Meet the Lifelines

Meet the Lifelines

by Sarah Brouillard and Carla Waldemar   UPSIZE INVITED Minnesota’s small-business owners and managers to nominate their most trusted advisers for the second annual Upsize Lifeline Awards, and share the best lessons they learned.

Six winning pairs (their stories follow) and one special winner, the 2007 Upsize Lifeline of the Year as nominated by nine business owners (their story precedes), were selected by judges. Criteria were the impact of the lesson learned on company performance, the quality of the gratitude expressed, and the relevance of the lesson to Upsize readers.

kara@thinkpinkideas.com; www.thinkpinkideas.com.

Excello founder strives
to take the high road,
urged by Lee Mauk

By Carla Waldemar

AS AN EAGER young novice in the field, 18-year-old Karen Hagen met Lee Mauk at her first Employee Assistance Professionals Association meeting. Representing his then-company, MCC, Mauk emphasized the importance of hewing to standards of excellence.

Over the ensuing 20 years, as both migrated to different organizations (Mauk now serves as senior consultant with the Blair Consulting Group) in the Twin Cities, he’s continued to serve as Hagen's moral lodestone.

“He’s always been there for me — a mentor, a lifeline,” says Hagen, who founded her own employee assistance company, Excello, just over a year ago. “At our recent year-end retreat, his name kept coming up regarding lessons learned.”

And the most valued lesson? “No compromises regarding quality. In the field of employee assistance programs, there’s often pressure to take the easy way out and look the other way — say, when an employee fails a drug test or if the sexual harassment policy is swept under the rug — in order to get the client up to compliance in the fastest, cheapest way possible.

“Thanks to my relationship with Lee, I know it’s OK to say ‘no’ and not give them the seal of approval when they haven’t met those standards. Lee’s a Bible-thumper” — he’s quick to say so, too — “insisting that any business success through compromises will be short-lived.”

When Hagen resigned a post as corporate CEO (“I’d done everything I could do, so it was time to get out of the way”) to found Excello — the Latin word for "excellence," she points out — she said she was calling Lee every five minutes, whenever anything seemed difficult. "Intuitively, I knew where to go for guidance when businesses came to me, begging for shorcuts. I credit him with the idea of operating from a strong core of values as a longevity strategy. He brings that piece of integrity.”

Result: “By October 2005, we’d met our first-year revenue target in the first quarter. By the end of our first year, 2006, we were doing ’07 numbers. We exceeded our expectations.

“Recently, I bought another employee assistance business, a $2 million investment, and he helped me with that, too — back in my corner again. Lee is the most unassuming human being in the world, yet projects a sense of self everywhere he goes,” she adds.

Mauk says he wasn’t conscious of his role in Hagen’s life. “I was never aware I was mentoring,” he says. “Now, she tells me I’d been holding up standards, But I didn’t realize she’d been watching, and that upholding those high standards had become her philosophy as well.

“She’s fearless — a risk-taker, but very confident in what she’s doing. She looks pretty carefully at her clients’ projects. Yet she’s compassionate as well, and not one to micromanage. She’s come a long way and has learned well,” Mauk says.

The two agree on many things, but one maxim stands out. Both insist, “Take the high road and don’t compromise, and you’ll conquer any obstacle that comes your way.”

Karen Hagen, Excello, 651.639.8326; khagen@excello.us; www.excello.us
Lee Mauk, Blair Consulting Group, 612.827.4147; lmauk@blairconsultants.com; www.blairconsultants.com

dgraves@metroconnections.com; www.metroconnections.com
Sam Thompson, metroConnections Inc.: 612.333.8687; sthompson@metroconnections.com; www.metroconnections.com