Agora Team Member Story

For the past few years, we have asked AGORA employees to internally share their stories, values, and what they like about AGORA. Here is an interesting story from one of our team member.

Diego has been with AGORA Edge for 10 years and 7 months. He is originally from Colombia and graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL, with a B.S.M.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering.

 
What inspired your interest in fire and safety?

Since I was a kid, I always had a deep admiration for firefighters. This admiration began when, as a child, I was saved from drowning in a pool. Since that moment, I have wondered how I could pay that forward and save someone’s life. Fast-forward to now, and I am glad to have the opportunity to work in an industry that does this every day. We Design and Manufacture solutions to help firefighters save lives without risking their own. So, I feel that, indirectly, I am accomplishing my goal.

 
Can you describe your career path and how you ended up working in the Fire and Safety department at AGORA?

I started at AGORA as a production manager assistant. Four months later, Subash approached me and asked if I wanted to manage a customer. He knew I had some experience handling customers, but not in our Fire and Safety department. I didn’t hesitate to take on the challenge, as I knew Subash would work with me and train me to meet the customer’s expectations. Since then, I have become the account manager for our Fire and Safety industry.

 
How does your current role align with your passion for firefighting?

It gives me the opportunity to contribute to saving lives.

 
What are some of the most significant achievements or projects you have been involved in at AGORA?

I was part of the team that designed one of the most popular firefighters SCBAs in the market.

 
Is there a particular project or accomplishment of which you are most proud?

I assisted in manufacturing a vest that would protects first responders from radiation.

How do we fix Collaboration issues?

We now have restored our culture – back to when I started AGORA in 1985.

We have a great culture. We are, however, showing a lack of true collaboration; and this creates issues for us.

 

How do we fix these Collaboration issues?

We need to go back to the beginning. When AGORA was started in 1985, I asked myself, “Why should any company partner with AGORA?”

That is when it occurred to me that I should have a company philosophy to: 

  • Serve as a guiding light – to start and grow AGORA
  • Gain the trust of our customers and suppliers 

My set of beliefs and principles revolves around:

  • Exceptional customer service
  • Superior quality
  • Delivery per customers’ expectations
  • Collaboration within our teams – we cannot deliver on the above promises without team collaboration
  • Sense of Urgency in every action
  • Innovation in Design
  • Continuous Improvements in manufacturing and administrative processes

We are just embarking on this new initiative – Collaboration. I will keep you updated every few months to provide a progress report.

Business from the Eyes of an Engineer

I am an engineer by trade, not a businessman. My father was a police officer with no business background either. When I was let go from my last job and was looking for a new job, I thought about starting a small business. In hindsight, not landing a new job proved to be a blessing in disguise – I went all in and started AGORA.

I learnt early on that I needed to offer something that the world needs – Custom Soft-Goods Design and Manufacturing. Consistency in material use, Quality in every shipment, Delivery on time, Quick Response to customer requests and a stable, long-term pricing model without yearly increases (prevalent in the 1970s and early 1980s) were the tenets of my business model.

I learnt to pay my loans and our suppliers on time. I lived with a minimum salary from AGORA, paid employees every week and had monthly treats and gala Christmas parties for our employees. I learnt that employees are truly our best assets. We all worked hard, and at the same time enjoyed our times together whenever we could.

My biggest takeaway – Happy Employees, Happy Customers and Happy Suppliers together, keep a company growing. If any one party gets greedy, business starts to see unhealthy turnover, leading to problems with Employee/Customer/Supplier retention.

Addressing Toxic Work Culture in Business

I worked for a smaller company prior to starting AGORA in the mid-eighties. The company I worked for, had a strict employment policy and firing an employee was easier for various reasons.

I started AGORA in the mid-eighties wanting to build people rather than fire an employee.

While I followed this policy for several years, I had lots of disappointments during that time. Employees would take advantage of my leniency and patience, and we ended up tolerating employees with extended absences etc. These employees eventually would quit on their own, creating additional issues for us.

In a couple of instances where there was some toxicity, I tried to turn the situation around, but failed. I eventually realized that this unhealthy environment was crippling teamwork, and ended up having to let go of the troublesome employees.

 

Lesson Learnt

DO NOT tolerate a toxic environment in the company. You cannot build people that do not want to grow with the company. The best option would be to let go of employees who are not team players. The rest of the employees will be happier for that and they, in turn, become better team players.

YOU CAN Change Company Culture Cont.

In continuation of my previous blog about “You Can Change Company Culture”…

Our company, AGORA Edge, does have an excellent company culture – positive attitude, co-operative team, mutual respect, shared goals and sharing of ideas.

However, this is not enough!

We need yet more customer focus, to better serve our customers.

Internally, we need more collaboration within each team and between various teams.

Company Culture is not stagnant.  It is dynamic with a mix of old and new employees. You need to always have a pulse on your culture at all times. As the company grows, you need more people sold on keeping the culture alive. They are the ones who keep good culture thriving.

Our culture is the heart of our company.

YOU CAN Change Company Culture

I started AGORA in the mid-eighties with two employees.

As our business grew organically over time, we added new employees, as needed. We currently have over 300 employees.

In the beginning, and for many years thereafter, we had an excellent company culture. We were hungry, we worked very hard six to seven days a week, we were customer-focused. We had an excellent line of quality products, and exceptional customer service to back our products up. We enjoyed working hard and took some time off as well to have fun together, such as pizza parties, gatherings, etc.

As the company grew and I travelled more to see our customers, I began to lose connection with our team. We started to have disappointments within our team members. We had some troublesome employees – but I had no time to confront this issue as I was traveling on business. Fortunately, these employees left, and I started working on bringing the culture back to where it once was.

In spite of the sense of bureaucracy that set in, our design, quality of products and production remained top-notch. Our growth and customer retention during and after this bump in the road is a testament to our resilience.

How did we Rebuild our Company Culture?

As the toxic employees left the company, negative conversations stopped, the atmosphere improved, and we spent time discussing more productive issues.

I began spending one to two hours every day talking to new and old employees during which I emphasized the following:

  • Every one of us at AGORA is someone
  • No one is better than anyone else
  • We all have different jobs, and that we need to do our job in order to help take care of our customers
  • “Sense of Urgency” in everything we do

Next, our team began listening to all employees; not hearing, but truly listening. We started by talking about problems and solving them. As we worked our way through this process, we inquired about ways to help make our employees’ jobs easier.

As suggestions started coming in from employees, we formed a team that worked on these suggestions. We also celebrate our wins more often and we will continue this process so we can keep our culture alive and thriving.

Lessons Learned

  • Keep a pulse on company morale
  • If you have a complaint, find a root cause rather than a temporary solution
  • If you have a complaint regarding someone from many sources, confront the person (toxic employee) and try to change his/her behavior in a specific timeframe, or help the person leave the company
  • Always be available to spend time with the employees and take care of their requests ASAP

Human Centered Leadership Podcast

By nature, I do not usually talk about the way I run our company. Having said that, I was not sure what to expect when Kul Mahay approached me for his ‘Human-Centered Leadership’ podcast interview.

I, however, agreed to talk to him. I truly believe in the ideas that I mentioned in the interview and have been practicing them for the past several years. Here are the key segments from the podcast with Kul:

Subash's Views on Leadership + Tips

(5 minutes)
Listen Now

Listen to the Full Podcast!

(25 minutes)
Listen Now

Subash's Thoughts on His Passion & Business Titles

(2 minutes)
Listen Now

AGORA's Culture

(2 minutes)
Listen Now

By nature, I do not usually talk about the way I run our company. Having said that, I was not sure what to expect when Kul Mahay approached me for his ‘Human-Centered Leadership’ podcast interview. I, however, agreed to talk to him. I truly believe in the ideas that I mentioned in the interview and have been practicing them for the past several years. Here are the key segments from the podcast with Kul:

    1. Subash’s thoughts on his passion and business titles (about 2 minutes)
    2. AGORA’s Culture (around 2 minutes)
    3. Subash’s views on Leadership and his tips (around 5 minutes)

Below is the full podcast (around 25 minutes): Human centred, naturally! Subash Dave | Human Centred Leadership Podcast with Kul Mahay

Proud to be an American

A message from our founder, Subash Dave’.

This Fourth of July reminded me of the time I first came to the United States in 1970 for higher education. I received my Master’s in Industrial Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. After graduation, I worked for a few companies for 14 years, before I started AGORA in 1985.

I became a U.S. citizen in the late 1970s. I am proud to be an American citizen.

SHARE

A Message from our Founder, Subash Dave’.

In the early years of AGORA, we had a small team of 8-10 employees.

We all had the same goal at AGORA – to stay in business and grow. We were all so consumed by our day-to-day work, we did not take time to focus on the culture that I wanted to cultivate at AGORA. Some of these values include respecting one another’s job, appreciating your team for their ideas and input etc.

I wanted to come up with a concise and easy-to-remember means, to communicate the concept of ‘SHARE’ to our team. I also thought that it would be nice to fit this on business card stock, so I went to work on it.

The ‘SHARE’ card was born and over 35 years later, we still believe in ‘SHARE’ and continually work on instilling this culture into Team AGORA.

Here is a simple way to explain TEAMWORK to our international workforce. 

Show & Tell
Share your learnings.

Helping Hand
Builds teamwork.

Appreciate Fellow Employees
Their ideas and input.

Respect Each Other’s Work
We need each other.

Enthusiasm
Fuels energy and is contagious.

 

How AGORA Came To Be

President Subash Dave’ Reminisces on AGORA’s Founding & Early Days

In the mid‐eighties, an Industrial Engineer was perplexed by the state of the manufacturing industry. Custom products lacked quality and consistency. To get a product to market, a business would have to build a network of multiple sources, including engineers, designers and manufacturers, all working on disparate components to produce just one product. Businesses couldn’t meet market demand in time due to the logistics and lack of communication between the different companies.

Needless to say, manufacturing was costly and a time‐consuming ordeal. The market was fragmented, delivery was slow and the products lacked quality.

Clearly, there was a need for a one‐source solution to simplify custom manufacturing. To create high quality customized products that could meet corporate budgets and timelines, Subash Dave’, our founder, did what any engineer would do: he identified the problem.


He Remembers How It All Started

“I was working at a manufacturing company when I noticed that custom soft goods manufacturing was not keeping up with market demand. Mass produced items could be delivered in time but customized items lagged behind.

This needed to change.

At the time, small companies that delivered custom solutions had long lead times, used old machinery, and were occasionally switching out materials without getting the customer’s approval first.

There was a need for a one‐source solution to simplify custom manufacturing – one that invested in the newest capabilities, had the expertise, and customers could trust. To create high quality customized products that could surpass customer expectations.

I started a small business that combined custom design services and manufacturing. By joining these separate disciplines under one roof, AGORA was born.

An ISO certification followed shortly after, which proved our consistency and high standards, the qualities that made our customers believe in us in the first place.”

AGORA’s core beliefs are very much the same today, never letting go of our complete focus on our customers’ needs, and still investing in our capabilities through the newest machinery, as well as acquiring the best talent. We have recruited a global team of professionals over the years, people who are the best in their individual fields, including engineers, craftsmen, designers, suppliers, machinists, product innovators and customer focused account managers.

This dedication to continuous improvement is evident in our cutting‐edge ideas and desire to remain at the forefront of the industry, leading the change and always going above and beyond.