman, a 28-year-old perfume salesman who knew that his Upper East Side neighborhood was populated by models and flight attendants, wanted to provide a dignified place where singles could meet. Stillman decorated the first TGI Fridays on the corner of 63rd Street and 1st Avenue with Tiffany-style stained glass, candy striping, framed photos, and knickknacks—to give the restaurant a homey and welcoming atmosphere.
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Business In Focus
A closer look at companies executing leadership excellence
One political bumper sticker based on the indecision of the Bush/Gore presidential election in 2000. That’s how CEO John Fischer launched StickerGiant from his basement 17 years ago. Today, the Longmont, CO-based company employs nearly 40 people and processes about 18 miles of sticker material every week. What started as a political sticker company has transformed itself many times in the past two decades. But, while its strategic direction has gone through several transformations, what hasn’t changed is StickerGiant’s attention to culture.
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