I was fortuate enough to attend an event at the Rotmans School of Management last night featuring Dr. Jim Goodnight (founder, Chairman and CEO of SAS Inc.). It was hosted by Roger Martin and Richard Florida.
It was an informal setting begining with an interactive discussion between Richard Florida and Dr. Goodnight followed by Q&A from the attendees. Dr. Goodnight comes across as easy to speak to, straight-forward person who is not afraid of offending anyone. He speaks his mind.
Much of the discussion focused on the elements that Dr. Goodnight incorporated into his busiess to make it the success it is today. Some highlights and interesting points:
- Dr. Goodnight has attempted to minimize distractions for his employees by providing everyday need as part of his campus (including haircuts!)
- Dr. Goodnight is passionate about education and has sponsored many education activities. He believes America needs to change the way they educate or retention of students through the system is only going to worsen. He believes providing students with technology is required to maintain their interest and thus retention in the school system
- Dr. Florida commented that a key insight he received from Dr. Goodnight about knowledge based companies is that it is not only the knowledge within the individual that it is important but it is the relationships that are equally if not more important. Examples include a sales person's relationship with a customer and a support person's relationship with technical staff. To me the message is when doing educational planning for your organization be sure to include training on relationship building
- His most passionate display in the evening is when he spoke about public companies. He finds it ridiculous that public companies (and their executives) are rewarded through an increase in share price when employees are layed off
- SAS has not layed off any employees. They have frozen salaries but they did pay out 2008 bonuses
- Dr. Goodnight is passioniate about listening to customers. He fit in visits to three Canadian banks yesterday
- SAS Head office is adorned with a lot of art work and sculptures. SAS actually has two artists on staff. Dr. Goodnight claimed it is more efficient to work that way because one day he realized he was buying so much art from this one artist that he might as well have that artist on staff
If you have a chance to hear Dr. Goodnight speak I highly recommend it. He has created a very unique company of over 11,000 people and managed to keep it private and maintain corporate culture along the way.