Seeing The Forest for the Trees

By Jay Winchester

For John Faulkner and the Cornerstone Group, growth comes from seeing the big picture.

An old English proverb claims that the eyes are the window of the soul. If this is true, then John Faulkner’s soul is a virtual wellspring of intensity and clarity. Meet him for the first time, and one of the first things you notice about this rugged ex-Marine is the intensity and clarity of his bright blue eyes. They leave little doubt that Faulkner’s vision is clear. This works out well for his company, Cornerstone Tree Farm because at Cornerstone, vision is everything.

“At Cornerstone, our vision guides us in everything we do,” Faulkner says. “We know exactly who we are, what we do well and where we want to go. Anything that doesn’t fit our vision is cut away.”

Where does such compelling vision find its origins? Faulkner offers an answer that’s not typical of a CEO running a company that produced revenues in the neighborhood of $20 million last year and employs 175 people. At Cornerstone, their vision is a matter of faith. “I follow a vision that God gave me years ago,” he says earnestly. “That vision was to build a company that was not just successful but also significant. The vision led me to believe that a great company could add value to everything it touched.”

Over time, as the business grew, John noticed that not only did he benefit from a fervent commitment to the company’s vision, but so did its employees, clients and vendors. “I was fortunate to receive a vision that was broad enough to allow our employees to see themselves as an integral part of making our vision a shared reality,” Faulkner says. “When you ask employees to wake up every day and help you achieve a vision that only benefits you, their passion dissipates quickly. We have created a culture that holds our vision as the most important element of our business, believing that if our employees share the vision, they will work together with the passion it takes to turn a profit. The vision is the main thing, and if you keep the main thing the main thing, the money will take care of itself.”

To illustrate the importance of the shared vision and the opportunities it offers to everyone connected to the company, Faulkner set aside the traditional vision statement used by almost every company in business today. Instead, he crafted a letter that reads as if a Cornerstone employee wrote it. In the letter, mention is made of the ways in which the company’s culture benefitted the employee’s life on both a professional and personal level. While the letter itself is fiction- at least at this point- the idea is that, if Cornerstone’s leaders focus on the shared vision, employees will one day begin writing those types of letters. That’s when Faulkner and his leadership team will know for sure that the vision is firmly entrenched in, and supported by, every person in the company.

If vision is the company’s obsession, then growth is its hallmark. Started in 1985, the company has grown from its humble beginnings to a company with twelve divisions and a primary focus on providing products and services in the landscape and construction industries. These include, but are not limited to, environmental services, architectural design, a tree farm and nursery, construction of entryways and amenity centers, and irrigation systems installation and maintenance. The company’s target clients are primarily residential and commercial builders, but not residential homeowners. Ideal clients include builders, property managers, land developers and the like. In fact, Cornerstone works with eight of the area’s top ten builders, and 18 of the top 25. Its current market extends south to Sarasota / Bradenton, east to Orlando and north to the state line. Part of the vision for the company’s growth involves plans for extending its market boundaries and industry influence.

Along with the focus on growth comes a can-do attitude embodied by a favorite company catchphrase: We are the answer. Faulkner wants every potential customer to understand that Cornerstone has the answer to their needs- whatever those needs may be- and that the company can deliver that answer with value. “When our phone rings, it means that whoever is on the other end is looking for a solution to a problem,” he says. “Whatever that problem might be, we make sure we seize the opportunity to provide the answer.”

All in all, Cornerstone’s success marks a pretty impressive accomplishment when one considers that Faulkner, a 48-year-old, mid-term baby boomer still stretching his limits and extending his boundaries, is that rarest of breeds: the self-made man. His formal education doesn’t extend past high school, but, as he himself says, “Thankfully, I never let my lack of formal schooling get in the way of my education.”

If the sound of that statement tickles your ears with the feathery touch of homespun wisdom and smacks of cowboy philosophy, it’s because Faulkner, a native of Colorado, has an affinity for the Old West that is truly heartfelt. He and his wife Julie raise Western performance horses, and the offices of Cornerstone are awash in the trappings of life on the wide-open prairie. It’s a charming change of pace from most corporate environments- at least until you notice the plethora of laptop computers, high-end printers, VoIP phone systems and other paraphernalia associated with a modern, successful, multi-niched business.

As for the company’s humble beginnings, those stretch back to the time when John and Julie moved east to Florida. They both started working in John’s father’s furniture store. The couple lived in a rented home in New Port Richey. One day, the landlord, who lived out of town, asked John to do him a favor. “He asked me to solicit bids for removing a dead eucalyptus tree from the yard,” Faulkner recalls. “After getting a couple of bids for around $700, I decided to buy a chain saw and remove the tree myself. A week later, I had the chainsaw and I also had an ad running in the paper that read, ‘Expert tree removal.’”

That set his feet on the road to success. Still, few business leaders become successful all by themselves. They draw wisdom, encouragement and inspiration from others around them. John Faulkner pulls these things from three sources. The first is through his involvement with the Tampa Bay chapter of The C12 Group, a national consultancy for Christian business owners that merges solid business principles with sound biblical precepts, while placing special emphasis on peer-to-peer accountability and counsel. In fact, Faulkner was named as one of the chapter’s Members of the Year for 2007. It had a profound affect on him. “As I drove home from the awards banquet, I realized that having that honor bestowed on me brought with it a strong desire to be more worthy of it than I felt I had been,” he says. “So I have made the conscious decision to add to the value of my C12 experience by stepping up both my commitment to, and my participation with, my fellow members.” Stepping up means making himself available to talk with any member about his or her business, and the results it produces.

A second source of inspiration for John is one of his employees, a gentleman named Bob Johnson, who has been with Cornerstone for nearly 20 years. “In all the time we’ve worked together, Bob has taken only one sick day,” Faulkner says. “I have learned more about work ethic and integrity from that man than I could ever have learned in a university.”

Faulkner counts his father as the third source of inspiration and encouragement. “My dad taught me by example to wake up every morning and work on something big,” John says emphatically. “I don’t ever remember my dad not working on something big! Today, while the market has softened, at least nine of our divisions are working on something big.” He applies that notion of thinking big to his continual process of crafting and refining the Cornerstone vision. “If our people don’t roll their eyes when I share a new idea, I usually go back and make the idea bigger,” he says.

However, the one thing that John Faulkner understands better than anything else is that he is solely accountable for translating the company’s vision into successful results that benefit many. “I believe that God has given me an incredible opportunity in allowing me to run Cornerstone,” he says. “I know that if it fails, it will be because of me, not Him!”