Page 46 - How to Drive the Bottom Line with People
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Built to Serve
prominent companies implicated in such behavior
since 2000.
Regrettably, a significant number of companies
today are eating away at their business culture and
destroying the lives of honest, hardworking people.
When businesses come to be dominated by numbers
at the expense of people, they forget their real purpose
and focus more on populating spreadsheets than on
enriching lives.
I experienced this firsthand as an executive in 2002,
when we sold a majority ownership of our company
to a group of financial investors. The transaction cer-
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= tainly appeared to be a positive move for our team
members at the outset; however, we soon realized that
there would be a significant change in the way the
company’s business was expected to be conducted.
For example, we closed the transaction in New
York City on a Friday and enjoyed a brief weekend
celebration. At 7 a.m. Monday, I arrived at the office
in Houston to find the phone already ringing.
It was a financial analyst associated with the firm
that had purchased our company. He said, “Hey, Dan,
what are you doing?”
I told him I had just arrived in the office and had
not even turned my computer on. He told me he
