In these days of empowered employees, it's politically correct to articulate that every person in a company is highly significant, sharing responsibility to pursue the company's goals. It's understood that every individual's actions is important.

Nonetheless, my own experience has taught me that there's one position in particular that's more important than all the rest.

Is it the chief executive officer or company president in the corner office? After all, that person sets the tone, and makes key decisions about a company's strategy and policies.

Is it the comptroller? The financial officer is the guide to a company's financial status, and is accountable for keeping the books in shipshape order. You don't want to mess with the Infernal Revenue Service, do you?

Is it the human resources director? In the final analysis, personnel folks often choose who is hired--or fired, for that matter. That's an important selection, isn't it?

If you agree that the most important person in an organization fills one of these positions, then you'll likely be surprised to know that my choice is none of the above.

My vote for the most important company citizen is the humble person at the front desk; the person who routinely answers myriad telephone calls and greets visitors. If yours is a virtual company, and you have no entrance lobby, that key person is the switchboard operator.

Why do I say this? Well, let's say you need just-in-time delivery of a crucial component. You've done your homework. You've gathered the data sheets and studied the device's applicability. Its function is available from a number of vendors, so now it's time to get some samples, and perhaps an eval board.

You reach for the telephone to call a supplier. As you dial, you stare at the PERT chart hanging on the wall of your cubicle. In desperation, you realize time is short and you've got to get your product development cycle back on schedule.

Your call is answered, but instead of a person responding, you're presented with a DTMF nightmare. A sickeningly pleasant automated voice responds to your call with a drawn-out robotic menu, asking you to "touch" this button or that so you can drill down to the correct person or department.

After wasting precious time listening to an insipid array of descriptions, you hang up in frustration, and hope you won't encounter the same rigmarole at the next vendor you call.

Dialing again, this time you're greeted (thankfully) by what sounds like a real live human.

"Thank you for calling Symmetric Demise. Please hold."

Click! What? Before you have time to gasp, you're placed on interminable hold. Ugh.

Where There's Life, There's Hope

Not too long ago I had the good fortune to personally visit Maxim Integrated Products in Sunnyvale, California. Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, this company offers a lot of innovative IC products. As such, it's one busy company, let me tell you.

As I dallied in Maxim's lobby waiting for an escort to usher me in, I watched the company's switchboard operators at close hand. It was awesome. An honest-to-goodness live operator quickly fielded each and every call to Maxim.

True, this operator answered callers with a staccato barrage of rehearsed patter--but he or she also quickly dispatched the call to the appropriate person within Maxim---with a good measure of courtesy, I might add.

That switchboard operator knew the company's products and product managers, and who was who at Maxim, that's for sure. I was impressed.

More significantly, that person made an impression on each and every caller. The right impression.

Who knows who might have been calling? The caller may very well have been an engineering student or perhaps a hobbyist mining the company for information or a few free samples to tinker with in the basement workshop. But, for all that operator knows, that kid might just be the next Steve Jobs. More likely, the caller was a potential OEM customer with a need for 35,000 parts per week. Maybe the caller was an investor with a multi-million dollar deal in mind.

As far as I'm concerned, the person answering telephone calls and greeting strangers establishes initial contact with the public, and is therefore the most important person in a company. He or she can be either the ambassador of goodwill, or the Darth Vader who presides over confusion, darkness, ill feelings, and lost opportunities.

First impressions count. Don't you agree?

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