There are many signals that demonstrate a company is #onetowatch. Beyond contract awards, beyond signs of visible growth, there are the more intangible signs. Some examples? When a CEO is named Executive of the Year and when it is named one of the Best Places to Work in IT. Looking to understand more, we sat down with MetroStar CEO and Co-Founder Ali Reza Manouchehri; and Debbie Peterson, Senior Vice President, People and Culture.
Protecting Culture Within
Launching as a software-as-a-service business model, then moving into consulting, MetroStar quickly reached a point of extreme growth, moving from three employees to more than 400 and growing 30 percent on average year-after-year. As it matured, it acquired new skillsets, including those focused on people and culture. “The CEO certainly needs to be the guardian of the culture for a company, but you also need your archangels who will protect it and go into battle to make sure we’re focused on these behaviors and virtues that we’re trying to embrace.”
The core of MetroStar’s culture? Being a good place that treats people well and creates opportunities for them. “Any time we consider a new program or initiative we go back to the same basic questions. Does it put us in a place where we’re genuinely being a great place to be, where people feel they are heard and valued and can be themselves?”
Learning along the way, including post-pandemic as realities changed and the remote workforce could no longer be described as one-size fits all, the team worked to design as many thoughtful programs as possible that impacted the highest number of people possible. “There is a balance where you don’t want over personalize it to the point that you can’t sustain the programs that you’re designing.”
That lens on programs must balance data and business trends, an understanding of the team and goals to be achieved, and an understanding of how any financial investment will, in the end, support the company and its end goals. It also requires a CFO in tune with the cultural dynamics of how the macro environment is changing, who can quickly align it to the micro-environment of the company.
“We are a living organism, fed by people that bring different ways of thinking. You win a certain program within DoD that’s going to bring heavy loads of veterans into the company. Another may bring people focused on transformation and strategy, while another may bring in folks focused on Human-Centered Design (HCD). As we evolve, we need to be collaborating and thinking about investment and ROI to benefit this growing environment.”
Beyond the Right Person in the Right Seat
While most companies understand the goal of putting the right person in the right seat, there must also be a focus on building a team founded in trust, in appreciating the superhero power that each brings to the team. “The role of the CEO then is to make sure they have what they need to move forward, perhaps challenge them to think outside the box, to reinvent what and how they are doing things, maybe give them some launching points, and then let them proceed while you go identify the next strategy, the next battle to tackle.”
The CEO too must learn along the way, reinventing themselves, how they problem solve alongside the team, how they motivate and bring people together. “You have these talented people you have brought together but you need to think about how to keep them together, how you take ideas that you may read or hear of and turn it into a culture code that creates glue within the company.”
Graduating from 8(a) Small Business
Having officially graduated from its 8(a) status in 2015, MetroStar began training many years prior to be able to compete in that new space. “We trained in new behaviors, new disciplines, new ways of staying focused. If I could go back in time, I would have taken more shots at full and open opportunities because from each shot you learn.”
The result of ‘taking shots’? Three years ago, MetroStar’s business was 40 percent full and open. Today it is 87 percent, with 85 percent of that serving as Prime. “It isn’t easy, staying focused, keeping everyone calm and positive. As a leadership team we need to be proactive. We are more in control of our destiny, but we also have a lot more partners along for the ride, a lot more people involved in how this all plays out, a lot more people becoming a part of our growing leadership team who need to both understand and be able to communicate the vision.”
Growing People
Being transparent about the company’s success, and its growth trajectory, MetroStar has a focus on taking care of people that goes above and beyond. “We have created what we call a career lattice, and we use that deliberately over a ladder because the ladder is one directional while the lattice allows for growth in many different directions.”
Noting that for some growth may be more lateral, more about acquiring skills than say managing people, each growth path still involves a component of leadership. “It may be that you lead teams or department, but it can also be leading yourself, challenging your own growth and learning.”
The company has also tied growth to values, asking questions around the value people feel personally in the work they are doing, and how they feel they are contributing to the broader team, the connections to the MetroStar community. “That community is critical and what we’ve seen is informal mentoring happening, groups forming where there are shared interests. “Because they’re self created, they’re actually more sustainable and they have more actions that run through them because that root cause of them coming together has been much more impactful to the company and to the people involved.”
Success in Partnering
MetroStar has two current joint ventures, AleutianStar and MetroIBR, which demonstrates a history of collaborating with and supporting partners on their own growth paths. “Helping small businesses grow, allowing them to gain new past performances, drive revenue and innovation, means serving as a mentor as we can. There must be that win-win and it can take time to find the right partner, the team that is truly aligned but we have strong strategic partners now from Arizona to Indiana.”
Part of this has been helping those communities that are very niche, that are very strong within their smaller kind of industrial base to how they could be aligned to the larger industrial base of the National Capital Region.
Getting to Know the Neighbours
As it has moved through various stages of growth, MetroStar has had to ‘get to know the neighbours’ in different ways. “When you graduate to different phases and different missions and the missions you’re going after are more enterprise level mission critical, even when you have been there for decades, there are some who don’t know you, may not realize who you are, what you bring to the table. Each new opportunity gives us the opportunity to introduce ourselves, to share that value proposition of why you would want to get to know us.”
“We find ourselves at this interesting crossroad of graduating as a small business, transitioning our small business contracts into full and open, and now we’re in this new neighborhood competing with these larger neighbors that we grew up admiring, and are now striving to be one of those great brands supporting our government’s mission.”
Responsibility to Stand Out
Understanding there are many companies who may look and sound like MetroStar, at least on paper, this team has set a goal of making sure it feels different. “We are a company that’s aligned to the mission. We eat, sleep, breathe this mission.”
One area MetroStar stands out is in its which has been underway for several years now. “We’re building data models for our government on how to better do data diplomacy, how to be able to graduate data models that are ethical, transparent and able for DoD to use in various types of missions.”
“It’s exciting as we grow to not put profits over people and continue to really hone in on how important that people side is.”
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