Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Airitam.
Scott, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My personality has always played a large part in my career.
Upon graduation from high school, I took a risk and applied to a brand new radio station in the D-FW market. The station was literally broadcasting out of a small shack in Arlington, Texas. Little did I know, that I’d just landed a job at what would become the powerhouse station, Y-95, in a top 10 market. And, I would be a big part of building that. My simultaneous roles included on-air personality, promotions specialist, and producer. Being so young and just starting college, my learning curve was steep. I began to discover that my work ethic, charisma, and my ability to make a difference were as valuable to my career as my job knowledge.
I moved on to Southwest Airlines while working my way through college. At Southwest, I worked primarily in customer service roles until I was invited by senior leadership to join a small team tasked with creating the Southwest Airlines University for People that was tasked to maintain and improve the competitive advantage of the culture of Southwest Airlines. Again, I was given the task of learning about something that would impact people mightily. With the University for People up and running, I took on the role of Partner. This role allowed me to become a hybrid of sorts. I developed curriculum, I led classes, I designed training for all fo the learning facilitators at the University for People, I was responsible for all of the technology, and I was an internal consultant for department heads within the company. Needless to say, my work ethic continued to rise and my ability to learn new skills and apply those skills constantly needed to be on point.
During this period, I was also able to earn my bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Management.
While at Southwest Airlines, a small tech manufacturer had been recruiting me to join their ranks. Eventually, I agreed to go to AMX Corp and create a department called Business Capabilities. Because of market growth and competition, AMX needed to protect itself by doubling its revenue. But, its management abilities were not quite ready for operations at that level. The Business Capabilities department’s task was to get the organization ready for rapid growth within a year. I also took on the responsibility for AMX University, which provided technical product training to dealers, distributors, and end-users around the world. Again, my ability win over a company full of people, affect the culture, and quickly learn and apply new skills were on display. AMX more than met its goals.
Upon leaving AMX, I co-authored the book “Ethics4Everyone” with Eric Harvey. The book was very successful selling hundreds of thousands of copies and is still a very popular handbook on behavioral ethics some 16 years after initial publication.
This leads me to what I do presently. I founded Scott Airitam’s Leadership Systems to positively affect more people. We focus on the people side of the business and hone in on people, productivity, and results. In this role, I’ve served as a subject matter expert on television shows, written for magazines and books, and produced blogs and videos, all in an effort to make my world a better place. I have worked to analyze issues and provide solutions for organizations large and small, domestic and international. I have saved family owned businesses, coached many people through the startup phase of their organization, and have worked with organizations to create processes that replaced open hostility with collaboration. I worked tirelessly to develop great leaders that have gone on to lead cities, companies, and unions. I have mentored politicians. I have taught safety culture which has literally saved lives. Through all of this, my work ethic and personality have driven my success.
I am hardwired to help people and doing that is what drives me more than anything else.
Has it been a smooth road?
There are no roads that remain smooth forever. We all face hardships.
I remember starting Leadership Systems and finding it difficult, even with great experience, to get traction. Other training and consulting firms, often bringing less to the table, would repeatedly get the jobs we were competing for and I didn’t understand why at the time. My company, being new, simply didn’t have name recognition and was an unknown quantity. There is a large amount of trust needed when bringing in a training and consulting firm. I was trying to create this trust and other companies seemed further down the road in this regard.
So, I raised my hustle game.
I clearly remember days where I’d get up, put on a suit, leave my wife and baby daughter, and drive to an office park, or a downtown sky scraper, or an industrial park, and just go door to door handing out flyers and business cards and trying to talk to people. I would get thrown out of buildings. I would be told “no” politely and rudely. I’d be asked to sit in waiting rooms where no-one would ever come out and meet me. I remember needing business so bad and going through this process every day that I would go out to my car and break down in frustration. I cried because I needed to provide for my family, but it was like swimming against the current, and I was scared to fail.
But, I knew it was a numbers game.
So, I dried my eyes, made sure I didn’t look like I was crying, and I would get out of my car and go try to talk to more people. In my mind, if I could talk to 25 people, one person would say “yes.” So, my job was to talk to successfully 25 people each week. My persistence got me that coveted “yes” a few times and I was able to work. When I did work, I overwhelmed my clients with satisfaction and they would tell their friends and sometimes leave to go to work for another organization. Then my phone would ring and I would have earned a new client. Having to find clients the hard way solidified a resolve in me that I could do this.
Over the years we’ve had so many ups and downs, but we’d never let anyone outwork us. In 2007, we were growing and we were doing well. Then the economy dropped out from under us. We had a new president and the economy and health insurance were huge issues. At the beginning of the year, we literally had every client under contract tell us that they were going to be unable to uphold their contract. Rather than hurt ourselves further by taking each of them to court, we focused on surviving the year. We struggled, but we got just enough to survive that year. But, what we did in 2007 was to increase our focus on selling and that paid off in 2008 when we had a banner year.
Always our focus remains on the success of our mission. Yes, over the years we’ve had ups and downs, but we have been blessed to have more ups than downs over the years.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Leadership Systems – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Leadership Systems is a consulting and training firm that works with organizations or all sizes and industries. The common denominator is that the organization must need to work on their people systems. Our expertise is working with people, productivity, and results to stimulate and maintain growth, increase employee loyalty and commitment, make its organizational culture a competitive advantage.
Examples of clients are: National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Southwest Airlines, Tenet Healthcare, Cook Children’s Medical Center, Medical Media Holdings, the Cities of Los Alamos (NM), Irving (TX), Garland (TX), Kennecott Land, and TI.
Leadership Systems provides solutions to challenges organizations face such as uncovering why they fail to act in alignment with their own strategy, managing growth, dealing with repeated failure to meet goals, the inability to keep their best talent, dealing with harmful infighting and politics, and understanding and managing great change. All of the solutions Leadership Systems provides are customized to the unique traits of the client organization such as language, specific issues, and other cultural considerations. We have witnessed that no other organization is as agile in adapting to the uniqueness of an organization while implementing tried and true, principle-based solutions.
We partner with organizations by creating annual accounts, maximizing the available time and minimizing the costs or we can provide single training courses, as needed, for organizations.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Dallas is an amazing place. There is something for everyone here and the cost of living is extremely reasonable. Traveling to anywhere in the world is easy. The economy is driven by the fact that this area has some of the largest companies in the world based here and that fuels growth and expansion. Jobs are plentiful. But, one of the greatest assets of the Dallas area is the food selection. There are countless restaurants and the selection of food here is amazing. Also, the many lakes available provide a great asset to us in terms of recreation and health and fitness needs.
Even with DART, public transportation can still be tricky. Traffic can be horrible. Getting around is challenging because of the great distances between different areas of the sprawling metropolitan area. The highways have improved, but that is just to keep up. Our population is exploding and this area will always be challenged to move people efficiently.
Contact Info:
- Website: leadershipsystemsonline.com
- Phone: 214-505-0333
- Email: scott.airitam@scottairitam.com
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/LeadershipSysems/
Image Credit:
Alanna Airitam
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
