Turnarounds
Shared success
How Tony Parella brought Shared Technologies back from bankruptcy by rebuilding the company’s culture
By Erik Cassano
Smart Business Dallas | April 2009
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When Tony Parella took control of Shared Technologies Inc. in 2004, there was no place to go but up.
Years of bad business associations had left the technology solutions company a bankrupt financial and cultural wreck. Shared Technologies had been bought and sold three times during its nearly 30-year history, including by scandal-riddled telecommunications company WorldCom. All three ventures ended with the parent company declaring bankruptcy.
When Parella became the company’s president and CEO, he inherited an extensive list of headaches in every aspect of Shared Technologies’ business, not the least of which was a bruised and battered company culture. As the organization repeatedly switched hands, a disconnect developed between management and employees, to the point that many employees refused to believe that the actions of company managers would ever follow their words.
Parella quickly discovered just how skeptical and jaded Shared Technologies’ employee base had become.
“They were beaten down, they were demoralized, they had pretty much seen it all over those years,” he says. “I had to change the mindset so that they believed management cared about them and was going to the right thing. That took some time.”
It went beyond repairing the trust factor with employees to completely overhauling the entire culture of the company.
“It was in the back of my mind from day one that I was going to make some significant changes, that I was going to change the mindset of the employees,” he says.
