"Build a culture based on treating your employees with respect and value them as you value yourself."
Ray Zinn is an inventor, entrepreneur, investor, angel, bestselling author, and the longest-serving CEO of a publicly-traded company in Silicon Valley. He is the founder of a nationally launched ZinnStarter program at colleges, providing financial and mentoring support for students. In 2015, Ray published his first book, Tough Things First, with McGraw Hill. The book covers Zinn’s 40 years at the helm of Micrel, along with the critical factors that entrepreneurs and seasoned executives alike need to know. This was followed by Zen of Zinn and Zen of Zinn 2, inspirational musings in 21st-century bites.
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Table of Contents
We’re happy that you could join us today! Please introduce yourself to our readers. What’s your story?
Ray Zinn: I was fired by a manager for getting too creative when trying to cultivate a much sought after customer. My methods were unconventional and while it did work, I also ended up ruffling the feathers of other customers. While I was being ‘invited’ to ‘pursue other interests’ my manager wisely advised me that I was the type of person that did not fit into the conventional corporate box and I should therefore never work for anyone again. He said I was really the type of go-getter who needed to steer my own ship. It was a pivotable moment in my life and my career when I realized that I really needed to create my own company, in my own vision. I wanted to create a lasting legacy, not a build and sell startup. I also wanted it to be a place of respect and a place where employees felt valued and respected. I knew that in hard-nosed Silicon Valley, no such place existed and I would need to create it for myself.
CEOs and leaders usually have different motives and aspirations when getting started. Let’s go straight to the beginning. What was your primary goal for starting your business? Was it wealth, respect, or to offer a service that would help improve lives?
Ray Zinn: I was fired by a manager for getting too creative when trying to cultivate a much sought after customer. My methods were unconventional and while it did work, I also ended up ruffling the feathers of other customers. While I was being ‘invited’ to ‘pursue other interests’ my manager wisely advised me that I was the type of person that did not fit into the conventional corporate box and I should therefore never work for anyone again. He said I was really the type of go-getter who needed to steer my own ship. It was a pivotable moment in my life and my career when I realized that I really needed to create my own company, in my own vision. I wanted to create a lasting legacy, not a build and sell startup. I also wanted it to be a place of respect and a place where employees felt valued and respected. I knew that in hard-nosed Silicon Valley, no such place existed and I would need to create it for myself.
Tell us about 2 things that you like and two things that you dislike about your industry. Share what you’d like to see change and why.
Ray Zinn: I like the innovation that continues to drive our industry and I like the way semiconductors continue to be used to improve the human condition. What I do not like so much is how America has long been held hostage by other countries when it comes to manufacturing and the global supply chain. The pandemic threw these issues into sharp relief. We are at the mercy of Asia when it comes to getting our chips manufactured and delivered. Only by building our own fabs and spreading out manufacturing to locations like India will we be able to revolve this.
Companies around the world are rapidly changing their work environment and organizational culture to facilitate diversity. How do you see your organizational culture changing in the next 3 years and how do you see yourself creating that change?
Ray Zinn: Because of pandemic, working remotely has rather quickly become not only acceptable but many employees now expect this as a condition of working somewhere. Working remotely will continue and even grow, allowing companies to hire qualified people who live anywhere with no relocation needed. This will increase diversity without having to uproot employees and help to augment quality of life and work-life balance. I often advise startups and companies and advise them to not only expect this change but to embrace it.
According to the Michigan State University “An organization’s culture is responsible for creating the kind of environment in which the business is managed, and has a major impact on its ultimate success or failure.” What kind of culture has your organization adopted and how has it impacted your business?
Ray Zinn: From the very beginning, we created a culture based on respect for all employees regardless of title or job responsibility. We did not even allow swearing which was unheard of in Silicon Valley. As a result, employees felt valued and listened to so much so that the impact long term was that we enjoyed one of the lowest attrition rates in high tech. We also had a very high boomerang rate wherein employees who actually did leave most often wanted to return. Creating a culture that so valued employees enabled us to retain highly coveted talent and increased productivity overall. Silicon Valley is famous for its ruthless recruitment of talent but in most cases, those who worked at Micrel didn’t leave for a fancier title or more money, they had a job situation that money could not buy and the entire company benefited as a result.
Richard Branson once famously stated “There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” and Stephen R. Covey admonishes to “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. What’s your take on creating a great organizational culture?
Ray Zinn: Respect. Build a culture based on treating your employees with respect and value them as you value yourself. This always worked at Micrel and still works to this day.
The overwhelming majority of more than 9,000 workers included in a recent Accenture survey on the future of work said they felt a hybrid work model would be optimal going forward, a major reason for that being the improved work-life balance that it offers. How do you promote work-life balance at your company?
Ray Zinn: Long before working remotely was so popular, we had employees working from home at Micrel. We also made sure employees had the time to be with their families and a balance of working hard and then having the freedom to go home and be with their families. We did not espouse burning the candle at both ends because people get their fill of that and they leave for greener pastures. We therefore made sure our managers all practiced servant leadership where they were there to help employees succeed, not the other way around. Being a servant leader means you put the needs of the employee before your own and that translates into helping them succeed, including helping them maintain a better work-life balance.
How would you describe your company’s overall culture? Give us examples.
Ray Zinn: As I said, we based Micrel’s culture on respect for everyone. We did not allow swearing and we were strong on servant leadership all the way up to having our managers and staff do all the grunt work for things like ice cream socials and bar-be-ques. We were there to thank and acknowledge the hard work of our employees and made sure they knew it always. We also based our culture on doing whatever it took to get the job done. This meant that everyone pitched in to make a project a success. The most often heard phrase around Micrel was always, “How can I help?” This was part of our employee DNA and we hired to that culture, making sure people we hired were suited to the giving, selfless nature of our culture.
Share with us one of the most difficult decisions you had to make, this past year 2021, for your company that benefited your employees or customers. What made this decision so difficult and what were the positive impacts.
Ray Zinn: Micrel was sold in 2015 so my most difficult decisions occurred prior to 2021. However, one decision comes to mind. We were making a lot of money in the consumer arena but quickly realized that while the lure of huge orders and big profits was tantalizing, ultimately keeping up with endless revisions of consumer products and the continuous downward spiral of pricing, was going to hurt our bottom line and drain our R&D resources. Ultimately, we made the very tough decision to move our business focus to the more stable industrial markets where cost points were not going to plummet with the next new rev of a phone and customers often stayed with a specific product for years. It made all the difference and was instrumental in Micrel thriving for 37 years.
It is believed that a company’s culture is rooted in a company’s values. What are your values and how do they affect daily life at the workplace?
Ray Zinn: Our values were respect, integrity and doing whatever it takes. Respect meant no swearing and treating everyone the same regardless of job. Integrity meant everyone was held to a high standard of behavior and way of doing business. And doing whatever it takes was all about making sure we got the job done. Jumping in to help was engrained in all employees and we felt that as a company we were stronger as a result. Customers would often choose Micrel over bigger more impersonal chip vendors because they knew we would do whatever it took to help them succeed.
It is believed that a company’s culture is rooted in a company’s values. What are your values and how do they affect daily life at the workplace?
Ray Zinn: Our values were respect, integrity and doing whatever it takes. Respect meant no swearing and treating everyone the same regardless of job. Integrity meant everyone was held to a high standard of behavior and way of doing business. And doing whatever it takes was all about making sure we got the job done. Jumping in to help was engrained in all employees and we felt that as a company we were stronger as a result. Customers would often choose Micrel over bigger more impersonal chip vendors because they knew we would do whatever it took to help them succeed.
Every organization suffers from internal conflicts, whether functional or dysfunctional. Our readers would love to know, how do you solve an internal conflict?
Ray Zinn: It was always my practice to get all the players in a room together to hash things out. This kept back door politics to an absolute minimum and helped resolve issues quickly. We also made sure that teams worked cross functionally on as many projects as possible so that employees would receive first-hand knowledge and experience with other teams’ issues and challenges. This sort of working empathy helped keep issues to a minimum because employees understood what others were going through and their challenges much better.
According to Culture AMP, Only 40% of women feel satisfied with the decision-making process at their organization (versus 70% of men), which leads to job dissatisfaction and poor employee retention. What is your organization doing to facilitate an inclusive and supportive environment for women?
Ray Zinn: Micrel always had a supportive environment for women and did not tolerate any sort of harassment. We were way out ahead of the #metoo movement and made sure women felt safe, respected and heard. Again, with a culture based on respect, we were grounded in listening and respecting everyone regardless of whether sex, age or religion.
What role do your company’s culture and values play in the recruitment process and how do you ensure that it is free from bias?
Ray Zinn: We were always mindful that our culture was not for everyone. We therefore hired people who were suited to our culture of respect, integrity and doing whatever it took.
We’re grateful for all that you have shared so far! We would also love to know if there was one thing that you could improve about your company’s culture, what would it be?
Ray Zinn: The one thing I would want to improve for any company’s culture was to learn to do the tough things first. This is a great productivity tool that should be embraced across all disciplines and helps clear the biggest boulders early in the day. You won’t be able to get every single employee to embrace this but the more people who do, the easier and more productive work becomes.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Ray Zinn: For many companies it is about going back to basics and reworking the fundamentals. If the pandemic has taught us anything it should be about making sure you have a year’s worth of operating cash in the bank, focusing on profitability, running lean and mean. In addition, with such global wide fragility in the supply chain and waiting for more domestic fabs to come on line so we have an American-based source for manufacturing semiconductors, we can be more competitive on a global scale. Meanwhile, just getting our chips made and shipped remains a worldwide concern.
This has been truly insightful and we thank you for your time. Our final question, however, might be a bit of a curveball. If you had a choice to either fly or be invisible, which would you choose and why?
Ray Zinn: As someone who became legally blind years ago, I think flying could be really interesting. It represents a level of freedom and mobility I don’t currently have because of my limited eye sight.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ray Zinn 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 Ray Zinn or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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