John Smith—Sparc

August 20, 2013:  Our program was presented by John Smith, the Chief Evangelist of SPARC. Prior to joining SPARC, John served as the CIO of Benefitfocus and as CEO of PeopleMatter. SPARC was recently named the 14th fastest growing private company in America by Inc. 500 with three-year revenue growth of 12,862%! The company is in the business of making people better which they fund through their software.  SPARC is a leading software product development company and was awarded SC Best Place to Work.  SPARC develops software and mobile applications for the government and commercial sectors, specializing in health and benefits systems, intelligence security, employee recognition, green energy management, big data analytics, and mobile application development.

John began his energetic and compelling presentation by asking the audience, “Who is in the business of taking people and making them their best?” After nearly everyone raised their hands, John described how the right culture helps achieve this common goal. In this way, culture should be considered another tool to grow your business. John used the “Engagement Effect” to describe how it works. John believes that it all begins by hiring the right people. He suggested that we should “Hire culture”, before intelligence and skill. This is partly due to the fact that the world is now innovating in accelerated 9-month cycles and thus the skills of today may not be as valuable in the near future. Culture and the ability to adapt and learn new things are more sustaining and should accordingly carry more weight.  After hiring the right people, you should envelop them in a culture that makes them happy. John urges executives to ask their employees what is important to them, not to assume. You might be surprised by what you find out. For example, at SPARC, one of the biggest “multipliers” of happiness was a comfortable chair. When you hire the right people and have created a culture that makes them happy, they become engaged. This phenomenon creates a feedback loop that continues to fuel itself. The output generated is energy and a positive brand. Energy is the only thing in the world that can create time, the most valuable commodity of all. When employees are passionate and speak highly about a company, the company’s brand gains value. John stressed that great culture does not develop overnight. Those who obtain it invest time and resources through a core belief that in the long-run the right culture will help their business grow.  
 
Will Thames, Keyway Committee