Dean Guida, the Founder & CEO of Infragistics, has a rich history that led him to where he is today. From teaching himself how to code on an IBM PC to founding a successful software company, his journey is filled with passion, determination, and a commitment to excellence. In this exclusive interview, Dean shares his core values, leadership principles, and strategies for success as a CEO. He also offers valuable advice to aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs based on his own experiences and insights. Join us as we delve into the mind of a visionary leader who has navigated the challenges of entrepreneurship with grit, tenacity, and strategic acumen.
Interviewee Name: Dean Guida
Company: Infragistics
Dean ‘s favourite quote: “Nothing in life worth having comes easy. You must work hard at everything you do.”
Many people think that successful people are lucky, but they’re not, they’re just hard workers. Infragistics wasn’t built in a day, and for 35+ years we’ve had to work hard to create products that offer value to customers and continue to innovate as the industry and customers’ needs change.
The Interview
Before we dive into the future, let’s rewind a bit! Tell us a story: what sparked your passion for your industry and led you to where you are today?
Dean Guida : I grew up in Miami, Florida. I worked in the restaurant business in high school, and I was saving up money to buy a car so I could take girls out. Then, the IBM PC was released. Instead of buying a car, I purchased a decked-out IBM PC for $4500 (which was a lot of money in the early 1980’s). I taught myself how to code on it. I used the computer to launch a business with a friend’s older brother, who was a CPA. We created an accounting software program. Despite never releasing it to the public, it was a great learning experience for me. Entrepreneurship was now firmly ingrained in my blood.
After high school, I attended University of Miami and earned a systems analysis degree, which is a degree in deterministic and probabilistic models. While I was a student at University of Miami, I operated their mainframe at night, working the midnight shift. By day, I participated in the university’s work-study program and fixed their entire payroll system. The VP of HR wrote me a glowing recommendation letter, which helped me get a job operating the mainframes at Sea Escape Cruise Line. The earnings from that job put me through college.
Following college graduation, I headed to Wall Street. For several years I freelanced for such major companies as IBM and AIG. Financially, I was doing well, but I wanted my own company—one that would create simple and beautiful products.
After a year of consulting, I met my partner, and we founded the software company that became Infragistics. This involved very long hours – I worked at my consulting job during the day to financially support our new software business and got the company started at night. We never gave up, even when it seemed like an uphill climb.
What core values and leadership principles have guided you in your journey as a CEO, and how have they shaped your approach to leading your company?
Dean Guida : At Infragistics, our overarching values are innovation, commitment, and respect.
Our culture is based on ethics and values, where teams collaborate productively and efficiently at meetings while maintaining deep human connections. Here employees feel passionate about their work and help one another through honest and nonjudgmental feedback. This enables us to find and retain the best talent available. Infragistics is agile enough to respond to the relentlessly changing marketplace. We are a company whose leadership is self-reflective, transparent, and constantly creating an organization where learning is a primary purpose and goal.
When I founded Infragistics, I intuitively realized how important an outstanding culture would be for our success. My belief wasn’t, however, based on research or global surveys but was the result of hard-earned lessons learned at some of the most successful enterprises in America.
Culture is inherently difficult to copy because it adapts automatically to changing marketplace conditions as companies seek to find new ways to succeed. High-performing organizations thrive on change. On the other hand, low-performing cultures do not respond well to change. Moreover, companies with weak cultures suffer from a disengaged workforce. Try creating great products and services with employees who are just going through the motions so they can pick up a paycheck.
Prior to launching my own company, I worked on Wall Street as a freelance consultant, where I encountered numerous colleagues who lacked passion about what they were doing and rarely strove to achieve anything important. At one firm, I was teamed with thirty people and charged with developing a new software product. Two associates and I did all the work. Our teammates mindlessly chatted away during meetings and wasted time writing reports nobody read.
At other companies, I worked with many individuals whose sole focus was career advancement. To achieve their aims, they withheld vital information so they could acquire power within the company. If that didn’t help them land in the C-suite, they used intimidation to get their ideas and decisions implemented. Their behavior created an environment where I rarely looked forward to going to work.
Such negative experiences fueled insights into the kind of culture I wanted at Infragistics. I believed it should be a company where everyone could have fun, all employees were passionate about their work, and they were devoted to delighting the customer. Further, it should be a company where people build great, simple, and beautiful software. In addition, I wanted employees who desired to learn new things, who talked through problems to solve them, and who were consistently helpful to their teammates and other employees. Finally, I wanted us to attract talented employees and retain them for a long time.
An outstanding culture involves:
Defining in clear terms what a company culture should be
Creating a learning organization
Hiring smart, open-minded, lifelong learners who get things done
Designing a warm, helpful, safe, welcoming, and relaxed environment
Hiring, nurturing, and rewarding people and teams
Achieving alignment and ownership by clearly defining the outcomes you want, and giving your leaders and teams the autonomy to achieve your company’s goals
Articulating company values along with a mission statement, a vision statement, and a purpose statement
Using the principles of intelligent design to achieve a culture that supports operational excellence and execution
Accomplishing outstanding business outcomes
Can you share a pivotal moment or challenge you faced as a CEO, and the strategies you employed to overcome it while maintaining your leadership vision and guiding your team?
Dean Guida : At Infragistics, alignment is a daily challenge. We have more than 250 employees spread across six offices in the United States and around the world. When our alignment falters, it is experienced throughout the entire enterprise.
An unaligned team feels like a rudderless boat, at the mercy of the currents, headed whichever way the marketplace decides to flow. Conversely, when a vNext Business like Infragistics designs its own alignment, we put our oars into that current and not only navigate our route but also begin to affect the currents themselves.
Some business experts argue that alignment begins by establishing and articulating a purpose, a vision, and a mission. When we first attempted to bolster alignment at Infragistics, we spent a considerable amount of time and effort developing statements about our mission, vision, and purpose. When we were done, I thought they were excellent summaries of what we were trying to accomplish together as an organization.
Alignment takes intentional work. You will hit multiple bumps in the road as the process unfolds. But don’t wait for chance or until the stars are just right. Start today to implement greater alignment in your company. Alignment is the essential tool of managing a vNext Business.
What advice would you offer to aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs who are looking to make an impact in their industries and lead their companies to success, based on your own experiences and insights?
Dean Guida : My 35+-year legacy at Infragistics is a testament to my passion and commitment to stay the course. Navigating a successful business isn’t easy. It takes grit, tenacity, creativity, and strategic acumen.
Strategic plans help us allocate financial and personnel resources into our new products, ideas, and operational efficiencies that help grow the company. Goals and objectives are vital for long-term growth and productivity since they provide measurements of success. With these benchmarks, we can define where we are and how we want to grow.
Infragistics is a learning company committed to the scientific method of driving business outcomes and growth hacking, so we are constantly collaborating and exchanging feedback as we execute the strategic plan. We adjust to changes in the marketplace, customer buying habits, competitors, and other factors. We find out what works and what doesn’t and change the strategic plan when appropriate. The plan allows us to run our current business effectively and still make the investments needed over the next one to three years to remain nimble enough to move where the market is going and have a competitive advantage.
Whether we are launching new products like App Builder and Slingshot or supporting the continued growth of an existing platform, such as Reveal, the scientific growth hacking method undergirds the work we do and involves several phases. The early phases of new product development are determining market fit for our product, creating a hypothesis and a goal, and building awareness of the product. The later phases consist of acquisition, activation, retention, and referrals.
As Sam Reese, CEO of Vistage Worldwide said, “One of the lasting lessons CEOs have learned over the past few years is that there will always be unknowns when it comes to business. Whether it is artificial intelligence, inflation, or global conflict, being prepared for unexpected issues can make or break a company.”
When unexpected issues arise, we practice blameless problem-solving. We demonstrate a relentless solution focus, rather than pointing fingers or dwelling on problems. At Infragistics, we identify lessons learned, socialize them, and use those lessons to improve our processes and outcomes so we don’t make the same mistake twice. Our teams get smarter and learn from every experience.
Another lesson I’ve learned is that internal innovation is one of the best ways to keep a business relevant and employees inspired. If you’re committed to invention and innovation, your employees will be, too. Innovation starts with an idea. It’s this internal innovation that will keep your business relevant and your employees invested in the company. Whether your company is small, medium, or large, there is always room for realizing your vision through internal innovation. Leading a company is not just about managing people, selling products and day-to-day operations. One of the best parts of entrepreneurship is the ability to be creative and come up with new ideas, which was the impetus behind our internal Innovation Lab.
My advice for aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs:
Going public isn’t always the best route. A lot of people advise you that you can’t grow and survive in the tech world without taking money and/or going public. We have disproved that — organically growing the company for 35 years and turning Infragistics into a global software company.
Be prepared to withstand recession. We were hurt during the recession of the late 1990’s when the dot-com industry blew up. We were able to recover by staying focused on sales through customer value and managing cash very closely.
The life of an entrepreneur may not be for everyone, but for some, it’s an exhilarating place where you can forge your own path and follow your passion. Problem solving, self-discipline, innovation and flexibility have helped me in tackling the challenges — and rewards — of entrepreneurship as I continue to drive my company into the future while achieving success in the present.
We hope you enjoyed this insightful conversation with Dean Guida. At Featured Leaders, we are committed to bringing you closer to the minds shaping our world. Stay tuned for more exclusive interviews and stories that inspire, inform, and ignite your passion for leadership. To keep up with our latest features, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Thank you for reading!