Steve Ray Runs Table on Success in Life, Business
Written by Dale Dauten
The ArizonaRepublic, Business Section
Thursday July 15, 2004
What are the odds of building a profitable, multimillion dollar business from a $5 start-up? Oh ... maybe one in a thousand. Then, what are, the odds of an entrepreneur writing a successful book on religion? Or next, the odds of a writer moving into video, creating educational documentaries?
To attempt them in succession would put the odds of pulling off all three at one in a million or more. Yet, Steve Ray is living out the career trifecta. Is his just a lucky run at the craps table of life? Or is there some quality that allowed Ray to scoff at the odds?
Let me back up and describe scribe just what Ray has managed to accomplish, First, in 1975, with a used Hoover bought for five bucks at a garage sale and a stack of homemade business cards, he went into the office-maintenance business. He built it into a $12 million enterprise, employing 500 (www dmigroup.com).
Nearly two decades later, in 1994, Ray decided to become a Catholic, an act that divided him from his uncomprehending evangelical Protestant parents. Seeking to explain his decision, he began a letter to his father defending his decision. The letter grew until it was a book, which Ignatius Press published as Crossing the Tiber.
Then, in 2000, Ray awoke at 2 a.m., shook his wife and said, “We have to do a 10-part video series on salvation.” His wife, not surprisingly, replied,“You’re crazy. Go back to sleep.” But Ray got up and wrote the outline for all 10 videos.
I met Ray recently, while he was at the MountClaretCenter, a Catholic conference center in the foothills of Phoenix’s CamelbackMountain. He’d come there to tape the “behind the scenes” portions of the 10-part series, called The Footprints of God.
Although the subject of a video might be Moses or Paul, the DVDs include “making of commentary” and even “bloopers.” The latter aren’t just missed lines or cues, but misbehaving snakes and horses and other physical mishaps. Ray goes, to the sites and acts out those scenes that he can. This has earned him the nickname “Jerusalem Jones,” after the Indiana Jones character. I must report, however, that Ray doesn’t resembleHarrison Ford as much as, say, Jason Alexander of Seinfeld. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Ray has put together three long-shot careers.
What makes him scoff-at-the odds special? The first thing you notice is the energy and the determination. Then again, the halls of bankruptcy court are lined with people of energy and determination. However, in talking to Ray, one of his comments stood out, something I’d never heard an executive say before. He was talking of giving an award to an employee in his 60s who’d never experienced career success working anywhere else. The man said, “Mr. Ray, you’re making me cry.” Ray told me, “I went back to my office and joked with my assistant, “I made another employee cry today.” Then, “There isn’t one manager who hasn’t come into my office and cried. Not one. They close the door and open up and cry.”
And what is it that makes people feel they can unburden themselves with the boss? Ray said, “I believe that people are made in the image of God. They aren’t just molecules and hormones; they possess infinite value, and I have to treat them that way.” Notice the “have to.”
What Ray said got me thinking about Nathaniel Branden, the psychologist who specializes in self-esteem, who wrote, “What a great teacher, a great parent, a great psychotherapist and a great coach have in common is a deep belief in the potential of the person with whom they are concerned. They relate to the person from their vision of hisor her worth and value.”
There are managers who get things done and leaders who get people to get more done, but there is another level, beyond manager or leader. There are also creators, those who don’t just get employees to accomplish work, but whose work is accomplished in employees. Perhaps that is why some people defy the odds: They understand that business isn’t about numbers any more than people are about molecules.Suchpeople don’t see employees or customers or suppliers; they see in them and beyond them, to that point where we all connect.
Dale Dauten’s latest book is “The Laughing Warriors: How to Enjoy Killing the Status Quo.” Write to Dauten in care of King Features Syndicate, 235 E. 45th St., New York, NY10017 or visit his Web site at dauten.com.