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Tuesday, April 09, 2002

More than a dozen Pittsburghers share what they consider to be the keys to success.

Dick Simmons
former chairman of Allegheny Technologies

1. "You have to be in the right place at the right time."

2. "You have to be lucky."

3. "You have got to bring a willingness to take risk."

4. "Admit you are wrong when you are wrong."

5. Be willing "to become involved in the business. It is very difficult to run a business if you don't know a great deal about it."

6. Have "reasonable intelligence."

7. "Provide leadership by setting a tone within the company."

8. Work hard.

Bill Strickland
founder and president,
Manchester Craftsman's Guild

1. Attitude. "Having a positive attitude and an open mind to new ideas and being able to listen and respond to ideas in many different environments is very important."

2. Persistence. "The ability to maintain a consistent focused approach to whatever it is you are trying to do is a very essential ingredient."

3. "You have to have good people around you. It is about identifying people who have talents and skills and letting them do what you hired them to do."

4. "Willingness to constantly evaluate performance against your goals and change as needed so you don't become stationary and immobile."

5. Integrity.

Glen Meakem
chief executive officer, FreeMarkets Inc.

1. As a CEO, "You've got to be willing to fire people. The leaders who cannot make tough decisions about people can not be successful in business. . . You have to be willing to have a lot of unpleasant conversations." Also, you have to "reward people who do perform, and make sure good performers have challenging career paths."

2. "Great achievers are great leaders."

3. Successful people "can take a couple punches. They stick to it in the good times and the bad times. When things are really high, they are not too caught up with themselves. When things are low, they can dig deep and stick with it."

4. "Great leaders have to be confident."

5. "Great leaders have to be humble . . . great leaders in business are not about themselves. Everybody has an ego, confidence and ambition for themselves. You won't find great people that don't have those kinds of characteristics. Beyond that, people just in it for their own ego are not as successful at building their own organizations."

6. "Great leaders listen to customers and employees."

Jeff Romoff
president of UPMC Health System

1. "Bust your butt" and "work hard."

2. "Understand that which you talk about."

3. "Develop an idea of what is right under the circumstances, benefit from the input of others about those ideas and do your best to implement what in your mind is the best for the institution or your current job, and do it as effectively as possible."

Jim Roddey
Allegheny County executive
and former businessman

1. Set goals.

2. Have a plan.

3. Don't be afraid to fail.

4. Never stop learning.

5. Have self-discipline.

Marco Cardamone
owner of Merging Media, Cafe Allegro, Club Cafe

and the Allegro Hearth Bakery

1. "Don't be afraid to fail."

2. "Don't fail in the same thing. Don't fall down the same hole every time. Fall down a different hole. That's progress."

Sunil Wadhwani
chief executive officer, iGate Corp.

1. "Hire the best people you can."

2. "Making the tough decisions."

3. Having "the ability to adapt."

Marty McGuinn

1. Set goals and work hard to achieve them.

2. Work with other people.

3. Push yourself to do better.

Leo Gerard
president, United Steelworkers union

1. "Not being intimidated by having people around me smarter than me."

2. "More heads are better than one. I am not going to make it by excluding people. I'll make it by including people."

Tom Murrin
former Westinghouse Electric Corp. executive
and former dean of the business school
at Duquesne University

1. Integrity. "If someone can contribute to humanity in improving people's standard of living without compromising their integrity, then they have a key ingredient of being successful."

2. Talent. "You don't have to be a genius, but you have to be intelligent."

3. Know-how.

4. Hard work "When I ponder hundreds of thousands of successful people, I don't know any of them who got to be really successful without practicing hard work."

5. Compatibility.

Marlee Myers
managing partner in Pittsburgh law office
of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

1. Focus on your customer.

2. Hard work.

3. Vision. "You have to know where you are going. You can't shoot straight if you can't see straight."

4. "Surround yourself with great people. You can't achieve on your own. It takes a team."

5. "You can't be too wedded to the status quo. You have to understand that the world continuously changes."

6. "You have to have the self-awareness to see your own limitations and transcend them."

Steve Vogelsang
co-founder, Laurel Networks

1. "Have an accurate self-image."

2. "Know your strengths and weaknesses."

3. "If you've had enormous success, don't let that go to your head."

4. "Don't assume you know what you are doing. When you enter into a new endeavor, a good bit of paranoia and fear are always healthy."

John Friel
chief executive officer, Medrad Inc.

1. "Pure hard work. Bust your butt. A lot of folks in the world want things to come their way without working hard for them."

2. "Have a positive attitude. So many folks are running around with a glass-half-empty type attitude and are negative and complain. . . . Those with a positive attitude are the ones who tend to be the successful people, the leaders, the achievers."

3. Have "self confidence. It is a definer. It puts people in one camp or another. The people who have self-confidence are successful people. The people who don't have self-confidence, aren't. You believe in yourself. You are not hung up on negative qualities. You have a good positive self-image. You not afraid of making mistakes. You don't take yourself too seriously."

Annette Ganassi
owner of Ganassi Pontiac-GMC

1. Hard work.

2. Integrity.

3. "Knowing my product."

4. "Building relationships."

5. "Having a team of employees who know more about things than I do."