A Performance Interview with Valley Business Icon Pat Sullivan

PERFORMANCE: Entrepreneurs in Arizona often complain about the lack of funding and resources available to startup companies locally. However, you have started and sold several highly successful Arizona-based companies over your career. What advice would you give to Arizona-based startups who want to follow in your footsteps?
PAT: Money will come to a good management team with a good idea. True for me and for other startups in Arizona.

PERFORMANCE: What keeps you (from the corporate leadership perspective) up at night?
PAT: Right now, what the government is doing, with huge increases in deficit spending, control of private industries, talk of big tax increases on small business and capital gains, talk of controls on compensation, breaking of contract law that is the cornerstone of American business, and the potential regulation of venture capital. Government could kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in terms of job and wealth creation for millions of Americans, all of whom pay taxes.

PERFORMANCE: In this age of corporate scandal, employment uncertainty, and mistrust of leaders, what are the most effective ways you have found to create loyalty between your employees and the company?
PAT: Talk to them! Openness is critical. The more they know, good and bad, the better off everyone is. Clarity of mission is also critical. Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves. A mission gives them that.

PERFORMANCE: What qualities do you think make star performers really tick? And what qualities detract from general workforce performance?
PAT: Compensation is one. What gets compensated gets done. Stars typically are born, though. Lack of communication is the great detractor.

PERFORMANCE: What are some of the top points you would advise a manager/leader to know or do, to reap the best performance out of their team?
PAT: Be fanatical about product excellence. Great products or services are only built by total fanatics with attention to every detail. Be very clear about positioning, focus and mission. Answer those questions and you will have answered a thousand questions.

PERFORMANCE: What are some of the essential strategies for developing and retaining your top talent?
PAT: Make sure they are compensated right. Stock options. Again, communication! Make sure they understand the mission.

PERFORMANCE: What is the single most important mindset that people must possess over the next three to five years in order to be far more competitive?
PAT: Excellence in everything they do, especially as it relates to the product or service offered. I only hire people who will be fanatical about this.

PERFORMANCE: If you had two minutes to mentor a high-potential employee or recent graduate, what would you share with them from your professional vantage point of experience, training and responsibility?
PAT: There is no silver bullet! Success depends on identifying the seven to ten things you must do every day to succeed. Most success comes from great blocking and tackling, usually not from a single great breakthrough or program.

PERFORMANCE: What makes for an effective and lasting leader?
PAT: The ability to build consensus where possible, but the courage to be autocratic when needed. Vision, and the ability to take risks.

PERFORMANCE: What makes for an effective and dependable follower?
PAT: Loyalty, but not blind loyalty. The strength and intelligence to question and challenge but then get behind what is agreed to.

PERFORMANCE: How is the leader’s (entrepreneur, business owner, parent, etc.) challenge tougher today?
PAT: The younger generation does not read or write well. They want immediate results when most results come with time and hard work. We are developing an attitude of entitlement. Our greatness is due to capitalism and freedom at work. We seem to be hobbling [capitalism] at every turn, and the younger generation seems to be embracing that somewhat. This will mean that innovation, jobs and wealth will move to countries more capitalistic than our own, like India, Brazil, Japan and amazingly, China.

PERFORMANCE: How do you ensure you walk your talk?
PAT: Conscience.