Forming Corporate Culture

From the day in 1980 that I became chief operating officer of Tipton to the day we sold the company in 1987, we had increasing profits every quarter. The corporate culture was one that required outstanding focus and work effort. Fifty- to 60-hour work weeks were common for the executives, but the work effort was far less than required by many other companies.

This kind of bottom-line performance resulted in a lot of our executives becoming rich by most standards. I remember reading an article by the president of a similar company who said that 80-hour weeks were the norm for his people.

At Tipton, however, we tried to develop a corporate culture that encouraged a …