It’s been a busy fall for the Employee Ownership Committee as we celebrated ESOP Month this October. We started off with the Putt-Putt Tournament, had fun with daily ESOP Trivia challenges, and ended the month with Bowling. In the midst of that we represented MSI at the Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the ESOP Association.
As part of the conference Roland gave a presentation on “Lessons Learned” that focused on starting our ESOP and our two ESOP transactions, which led us to being 100% employee owned. In the presentation, Roland talked about how we built a circle of trusted advisers that we have continued to call on and listen to whenever we have questions or challenges. The process we went through to become an ESOP highlights MSI’s corporate culture at its best: we like to gather different points of view, we believe we are stronger for questioning ourselves, and we know that we are more than just the sum of our parts.
In his presentation, Roland also discussed Open Books Reporting – the intentional decision MSI has made to share all the information, good and bad, about the company. This idea originated in MSI’s earliest days, when Betsie would share the financial status of the company. Betsie’s decision early on has laid the groundwork for a company culture of transparency, sharing, and working together for our common goals. It’s this common focus, this common approach, this common understanding that as Employee-Owners we’re all working together that has helped us to achieve good times and weather bad times.
