HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
PREVIOUS PAGE: COURTESY OF PROMEGA CORP.
CORPORATE ZEN
This is why Promega’s chefs
oversee their own on-site organic
garden, using it to supplement a
subsidized menu of restaurant-worthy healthy food. And this is why
a new $130 million factory set to
open on the Promega campus later
this summer contains restrooms
worthy of a Four Seasons hotel, a
cafeteria with granite countertops,
double-high atriums, cherry wood
accents over the entrances, and a
living wall composed of real plants
and trickling water — a concentrated attack on the long grey winter
that seizes Wisconsin.
“We want to bring the outdoors inside as much as possible,” Linton says.
All of this lavish treatment is
why Linton has resisted a former
temptation to take his company
public, a step that would have
handed a measure of control to
people who manage money on
Wall Street, and who would ask
simpler questions than those that
consume him. Questions like: Why
does a factory need natural light
and marble floors beneath the urinals? How many cents per share
in earnings did all that cost?
He gets that Wall Street would
would not like his answers: Because he wants the people who
MY GOAL IS TO
ALIGN THE SELFACTUALIZATION
OF THE
BUSINESS
WITH THE SELFACTUALIZATION
OF THE PEOPLE
WHO ACTUALLY
WORK HERE.
work in that factory to be happy.
Given multiple opportunities
to make the point that happy factory owners make for long-term
profit, Linton demurs.
“I can’t necessarily tie this selfactualization to helping us gain
cash flow or develop better products,” Linton says. “You can’t calculate the return on investment.”
‘IT HELPS THE BOTTOM LINE’
But the people Linton oversees
at Promega are not so reluctant.
Many assume that limber bodies
and calmer minds — the fruits of
yoga, meditation, cardiovascular
exercise and nutritious food —
are indeed spilling into the results of the business.
“People are more engaged,” says