Active Company Culture vs. CEO Presence: What’s More Valuable?

Posted by • October 5th, 2009 • 1 Comment

In Sunday’s New York Times, an article by Julie Creswell honed in on a CEO who ruled his business from afar. Sure, everyone has those days when our shoulders relax because we know the boss will be out of the office for a day or two, but is it a good thing for business and company culture when the boss is infrequently around?

The focus of the article was well-known mattress company, Simmons Bedding and the ethics of its former CEO, Charlie Eitel. Eitel, who reportedly rarely made a trip to the headquarter office in Atlanta, GA, was paid millions of dollars to run Simmons for several private equity investment companies, first Fenway then Thomas H. Lee Partners. During his leadership reign, he had some unique approaches to shake up the workplace culture. For example:

  • New employees at the headquarters of the Simmons Bedding Company got a little book containing 84 sayings of their boss, Charlie Eitel. Saying No. 1: ’In order to create a viable vision you must answer one very fundamental question, “What do you really want?”’
  • Eitel once had the company hire an artist to paint a mural representing the river of life for a strategy meeting at a resort. And as one human resources executive notes, “Everybody put their boat on the river, and it represented that you were floating down the river of your dreams.”

Charlie Eitel But despite Eitel’s efforts to wake up the culture within Simmons, it appears that his faraway approach to managing the company may not be looked upon so kindly now given that the company is filing for bankruptcy. Especially considering that before stepping down last fall, he earned more than $40 million in compensation, bonuses and perks.

One key take away from this article is that, if you are interviewing with a company, take the time to do your research on all aspects of a company so that you can determine if the career growth opportunities, leadership involvement and workplace environment will be a good fit for you. Career expert John Sumser offers up some practical questions to ask a potential future employer during an interview, as well as some advice to consider when looking at the tenure of employees:

(Note he points out in ‘How to Interview a Company: Part 2’ that you should thoroughly check out your new boss.)

The Glassdoor Team is a small yet seasoned group of individuals looking to provide greater transparency into one of the most important aspects of our lives – our jobs. Contributions to the blog are designed to present a unique perspective on current events, offer commentary on the inside workings on specific jobs at a multitude of companies, and provide details on the latest happenings from within Glassdoor.

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  • sjones3334

    Charlie is still up to his uncreative incompetence at gutting companies at the expense of employees, share holders, etc. He did the same thing at Interface. His is a life of all the money for him and his boys under the feigned veil of knowing what he is doing. He gave this same stupid 84 comment book to everyone at Interface before he was fired. Incidentally, it demonstrates his lack of creativity, he mimmicks statements of others redundantly. He also built the stock price up and then presided over the Interface stock crash. Substance and care for the business was not his strong suit. BS is. Egoistically he probably thinks he won at the game of life. In reality the game of life has little to do with the scoreboard of money. We know that substance, fulfillment, peace of mind, DOING EXCELLENT WORK, and making a bigger contribution is the real reward for a life well lived. If you read this article none of these are present. Everyone one day reflects on their life. That is when people playing the unethical game realize they lived their life and fooled themselves into thinking they really lived when in fact they never did live at all. A win is not a win when you cheat.