Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member.

Sharing information with employees with the aim of fostering greater teamwork and productivity, engaging employees in new and creative ways and giving them unprecedented ownership over their work were just a few of the themes that emerged in our fourth annual “Best Bosses” recognition program, which we recently completed. Once again, this project was a wonderful experience that allowed us to put the best practices of some of the most innovative small and midsize business leaders in North America under the microscope.

This year’s 18 Best Bosses were selected by a panel comprised of academics, two previous Best Bosses honorees and Winning Workplaces board members and staff. The 2006 winners are:

• Richard Caturano – President, Vitale, Caturano & Company

• Linda Dunkel – President and CEO, Interaction Associates, Inc.

• Mike Faith – President and CEO, Headsets.com, Inc.

• Paal Gisholt – President and CEO, SmartPak Equine

• Henry S. Givray – Chairman and CEO, SmithBucklin Corporation

• Megan Glasheen – Managing Member, Reno & Cavanaugh, PLLC

• Mellody Hobson – President, Ariel Capital Management, LLC

• Dan Hoffman – President and CEO, M5 Networks

• Jeffrey A. Hollender – President and Chief Regeneration Officer, Seventh Generation, Inc.

• Keith Jacob – President, St. Louis Staffing

• Timothy P. Keenan – President and Founder, High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi)

• Michael Lacey – CEO/President, Digineer, Inc.

• Carl La Mell – President, Clearbrook

• David M. Pierce – CEO and Chairman, ENA

• Pete Snyder – CEO, New Media Strategies

• Nicolas Thomley – President and CEO, Pinnacle Services, Inc.

• Graham Weston – Chairman and CEO, Rackspace Managed Hosting

• David Williams – President and CEO, Merkle Inc.

In my editorial on last year’s Best Bosses, I spoke of the challenges of the economic landscape. These include fierce competition and evolving recruitment methods to land top talent, rising employee health care costs and developing staff to serve the organization’s needs in increasingly dynamic ways. These challenges have only grown more multifaceted in the past year – perhaps one reason that the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a leading small business advocacy group, recently reported that small business owners are, on the whole, the least optimistic that they’ve been in over three years. In other words, small businesses – the backbone of the American economy – are feeling challenged.

Yet, this year’s honorees are weathering those obstacles with more than just a can-do attitude – they’re creating and honing best practices designed to equip their workforces with the knowledge and insight needed to perform at consistently stellar levels. The result? Motivated workers, high customer service ratings and increased productivity that improves the bottom line. Consider: The average growth rate for the past year among our 2006 winners was 40 percent.

Paal Gisholt’s organization, Massachusetts-based SmartPak Equine, a retailer of horse and small animal products, leads this trend. While adding 20 employees to the 50 already on the payroll over the last two years, he guided his workers to increase sales by a whopping 177 percent. Gisholt was able to do this not by telling his people to hit certain sales targets, but by inspiring them to want to hit those targets – and not just for the company, but for themselves. Practices like employee stock ownership and open book management serve as standalone tools to constantly realign employees with the firm’s core values. “I have become a believer in letting our culture serve as the primary mechanism to generate alignment of goals within the organization,” he says.

At Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member.

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• Henry S. Givray – Chairman and CEO, SmithBucklin Corporation

• Megan Glasheen – Managing Member, Reno & Cavanaugh, PLLC

• Mellody Hobson – President, Ariel Capital Management, LLC

• Dan Hoffman – President and CEO, M5 Networks

• Jeffrey A. Hollender – President and Chief Regeneration Officer, Seventh Generation, Inc.

• Keith Jacob – President, St. Louis Staffing

• Timothy P. Keenan – President and Founder, High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi)

• Michael Lacey – CEO/President, Digineer, Inc.

• Carl La Mell – President, Clearbrook

• David M. Pierce – CEO and Chairman, ENA

• Pete Snyder – CEO, New Media Strategies

• Nicolas Thomley – President and CEO, Pinnacle Services, Inc.

• Graham Weston – Chairman and CEO, Rackspace Managed Hosting

• David Williams – President and CEO, Merkle Inc.

In my editorial on last year’s Best Bosses, I spoke of the challenges of the economic landscape. These include fierce competition and evolving recruitment methods to land top talent, rising employee health care costs and developing staff to serve the organization’s needs in increasingly dynamic ways. These challenges have only grown more multifaceted in the past year – perhaps one reason that the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a leading small business advocacy group, recently reported that small business owners are, on the whole, the least optimistic that they’ve been in over three years. In other words, small businesses – the backbone of the American economy – are feeling challenged.

Yet, this year’s honorees are weathering those obstacles with more than just a can-do attitude – they’re creating and honing best practices designed to equip their workforces with the knowledge and insight needed to perform at consistently stellar levels. The result? Motivated workers, high customer service ratings and increased productivity that improves the bottom line. Consider: The average growth rate for the past year among our 2006 winners was 40 percent.

Paal Gisholt’s organization, Massachusetts-based SmartPak Equine, a retailer of horse and small animal products, leads this trend. While adding 20 employees to the 50 already on the payroll over the last two years, he guided his workers to increase sales by a whopping 177 percent. Gisholt was able to do this not by telling his people to hit certain sales targets, but by inspiring them to want to hit those targets – and not just for the company, but for themselves. Practices like employee stock ownership and open book management serve as standalone tools to constantly realign employees with the firm’s core values. “I have become a believer in letting our culture serve as the primary mechanism to generate alignment of goals within the organization,” he says.

At Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member.

of the economic landscape. These include fierce competition and evolving recruitment methods to land top talent, rising employee health care costs and developing staff to serve the organization’s needs in increasingly dynamic ways. These challenges have only grown more multifaceted in the past year – perhaps one reason that the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a leading small business advocacy group, recently reported that small business owners are, on the whole, the least optimistic that they’ve been in over three years. In other words, small businesses – the backbone of the American economy – are feeling challenged.

Yet, this year’s honorees are weathering those obstacles with more than just a can-do attitude – they’re creating and honing best practices designed to equip their workforces with the knowledge and insight needed to perform at consistently stellar levels. The result? Motivated workers, high customer service ratings and increased productivity that improves the bottom line. Consider: The average growth rate for the past year among our 2006 winners was 40 percent.

Paal Gisholt’s organization, Massachusetts-based SmartPak Equine, a retailer of horse and small animal products, leads this trend. While adding 20 employees to the 50 already on the payroll over the last two years, he guided his workers to increase sales by a whopping 177 percent. Gisholt was able to do this not by telling his people to hit certain sales targets, but by inspiring them to want to hit those targets – and not just for the company, but for themselves. Practices like employee stock ownership and open book management serve as standalone tools to constantly realign employees with the firm’s core values. “I have become a believer in letting our culture serve as the primary mechanism to generate alignment of goals within the organization,” he says.

At Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member.

and increased productivity that improves the bottom line. Consider: The average growth rate for the past year among our 2006 winners was 40 percent.

Paal Gisholt’s organization, Massachusetts-based SmartPak Equine, a retailer of horse and small animal products, leads this trend. While adding 20 employees to the 50 already on the payroll over the last two years, he guided his workers to increase sales by a whopping 177 percent. Gisholt was able to do this not by telling his people to hit certain sales targets, but by inspiring them to want to hit those targets – and not just for the company, but for themselves. Practices like employee stock ownership and open book management serve as standalone tools to constantly realign employees with the firm’s core values. “I have become a believer in letting our culture serve as the primary mechanism to generate alignment of goals within the organization,” he says.

At Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member.

Chicago-based investment management and mutual fund company of winner Mellody Hobson, people-centered best practices include all-company staff meetings, tuition reimbursement and free breakfast on Thursdays. “People are everything,” Hobson recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Unless you figure out a way to create a culture that excites and motivates people, you won’t have a good business.” Hobson’s people return the value she and the management team place in them in spades. Case in point: When the company relocated its offices downtown, everyone voted.

Of course, effective or innovative use of best practices is not the only thing that defines a great leader. Sometimes, surviving and thriving against overwhelming odds defines the executive’s path. In the case of Virginia-based information technology firm HPTi, President and Founder Timothy Keenan weathered the storm every leader hopes passes by his or her company: the death of a staff member. In 2003, Keenan – then COO – took the reigns of HPTi after its CEO, general counsel and accountant were killed in a plane crash. After the tragedy, Keenan resolved to demonstrate to both his customers and his employees that it would not impact HPTi’s viability. That same fateful year ended on a positive note, turning out to be one of the company’s most profitable.

While their locations, industries, budgets and talent pools vary widely, this year’s 18 honorees do share some common ground – they have each embraced the core principles of a winning workplace:

• Trust, Respect & Fairness
• Open Communications
• Rewards & Recognition
• Learning & Development
• Teamwork & Involvement
• Work/Life Balance

With the above-mentioned challenges – and countless others – defining today’s sometimes rigid, always shifting economic landscape, America’s innovative and creative small business leaders serve as the foundation holding that landscape intact in times of turbulence. Our 2006 Best Bosses honorees represent a small sample of these leaders, but a prime sample nonetheless. Stay tuned as we watch for the next big thing to come from these great small organizations.

Mary Corbitt Clark can be reached at info@winningworkplaces.org.