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“The shareholders who own the businesses in this book have other, nonfinancial priorities in addition to their financial objectives. Not that they don’t want to earn a good return on their investment, but it’s not their only goal, or even necessarily their paramount goal. They’re also interested in being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, providing great service to customers, having great relationships with their suppliers, making great contributions to the communities they live and work in, and finding great ways to lead their lives. They’ve learned, moreover, that to excel in all those things, they have to keep ownership and control inside the company and, in many cases, place significant limits on how much and how fast they grow. The wealth they’ve created, though substantial, has been a byproduct of success in these other areas. I call them small giants.”
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to be Great Instead of Big
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to be Great Instead of Big
“give a credit. Or whatever else we think is best.” Like 140 or so of her fellow employees, Michelle was an owner of ECCO. She was a member of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) that controlled 58 percent of the company’s stock. When I met her, her stake was worth $12,000. More important, she felt like an owner and believed she was treated like one. She had a lot of direct contact with the CEO, Ed Zimmer. Among other things, he held a regular monthly lunch with all the people who had a birthday that month, and they talked about themselves and the company and whatever else they wanted to discuss.”
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
“Success means you’re going to have better problems. I’m very happy with the problems I have now.”
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
“That’s their philosophy,” said Greder, whose day job was associate dean of students at Illinois Wesleyan. “Dance with the ones who brought you.”
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
“I decided, was to look at the common threads among the companies I’d already identified as having mojo. First, I could see that, unlike most entrepreneurs, their founders and leaders had recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create. They hadn’t accepted the standard menu of options as a given. They had allowed themselves to question the usual definitions of success in business and to imagine possibilities other than the ones all of us are familiar with.”
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
― Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
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