Consumer Products

Michael Staffaroni

By Kristy J. O’Hara

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"We have a businesslike attitude, but we also believe in a balanced lifestyle. We don’t need people killing themselves at work." - Michael Staffaroni, CEO, Heelys

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When your company’s revenue grows 328 percent in one year, it would be easy to lose control, but Michael Staffaroni has skated successfully through such a period of rapid growth. As president and CEO of Heelys Inc., which makes wheeled tennis shoes, he has stuck to the principles that made him successful, and despite the challenges associated with extreme growth, he has made it out on the other side, with 2006 revenue of $188 million to show for it. Smart Business spoke with Staffaroni about how sharing the big picture with employees makes their jobs easier and how he promotes flexibility so his employees can have more balanced lives.

Promote balance. That’s a very healthy and important thing. We have a businesslike attitude, but we also believe in a balanced lifestyle. We don’t need people killing themselves at work.

We want people to enjoy their life, and work is part of that. Spend time with your family, and spend time with interests that you have outside the office, and try to have some balance in your life, and in the end, that’s going to be better for everyone, including us as an employer.

It’s amazing when you give a lot of people that opportunity and lead by example, people appreciate and follow along the same path. If my son has a soccer game at 4 o’clock, and I need to go watch it, I go watch it, and then I go online at 8 o’clock at night when I come home to clean up some to-dos.

We show some flexibility, and it’s amazing how everyone rallies around that same approach. If someone is trying to take advantage of that flexibility, it’s amazing how other people will come down on them; I don’t have to.

Communicate effectively. We get together often for lunch or coffee and muffins, and we allow people to speak in front of the group or share information with them.

I appreciated this when I sat in a different seat. When people understand the big picture and you share with them the details about the vision we have as far as the direction we want to take the company and how we want to get it there, and when they understand the big picture, it makes their job easier because they understand in which direction we’re pulling the wagon, and they can make smarter and more sensible decisions to that end.

You have to get out and talk to people. It’s easy to sit down and e-mail comes piling in and the phone rings — it’s easy to just be trapped in your own world. Get out and talk to people, and you have to show some interest and compassion — not just in what they’re doing in terms of their job but also in their life.

That kind of communication and getting out and talking to people one-on-one or having these group meetings really helps people feel like their voice is being heard, and it makes sure everybody hears the same message.

If you polled our employees, they would say, ‘I have no hesitation about going into Mike Staffaroni’s office and letting him know what I think.’ That open-door policy, hear what people are really thinking, and if you’re not clear in your communication, you can correct that.

Keep people calm. It’s by example. If you run into a meeting and we’re late with some deliveries and you start pounding the table and screaming, that can get people on edge or turn people on each other — who did this, why didn’t you do that?

Try to keep a sense of calm and say, ‘Look, we understand this is a problem. Let’s talk about the solutions — we’re not looking to blame anyone.’ They appreciate that our businesslike approach is serious and that we’re trying to find a solution. Even when it’s bad news, make sure we’re communicating accurately and clearly what the status is. That helps.

If you do have a performance issue, obviously there’s a better way to do it than embarrass someone in a group. Pull that person aside, or pull that person’s manager aside, and make sure the person knows they need to improve, or there’s other ways to approach the problem.

Keep people unified. As you get bigger, you have more and more personalities working together.

When we were a smaller, tighter group, we all knew exactly what the other was doing and what their respective strengths and weaknesses are, so we’ve added to middle management additional employees over the last couple years. You just want to make sure that everyone from a culture and personality standpoint can fit together as nicely as possible.

So much of it goes back to communication, especially verbal communication. We can talk about things, and everyone knows you often can be more courageous behind an e-mail, but when you get together face to face and talk through some of the problems, there’s generally a spirit of cooperation and you get a sense that there’s an effort to work together to fix things.

Sometimes, you have to push people together face to face instead of he-said, she-said or having someone write a scathing e-mail.

Delegate more. I was the first employee, so you take on a lot of the responsibility. Most people don’t appreciate being microman-aged, so at some point, you need to push away and make sure that you’re giving managers and employees the space and the rope that they need to do their job and make their own decisions and learn from their mistakes.

Make sure you’re clear on what the responsibilities are, and make sure they understand the big picture and the communication is clear, and make sure they’re at least providing some regular updates initially. As you hire someone, know that communication is more important. Just keep letting out more and more rope as that manager gets their legs under them and understands the organization and how to get things done.

There’s a mutual sense of trust that’s developed in a relationship like that. As you add more people, you just want to make sure you have that same kind of trust, which is earned over time.

Focus on the long term. As a start-up company focused on profitability and expense control, sometimes you forget that you need to grow the business, and to grow the business, you have to invest and spend in some key areas.

Every now and then, we have to remind ourselves that we have to think bigger. Sometimes, the decisions that you make help encourage people along the same lines.

HOW TO REACH: Heelys Inc., www.heelys.com or (866) HEELING