Team Oriented (Paul Orfalea)

Team Oriented

Paul Orfalea is the founder of Kinko’s, a philanthropist, and a serial entrepreneur. He is a visiting professor in the Global and International Studies Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business. He founded Kinkos in 1970 with a $5,000 bank loan co-signed by his parents. He ultimately grew the business into 1,200 locations and 23,000 employees in ten different countries. Paul established the Orfalea Family Foundation, which is focused on enriching early childhood, education, and youth development opportunities.

From the time Paul was a child, his reading problems required him to rely on others’ help. He became skilled at verbal communication and forging strong, lasting friendships and partnerships. He learned to work with and trust others.

In those early years, the work environment was casual and fun. He enjoyed vacations and took the employees often. He abhorred staff reports and meetings, preferring one-on-one communication either face to face or on the phone. Instead of spending hours in his office, like CEOs are expected to do, Paul was typically out visiting his stores. He loved to chat with store managers and customers to learn first-hand what worked so that those practices could be implemented in other stores.

Paul believed that the biggest competitive advantage was his staff. If he could make Kinko’s a great place to work and nurture workers’ best qualities, he was convinced the business would thrive. He set out to make employees feel like “empowered entrepreneurs”, literally giving everyone a stake in the company’s success. Partners, managers, and sales staff all shared in the profits of their stores. Employees were designated as “co-workers”. They did not work for Paul, they worked with him.

As a result, as a business owner, he was more skilled at identifying and nurturing the strengths of colleagues, delegating responsibilities, marketing to clients one on one and fostering a productive and upbeat work environment.