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CEDAR RAPIDS
Creativity encouraged
Reporter: Tim Kenyon
tim@corridorbiznews.com
Flexibility, openness and inclusion are three traits that have helped
Genova Technologies CEO and President Dawn Ainger to successfully
manage her company.
“Dawn has a real good grip on leadership
skills. She sets up a real good environment for success and motivates
them well and the business executes well,” said Curt Nelson,
Entrepreneurial Development Center (EDC) president and CEO.
“You want to treat everyone fairly, but you can't treat them all the same,” said Ms. Ainger.
Genova
Technologies provides software application development, database design
and development, network design, project management and other
services. Its customers include some major players in the
business world and large entities in government, such as Rockwell
Collins, John Deere, Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs and
the Department of Defense, among others.
During
employment interviews, Ms. Ainger tells prospective hires right away
that Genova is not an information technology workplace steeped in
political correctness or policies.
“We’re all corporate
refugees here,” she said in explaining how she prefers her company to
focus on “a culture of fun” and “a culture of success.”
She also
emphasizes that there is no corporate ladder to climb at Genova because
employees work in teams. Ms. Ainger also tells interviewees they should
be flexible and focus toward the successful completion of a project and
learn new skills.
Additionally, she said, “You’ll be pushed in a lot of new technology areas.”
She
believes a relaxed environment that fosters creativity and innovation
will produce better results than in some corporate practices where
straying ever so slightly from policy can bring punishment, often as
severe as termination.
She also likes to avoid putting employees too much into specialized positions because it restricts their growth potential.
If an employee shows good reason to step beyond policy, that’s acceptable, she said.
Sticking too hard and fast to policy can be inhibiting, Ms. Ainger added that policies are more like guidelines at Genova.
And
while IT employee recruitment is highly competitive, Ms. Ainger also
tells applicants: “We hire for attitude and train for skill.”
A
high aptitude for problem solving is another vital characteristic in
staffers that helps the company to continue to grow, she said.
Ms.
Ainger said she likes to give programmers and developers more
opportunities to grow in those areas and others such as project
management when the staffers want a different challenge.
Genova will be hiring a lot in the near future.
“Genova
is positioned to have between 200 and 350 employees/project consultants
in the next two to five years,” Ms. Ainger said.
Once hired,
people tend to stay. With more than 80 employees now, she’s happy
she’s only lost one of the nine original employees since she took over
ownership in 2001 just before Sept. 11.
“I think her record
with the company speaks for itself,” said Josie Heskje, EDC marketing
vice president. “The turnover rate is amazing. People just don't do
that (well) anymore. She really empowers people and has a real focus on
team building.”
Ms. Ainger said she gains trust and increases team building by holding herself accountable to her employees.
Yearly reviews are followed by employees' review of the company, their supervisors and Ms. Ainger.
She
calls them “walkarounds.” More specifically, the “walks around the
block” with individual employees are sometimes done near the office, or
at Noelridge Park or in winter at a mall.
“I ask, ‘What are three things we can do better and what are three things we can keep doing well,’” Ms. Ainger said.
Progressing
from a weekly-type vacation system to an accrued method is one example
of an employee suggestion implemented from the “walkarounds,” she said.
Understanding the importance of employees is something that Ms. Ainger excels at, according to Miss Heskje.
“Cultivating
a team environment where people love to go to work everyday that makes
it easier for recruiting and retaining,” she said.
It’s an advantage for Genova that is looked at more as a general challenge in Iowa workforce issues.
They’re
going to have to figure that out,” Ms Heskje said referring to other
business leaders. “Any leader, be it a woman or a man, could improve
their company’s overall performance by being the type of leader that
Dawn is.”
Having Ms. Ainger as the feature entrepreneur at
a recent EDC roundtable discussion gave others a glimpse of her
management methods, Ms. Heskje said.
Ms. Ainger said being a women-owned, small business can be helpful to get an interview with customers.
“But,” she said, “All it does is get the door open.”
The
growth at Genova has also captured honors. Most recently, Ms. Ainger
received the Technology Association of Iowa’s Woman in Technology of
the Year award earlier this year.
The company earned the
Rockwell Collins Supplier of the Year award from 2002 through 2005 and
its Women-Owned Small Business of the Year award in 2004.
Genova also earned the state’s DaVinci Award for engineering excellence in 2002.
Ms.
Ainger said setting and meeting customer’s expectations for budgets,
schedules and other requirements brings in more business and is “making
them happy campers.” CBJ
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