Smart Business Magazine, Sept 2012

September 2012 Smart Business Florida 15 Tony DiBenedetto will never forget the watercooler incident We were in our very first office building and at that time everybody was bringing in their own bottled water says DiBenedetto who is the co founder chairman and CEO of the national IT services provider We wound up having this meeting to talk about what we were going to do about the water He and the other two principals sat down to deliberate the issue Would they use bottled water or filtered What about enlisting a water service The meeting ended two hours later At the end of that meeting I looked at my two partners and said Guys were never doing this again DiBenedetto says This is insane Seeing the inefficiency around decision making the partners agreed that something needed to change With Tribridge still in its infancy they understood that the way they handled decisions in the beginning years would set the precedent for the companys future What it led to was an acknowledgement that we all three did not need to be included in decisions DiBenedetto says In partnerships a lot of times everybody feels the need to vote on every single issue and talk about every issue and it doesnt allow you to grow very fast Assign roles What the watercooler incident demonstrated is the age old problem of too many cooks in the kitchen combined with the mistake of bringing in the wrong cooks When there are too many people involved in a decision its hard for people to accomplish anything quickly or efficiently And if people are also participating in decisions that dont concern them they wont have time to handle the issues that do What DiBenedetto and his partners realized early on was that most people at Tribridge themselves included didnt really know what decisions were and werent their responsibility They needed to divide the decision making so that each person and department had clear areas of decision making authority Today each of the companys partners has specific items that fall under his decision making jurisdiction For example anything involving strategy lands within DiBenedettos arena and sometimes all three of the partners WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE WHEN IT COMES TO DAY TO DAY BUSINESS TONY DIBENEDETTO KNOWS THAT INEFFICIENCY IS THE ENEMY OF PRODUCTIVITY THATS WHY HE AND THE FOUNDERS OF TRIBRIDGE CREATED A BUSINESS CULTURE IN WHICH EVERY EMPLOYEE IS EMPOWERED TO MAKE DECISIONS TAKE RISKS AND CALL MEETINGS WITH THE TRUST AND SUPPORT OF THE COMPANYS LEADERSHIP BY PUSHING DECISIONS OUT IN THE ORGANIZATION TRIBRIDGE KEEPS CUSTOMERS HAPPY AND GROWTH A PRIORITY BY LAURA GREEN lgreen@ sbnonline com