Why People Will Always Be The Most Important Thing

Thoughts on Company Culture And How Executech Became a “Top Work Place.”

Eric C. Montague

Published in

Silicon Slopes

6 min readJun 1, 2018

I started Executech with one idea in mind; people come before technology. This idea has been a theme and a vision for how Executech does business with its clients. But, it’s also the foundation of our internal culture at Executech.

I really do believe the cliche that “culture eats strategy for lunch” is true. A business can have an amazing product, perfect accounting practices, great marketing and sales, but still fail, if it doesn’t focus on people first. That to me is at the heart of any company culture — people.

What Makes A Culture

I wanted to share some of the things we’ve done at Executech to ensure we stay people focused. We’ve seen amazing results as individuals and as a company as we’ve stayed true to our culture and founding vision. Not only has Executech grown over 30% every year for the past 7 years, we’ve been awarded a “Best Workplace”, “Top Work Place”, and “Best Places to Work”.

Here’s a little glimpse into what makes Executech so amazing to our employees and our clients — and what you can do at your company to build a culture centered on people.

LEARNING

Make learning a priority in your personal life and in the lives of your employees. There’s no growth, no challenge, and no fulfillment if you stay stagnant. Learning is the key to growth. I believe life is most enjoyable and fulfilling outside of one’s comfort zone.

As a technology company, it’s essential that all of us continue to learn. Things change quickly in our industry and we have to stay on top of it. But this is true of almost every industry — change is inevitable and you have to stay on top of it.

We have an extensive training program in place for new employees. We want them to be well-prepared and well-educated for their current duties and what will come in the future. We hold weekly trainings for our entire staff on a variety of technology and professional topics. We also ensure there’s open communication across the company so that if anyone has a question, they can get the answers and help they need quickly.

LISTENING

A great leader listens first. A good friend listens first. An effective employee listens first.

Effective communication is ESSENTIAL for us to operate as a business and effective communication starts with listening. Our leaders listen to our employees, our employees listen to our clients, and all of our team listens to each other.

At Executech, we’ve set up several channels of internal communication for our team. This includes the usual routes like email and chat, but we also have daily team phone calls and weekly in-person team meetings. All of these lines of communication are collaborative-based. Everyone contributes and leaders foster sharing and discussion. With so many means of communication, we are all kept on the same page. We collaborate more effectively and we get real-time feedback on policies, projects, and decisions.

Listening has allowed us to grow and adapt more than any other technique or idea. Take a gut check for yourself: When you’re talking to your colleagues, friends, etc., and your mind is formulating your response before that person is done talking, you need to improve your listening skills.

LEADING

As we’ve grown, we’ve needed flexible, capable and strong leaders. Finding the right leaders for your organization isn’t easy, but it’s essential for sustainable growth.

In the past month, we’ve promoted 10 employees to leadership positions! This is extremely exciting for them and for the company, but it also shows our commitment to fostering growth. We want to enable each of our employees to be leaders in their respective areas. We want our team to grow and flourish.

At Executech, we also have a commitment to leading out in our industry. We don’t want to settle for following trends or catching waves in our industry and in our state, we want to be trendsetters and trailblazers for the future. We want to be leaders. We do this by pushing our limits and comfort zones. We encourage our employees to try new and hard things. We help our clients reach new technological heights through our team’s efforts to push themselves.

The Fluff

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about benefits, perks or ping pong tables. Those things are important, and we’re focused on taking care of our employees, their families, and setting ourselves apart with what we offer. But at the end of the day, I believe that the reason employees stay at a company and make it their home is because they’re treated like people, not commodities, or children or rock stars — like real people. I tell every employee, “You are more important to me than any one client. I will always choose you when you make a mistake. Let’s learn together.”

I hope you’ve caught the vision of what’s made Executech an amazing company to work for. Put people first and enable them through learning, listening and leading and you’ll have a recipe for success. Don’t just take my word for it though — ask any of my team what they think about working at Executech!

P.S. We’re hiring! We’re looking for people-focused individuals to join our growing team. We have openings across the state in our IT department for IT consultants as well as several positions in our accounting department and an Executive Assistant. Learn more at executech.com/careers.

If you’re looking for some great ideas about company strategy and culture, then I recommend these books. Each book has been a key inspiration in helping the leaders of Executech make it what it is today. Check them out!

Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute