‘Coolest’ Awards Begin. First Up: Coolest Values

2008-01-16 | Filed Under Uncategorized |

Within two weeks we’ll announce Hireskills.com’s Coolest Company in Printing.  We’re going to announce that when we unveil three incredible new technologies to Hireskills.com and to this site. 

Before we do that we’re going to announce the winner of another title we decided to award as we undertook this analysis of Printing Companies.  Anyone who has started a company from scratch knows that the most important thing to have at the outset is a clear vision of what the company is going to do, what the company is going to be (the company’s core values), where the company is going to go, and the kinds of people and resources you need to get there.   Once all that is established in one’s mind, the next step is to write a plan around it, get money, hire the people, generate the products, sell them to an adoring public, and become famous. Only it never works like that – nothing ever goes 1-2-3.  There are always snags in the process, flies in the ointment, muck on your shoes that has the potential for being tracked around, adding to the mess. Taking over a company that has been doing business for a long time is just as interesting a process.  You have to worry about most of the aforementioned stuff, but you also have to worry about the people that are in place, their families, their aspirations and dreams.  Well, at least enlightened leaders worry about those things.  We can point to a bundle of companies in our industry that were taken over by new management and those things weren’t worried about.  I would venture to say those companies will have no lasting legacy and something that might have been great might have been destroyed.  But I digress.

The topic of which is more difficult – starting a company from scratch or taking over a company that has been in business for a long time – is open for debate.  I’ve done both and I would say despite the nightmare of raising venture capital, it’s easier in many ways to start from scratch.  Neither task is without significant pain if you are trying to do something really important and trying to leave a legacy that is worthy and substantive, and every new owner has ideas that might or might not be embraced by the existing culture.  It is a strong company that gracefully goes through management change and stays on course, with consistent revenue and without loss of the core workforce.

Having said all this, in the process of talking with dozens of companies and reviewing many more with the goal of identifying the coolest company in the printing industry, we came across some very interesting people, some enlightened and some still operating in the Jurassic Period.  Some of the coolest companies didn’t respond to our call for entries in the ‘Coolest’ competition and so we couldn’t consider them for the title since the companies that did answer our call provided us with numerous examples of coolness that we could not get from those that didn’t apply.  But we could and do consider what these companies have done noteworthy and for this reason we reasoned that there are a few things that are really important that showcase a company’s coolness, things that might not seem, on the face of things, to be extraordinary but as people who have lived through the rigors of making and re-engineering companies, we know they are.

The first of these things we’re singling out today is the Company Identity.  Not the logo or the tag line, and not the marketing message that might bring new customers because of their drive to embrace new technology or leave no customer behind – everyone has stuff like that.  I’m talking about the articulation of the soul of a company; the clear statement that tells employees and customers who they are, what they are all about – the baring of the corporate soul for the world to see.  There are several companies we considered when trying to identify the coolest Core Values statement but ultimately it is the Core Values statement by Harty Integrated Solutions of New Haven, CT that won us over.

When a customer goes to Harty’s website they are not greeted by tons of Flash or animation.  The web site says who Harty is in its design – it is functional, informative, easy to navigate and not intended to wow a customer. It is clearly intended to give the customer confidence in their products and capabilities, and its elegance speaks of Harty’s history of over 100 years.  Harty Integrated Solutions is a grounded company with strong leadership and management, a family approach to business, and their Core Values Statement (found under The Harty Difference prominently posted as the lead page in this section) says it all.  It’s not miles long – the fundamentals of their values are in bullet form – and we favor brief but substantive in this regard.

The Platt family is the fourth set of owners of Harty, which was founded in 1900.  They recognize their roles in the continuation of something special, they honor their history and they took a company with a history of goodness and didn’t destroy it - they have allowed the company and its people to flourish.
So congratulations go to the Platt family for having Hireskills.com’s Coolest Values Statement of 2008.  Strong management is apparent everywhere in your company and the longevity of your staff is a testimonial to your values and your adherence to them. MrHillEcoSkis

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