Decades of Solving Hard Problems, Together

Back in 1998, Phase 2 was founded as a spin-off from a company called The Rock Island Group (RIG). We inherited a few customers in the split, but later that year we got a call from a man named Brian Blake. 

Brian had interviewed for a position with RIG a couple of years earlier. Though he didn’t get the job, he had been impressed by how he was treated through the interview process and kept our contact information. Now that he was with a new company, Little Giant Pump Company, he thought of Phase 2 for their web needs. This relationship became our first large, marquee account that helped us win more new business. 

Had Brian Blake not had the positive experience with Rock Island, the working relationship with Little Giant and Phase 2 probably wouldn’t have formed. It’s important to remember that in all things we do from business meetings to interviews to going to our kids’ soccer games – everyone you meet could be another Brian Blake.

In the spring of 1999, Mark was reviewing our financials with longtime friend of the company, Dr. Rod Evans, former Dean of the College Business at the University of Oklahoma. Phase 2 was profitable for the first time and Mark found it an occasion to celebrate the company’s progress and do a little bragging to Dr. Evans.

While Dr. Evans acknowledged the good work, he went on to warn Mark that where most companies get in financial trouble is by not paying attention to their expenses when they’re profitable and things are going well.

He looked across the table to Mark and said, “So, before you spend any money what you have to ask yourself is this: do you want to spend that money or keep it and buy yourself a bottle of whiskey?” This changed Phase 2’s outlook on how we maintain fiscal discipline.

Now, anytime we consider a new expense, we always think of that bottle of whiskey.

Mark once worked with Bill Grissom, a financial guy from west Texas. He had a love of folk music thanks to his father, Dub Grissom. Dub taught Bill many lessons over the years, from how to strum a guitar to common courtesy.

One of Dub’s lessons was so motivating for Mark’s vision for Phase 2, that we’ve adopted it as one of our rules. Dub would tell Bill, “It is not enough to communicate to be understood… You must communicate in such a way as to not be misunderstood.”

‍Too often, we say things that we understand personally and are quick to assume the person we’re talking to also understands exactly what we mean. This can cause confusion and potential problems for any relationship, business or personal.

For us, to communicate effectively with everyone – whether our employees to clients to prospects – we need to communicate in a way that absolutely cannot be misunderstood.

Through a business organization, Mark met a gentleman a few years older than himself. He was in good health, running a growing company and wrapped up in all things involved with running a business.

Out of the blue, he had a stroke.

Although the stroke was not serious enough to keep the man from doing things he was passionate about, it did show him first hand how short life can be. So, the man took time to do something he had always meant to do, fix a leaky faucet in his bathroom.

‍He had always said he would get to it, but finally did it. He said this allowed him to enjoy a better relationship with his wife since fixing that one leaky faucet. Mark was struck by the fact that this man was probably fixing leaky faucets in all aspects of his life.

While our work can consume a tremendous amount of time and energy, it’s important that we all take time to fix the leaky faucets in our lives.

In our early years, a prospective client approached us to build a complex, interactive web application. We were confident that the project was right in our sweet spot, though we had some concerns about the people we would be working with at the company.

We agreed to the contract, but as we got into the work it became increasingly clear that Phase 2 and the client’s ethical standards did not align and caused several problems as the project continued.

After the project was completed, we quickly separated ourselves from the client. During our internal post-project debrief, we lamented ignoring our initial concerns and agreed that we would not ignore those feelings again.

One of our team members summed up our feelings perfectly by saying, “Life’s too short to pick an ugly dance partner!” So, from now on we trust our gut and only dance with the right partners.