"Culture eats strategy for breakfast and ethics are the fork and the knife."
Marc Snyderman, partner at OGC Solutions, is a highly experienced business professional with a track record of success in both the private and public sectors. He has a strong background in finance and has held leadership roles at several major corporations, including Goldman Sachs and Deloitte.
Snyderman is also a skilled communicator, with a proven ability to connect with diverse groups and build lasting relationships. In addition to his professional work, Snyderman is actively involved in a number of charitable organizations and is dedicated to giving back to his community. Overall, he is a dedicated and accomplished individual who continues to make a positive impact in the business world and beyond.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Marc Snyderman: My name is Marc Snyderman, I’m a business attorney and partner at OGC Solutions. We provide an outsourced general counsel and legal department model to small and mid-sized companies across myriad verticals at monthly subscription rates.
The traditional law firm model is broken, specifically when it comes to representing the SMB market. The billable hour combined with huge overheads creates an inefficient marketplace that has taken lawyers from the position of a trusted advisor at the table with business owners to merely being a backstop. We’ve disrupted this model and changed the paradigm to a monthly subscription of outside general counsel services by keeping our rates below market and utilizing technology to advance our business. We learn what you do and why you do it and then integrate into your team to help you grow.
My background is not typical of a business attorney in private practice or a strategic consultant. I’m a former C-Suite executive and a seasoned General Counsel with emphasis on shepherding growth and change management and executing on vision for technology-based companies. I have a strong background as a corporate attorney and I pride myself on being a business lawyer that gets deals done, not undone. I assess risk and define and implement programs to mitigate it, through infrastructure development, implementation of information technology and/or insurance programs. I am a constant learner and believer in continuous improvement at all levels to be successful.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Marc Snyderman: We put business lawyers back in an advisory role with companies to help them grow and mitigate risk by eliminating fee variance risk of traditional law firms. Our model is different and our attorneys have worked in-house and built companies providing us with a unique perspective to support other businesses.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle keeping talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are adapting to the current shift we see?
Marc Snyderman: Culture eats strategy for breakfast and ethics are the fork and the knife. Companies that are not purpose-driven and have a true “why” that their team can engage with and buy into are wholly missing the mark with the millennial and gen z workforce.
Further, COVID created a unique opportunity for companies to build flexibility into their workplaces and still find ways to have solid employee engagement – but it’s not easy. Many companies have never had real hybrid environments in place and don’t understand the struggles and have the tools in place for solid communications.
This leads to employees feeling unheard and undervalued – tech can help, but only when it’s rooted in a real ethos of the company and not window dressing. When employees work from home a giant light gets shed on the way the company does things and it’s easier to cut through the corporate chatter to see how companies really view their people.
Companies need to shift their vision and discussions to demonstrate why they do what they do to their employees and build culture from the bottom up and top down simultaneously.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Marc Snyderman: It’s a loaded question to choose 1 book but I’ll say Drive by Daniel Pink has been a huge influence on me. I grew up in Motivation 2.0 carrot and stick world and Drive really provided a solid understanding that what motivates the next generations isn’t the same thing that motivated my generation and the one’s that came before me.
There’s been a true evolution and Motivation 3.0 requires autonomy, mastery, and purpose. People need intrinsic motivation these days and carrot and stick motivation is a thing of the past and actually creates opportunity for unethical behavior.
The book I’ve most gifted is Together is Better from Simon Sinek. It’s a small book with quotes that’s very easy to read but truly meaningful as a thank you and book of inspiration. There are so many great quotes in the book but one stands out: “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.”
Building that trust and common vision and purpose is core to success.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Marc Snyderman: I wrote a chapter in an Amazon #1 best seller, Leading Through the Pandemic, Unconventional Wisdom from Heartfelt Leaders. Each chapter in the book provides insights from leaders across industries and types of businesses as to how they have “led” during the Pandemic.
The range of authors that were compiled for this book by publisher Kayleigh O’keefe is impressive and inspiring. My chapter is deeply personal and somewhat humorous as to my adventure throughout the pandemic.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?.
Marc Snyderman: I think the most underestimated part of running a company is the weight of the responsibility. You know when you’re moving up in management that you are responsible for people, but you never really feel the weight of the world until you’re at the top.
When I was the Chief Operating Officer of an international engineering and IT solutions company, I felt the weight of 300 people on my back every night as I went to sleep. When the government was going through mandatory shutdowns, my first thought was never profitability but rather, how would these employees pay for their mortgage or rent if we had to send them home? It weighs heavy on your soul.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Marc Snyderman: I’d like to be able to make time slow down, not just for business but personal reasons. My daughter is already in college and out of the house and my son will be there soon too – would love to slow that process down. From a work perspective – slowing down some things would allow me more time to think through certain challenges rather than being forced into faster decision-making.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Marc Snyderman for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Marc Snyderman or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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