How Finisar CEO Jerry Rawls forges culture of success
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 12/1/2003 7:00:00 AM
Finisar Corp. expects success, and since its founding in 1988, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based manufacturer of optical solutions for high-speed networks largely has achieved it.
Last fiscal year, Finisar reported its second-highest annual revenues on record, though the company did struggle with its bottom line, successfully narrowing its operating loss from the year previous. Over the long haul, Finisar is known for product innovation, having earned 49 U.S patents. It also has won a sheaf of supplier-of-the-year awards, including one recently from Cisco Systems.
Responsibility for building that culture of success falls to Jerry Rawls, founding partner, president, CEO, and cultural evangelist. "When we started the company, we cast several principles in stone," Rawls says. "We were going to take great care of our customers, deliver truly innovative products, and hire really good people. We believe that if you do those three things consistently, success will follow."
Rawls stresses the importance of recruitment. "Even with excellent coaching, any team you build is only as good as the individual players," Rawls says. "If you recruit really good people, you can expect terrific performance."
That may sound simple, but it's not necessarily easy. "We want people with the brains, experience, education, and interpersonal skills to succeed," Rawls says. "Each employee goes through a rigorous process of background checks and interviews. I get involved in interviewing all senior managers and every salesperson because our leaders and field representatives are so important to our success."
Teamwork isn't just a catchphrase at this company. As Rawls explains, "Whenever we have a problem, we put a group of three to eight people to work on it. If you have one person in that group whose ego demands satisfaction at the expense of the others, it will be a lousy experience for everybody else and not very productive."
As the chief cultural evangelist, Rawls struggles with how to keep the corporate culture alive now that the company has thousands of employees worldwide. "I say the words over and over again describing our beliefs," he says. "We recruit people who share our commitment to these foundation corporate values, and I try to make sure that we walk the talk every day."
Even so, some people just don't get the message. "Sometimes, we have to do remedial work with people," Rawls says. "We have managers or employee services counsel them. Ultimately, we eliminate those who demonstrate a lack of consistency with those values."
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