Central York Chamber of Commerce held Shift24 event at East Gwillimbury SilverCity cinema. Tony was a Keynote speaker at this event.
In 2011, Tony Gareri was appointed CEO of his family business, Roma Moulding, in Vaughan.
Good news?
Hardly.
The world was struggling back from a massive global financial crisis.
Gareri’s company was tanking and he feared the business his father had built for three decades would go under.
“We were hemorrhaging millions of dollars and we had lost our way,” he told about 400 people who gathered at the SilverCity cinema in East Gwillimbury just north of Newmarket for the Central York Chamber of Commerce’s SHIFT24 conference.
The second annual event brought together “the visionaries, the change makers, the shift disturbers” on May 16 to empower and inspire business leaders through inspirational speeches and networking.
Gareri was far from an inspirational speaker who now competes in Spartan endurance obstacle races back in 2011 as he watched his company flounder.
He hated his business. He hated his life.
“We had found ourselves in our business trying a lot of the same things, hoping for different results, even though we knew not to do it. But when faced with fear, you will feel bewildered, you will become disoriented, you will somewhat not act rationally,” he said.
“I wanted to run into a brick wall every day. It was tough. It was tough. Terminating people, laying people off. It was tough clawing back the business, cutting all costs. We had lost our way. We had put people last in our business. We had put profits first, even though there weren’t any. We did things quintessentially wrong.”
Gareri was in Las Vegas at yet another unsuccessful trade show when he was introduced to a book called “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” by Tony Hsieh.
Hsieh co-founded internet advertising cooperative LinkExchange, which Microsoft bought for $265 million (U.S.) and was CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos, which Amazon bought for about $1.2 billion.
Hsieh’s book explains the corporate culture he created, which focused on improving the lives of his employees, customers, vendors and supporters.
In his mind, Gareri set about discrediting the book.
Then, he visited a Zappos call centre and saw the “remarkable” corporate culture at work.
On the plane ride home, Gareri started asking himself what his employees must think of his company.
Would they talk favourably about him? Would they recommend the business to potential customers?
“Do they even want to be there because I don’t want to be there.,” he said.
Back at work, he gathered his employees together and told them Roma Moulding’s leadership team had failed them.
It was the beginning of a dramatic shift.
“I had a dream of leading Canada’s happiest company,” Gareri said.
The company’s mission became “to move, inspire and wow you.”
“We believed that if people loved what they did, they would forget that they’re working and actually just get into the moment,” he added.
The company articulated and tracked its goals, it celebrated every success because celebration is infectious, it “over-communicated” with employees, it focused on product development, it “over-invested” in learning and leadership.
Roma grew into a company that wins awards, is highly profitably, has dedicated workers, attracts high-level talent and gives tours to business people who want to know how to run a happy, successful business, Gareri said.
He offered tips to people looking to achieve their goals and business people looking to elevate their businesses, including:
• Dream big and surround yourself with people who inspire you to push yourself to achieve your goals and to greater heights.
• Take the first step. Don’t let your mind talk you into pushing the hard work you need to do off to another time.
• There will be fear. That can be defined as either “forget everything and run” or “face everything and rise.” Choose the second one.
• Life will continue to punch you in the face. Despite the challenges, push yourself to continue achieving your goals.
“There is no summit. Life is all journey,” Gareri said.