A couple months ago I stayed up late writing an all-staff email. By the time I awoke it had been leaked, right here on this blog. Some of it somehow ended up in Twin Cities Business magazine. Psst, hey, WikiLeaks, my staff more recently found this in their inbox:
All,
As you may have heard, we have been honored with the #1 ranking in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal‘s Best Places To Work awards project. This ranking is a result of your responses to a web-based survey earlier this year. Your survey responses earned us the #1 ranking in the “Medium Companies” category, which includes companies with 100-1,000 Minnesota employees.
Let me finish by saying, “I told you so!” But let me start by saying a bunch of other stuff that leads up to my dramatic finish (which is when I will say, “I told you so!”).
Over the past few years we have become players on the local and national Business Awards Circuit. It is true that we nominate ourselves for awards all the time. 40% of Mark Malmberg’s job is to keep redialing business magazines to try and win prizes, such as “Be our 25th caller and win # 1.471 in the Inc. 5000 List!” Many years ago, I was recognized in the Business Journal‘s prestigious “40 under 40″ award thanks to a much younger Mark Malmberg’s redialing skills. Dialing a 1-800 number over and over using a rotary phone takes dedication and lubrication. That was back when Mark was youthful. Nowadays, the other 60% of his job involves him banging his cane on the ground and complaining about “those darn kids with their WiiTari games!” Please take no offense – that’s just an old man’s cry for help. And by “help,” I mean 16 individually-wrapped Werthers Originals candies in a small dish on his desk where a young person would normally keep an optical mouse.
Enough about Mark; let’s talk about us for a little while. We have grown at a rate that outpaces most business in the country. We have managed this growth organically, meaning we haven’t grown through acquisition or by means of investment capital. In our growth, we have been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in Minnesota, as well as in the country. We should all feel proud for our growth achievements, but our growth only tells part of our story. Our growth is about dollars, not about people. The Inc. 5000 and Biz Journal‘s Fast 50 don’t measure us by how many jobs we have created, or how happy people are with those jobs. But those things are a priority for us over pure revenue growth.
As proud as I am of our revenue growth, and our recognition in both the Inc. 5000 and the Fast 50, our recognition as a “Best Place to Work” is a more significant accomplishment for all of us to be proud of. Though Mike Derheim will take credit for the black “Suggestions Box” in the lunchroom, this working environment has always been a collaborative effort and everyone here is responsible for our culture. You took the survey, and overwhelmingly gave your co-workers, your managers and the leadership high rankings. Furthermore, you took the time to provide positive commentary regarding the company’s strengths, weaknesses and food/beverage selection. As a result of your input, we were awarded first place in the project, and that tells a more complete story.
I don’t have a plan for your workplace enjoyment, and I can’t tell you how we will continue to be an awesome place to work as we grow, but that’s exactly how we got to where we are today. Pentathanerd, Light the Light Walk events, Game Night, Overnight Website Challenge, user groups meetings, and Bottle Cap Talk (formerly Minh’s Friday Fiesta) don’t make for a fun, respectful and caring community – they are a result of it. This award is all about you and your Interpersonal Awesomeness, and you damn well better keep it that way as we grow or your whole nerdy community will become flooded with a bunch of gossiping, back-stabbing disrespectful Prima Donnas and when it implodes, I will stand upon the heap of social rubble that remains and yell, “I told you so!”
- Luke
