When Chris Diorio accepted CEO of the Year honors at the GeekWire Awards in May, the longtime Impinj chief shared one of his leadership mantras.
“I truly believe my No. 1 job is to help every Impinj employee be wildly successful,” Diorio said on stage in his acceptance speech. “And if every employee is wildly successful, the company can’t help but be wildly successful.”
Diorio founded Impinj in 2000 while teaching at the University of Washington. He served as CTO before stepping into the CEO role in 2014, two years before the company went public in 2016.
The manufacturer of radio-frequency identification devices and software reported revenue of $65 million in the third quarter, down slightly from the year-ago period but ahead of analyst estimates. The company’s stock is up more than 25% over the past week.
We caught up with Diorio to learn more about how he leads. Answers were edited for brevity and clarity.
GeekWire: Thanks for speaking with us, Chris. I liked your comment on stage at the GeekWire Awards. So how exactly do you make every employee wildly successful?
Impinj CEO Chris Diorio: I can’t make every employee wildly successful. But I can give every employee the opportunity to be wildly successful. If you give them the opportunity, it’s up to them to take it.
My job as a leader is to identify what people are good at, identify the things they’re not good at, and try to tailor what what we need from them at the company along the lines of what they love doing.
How do you motivate and inspire employees?
It’s the employees’ company. I set some of the vision and help chart the direction of the company. But at the end of the day, I’m one of 450 people. And there’s 449 others who represent the company and who are the company.
So if you think about your employees as truly being the company, and you are their steward to chart a successful path for them that’s based on a shared vision — if that’s the mindset you come into things with, you will have a motivated employee base who truly believes what they’re trying to accomplish.
Tell us about some lessons learned from challenges you’ve faced while leading Impinj.
You need to look objectively at the pace of the technology, the pace of adoption, and the pace your customers can move forward. And then align your expectations around what is achievable — not around what other people think is achievable. Don’t set expectations for yourself that are dependent on somebody else doing something.
And hire good people — people with high integrity that are passionate and caring and put others first. Show them what the vision is and what you’re trying to accomplish, so that they can be wildly successful doing it.
How have you evolved as a leader?
You become less likely to be so upset about downturns because you’ve been through them before. At the same time, you become a little bit less over-joyous about up-swings, because you’ve been through those, too. And so experience just kind of gives you this grounding.
There’s a saying associated with Nelson Mandela, that in times of success, leaders stand behind, and in times of danger, leaders stand in front. I learned this with my graduate students at the University of Washington. It’s their success, you’re there to facilitate it. If something isn’t going well, you need to get out in front and help them along the way.
What is your biggest weakness as a leader and how are you working on it?
My biggest weakness is probably also an area of strength. It’s holding people accountable. I tend to look inward and give people the benefit of the doubt a little bit more than I should. I’ve got a very strong senior executive team that is very accountable to what they’re accomplishing and is better at holding teams accountable. It’s something I could be doing better.
One of your hobbies is car-racing. What draws you to that?
Getting your mind off work completely and focusing on something else is very good. It allows my brain in the background to make progress on things that I’m stuck on. It’s pretty funny how I come up with all kinds of ideas when I’m completely not thinking about them.
And I just love speed. I like doing things fast. Life is short. Go fast.
Anything else?
I’m going to say one more thing. It’s a very good mantra and it was sent to me by my older daughter: “live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead.”
You have one life. Live it to the fullest. And help everybody else live their life to the fullest.
