Corner Office: Ramon Nunez of LiveHive, on Offering Opportunity

Q. Let’s start with a surprising fact I read about you: you were one of 16 kids.

A. Yes, 3 boys and 13 girls, so there were a lot of women in my life, and they bring a different perspective of life and they influence how you think. I think you become more compassionate.

Q. You grew up in Mexico before you moved to the States. Tell me about that.

A. We lived in the state of Durango, and it literally was in the middle of nowhere. There were probably a dozen families in this little ranch and they all helped each other. We all worked the land and raised crops just to survive.

In the 1950s there was a farm labor program where the U.S. legally allowed laborers to come across the border to work at farms throughout the Southwest. My dad worked in New Mexico at the pecan farms. And during the harvest of the pecans, there were a lot of pecans that were left on the ground and he would pick them up and bring them home. So, I was about 10 years old, and I would go to shops and stores to sell pecans. My goal was to sell enough pecans to buy my first bicycle.

My family eventually all moved to the U.S., and I came here as a 15-year-old. I had phenomenal teachers and counselors who pointed me in the right direction. I went to the University of California, Irvine and then got my M.B.A. — every penny was paid through work-study, scholarships and grants. I studied to be an electrical engineer, but I really liked dealing with people and being more on the business side of a company. I moved into sales and spent 15 years doing that, particularly selling computer-aided design systems early on.

Q. What were some early lessons as you started managing people?

A. I was about 27 when I started managing others. I made a lot of mistakes. One common characteristic of inexperienced managers is a lack of confidence, and that often translates into wanting to control. So you set rules that really don’t make people more effective or productive. What I’ve learned is that you have to figure out what needs to get done. What is the team’s mission? How do we accomplish that? You have to have some boundaries and some rules about how you operate as a team, but you let people excel the best way they can.

Q. What are your thoughts on fostering a culture?

A. To me, there are four significant principles for setting a culture. No. 1 is trust. You have to trust people to do what they need to do. If you can’t trust your team members, there’s something wrong. Either the team has to change or how you work needs to change.

The second thing that’s very important is interdependence. That’s a euphemism for teamwork, but interdependence describes what teamwork really is — I rely on you and you rely on me.

The third thing is integrity. That’s a set of values that keep people from going astray, and when they do you hold them accountable. The fourth thing is customer focus. If you’re not delivering value to your customer, you’re not going to survive over the long haul.

Q. What else about your leadership style?

A. I’ve noticed that a lot of managers pay little or no attention to understanding why people leave a company. Most people leave for the wrong reasons. They often think the grass is greener on the other side. I’ve made it a practice over the years to interview almost anybody who was leaving. In almost all cases, people left because they thought they didn’t have the opportunity to grow in the company.

It’s important to make sure that your employees understand that there are opportunities in the company. When there’s an opening, make sure they know there’s an opening. You have to understand what their career paths are, what their goals and aspirations are, so that you can help them be successful in their careers.

Q. How do you hire?

A. If you look at anybody’s career — except for new college graduates who are just starting out — you’re going to see a pattern. And to identify that pattern, I ask people, “Tell me about two or three significant events in your career that were meaningful to you.” That’s where I start. It can be positive or negative, but usually people start talking about their successes, and then I will ask: “Who did you work with and how did you work with that team? When did you bring them in? Why did you bring them in? How did that play out for the company? What was the impact?”

That gives you a real good sense of how that individual worked in the company and what their individual contribution was. Invariably, we’ll get into something that didn’t quite work out well and how that individual deals with challenges. That’s how I interview. I don’t look at résumés. In fact, I tend not to look at them if I’m interviewing the person for the very first time.

Q. What career advice would you give a class of graduating seniors?

A. A few years ago, I was asked to speak to the group of kids that had been accepted to U.C. Irvine, and the first question I asked was, “How many of you know what you want to do in your career?” There were just a few hands that went up. I said: “You’re the lucky ones. You are the lucky ones because you have a vision for what you want to be. Most of us don’t know. Most of us don’t know because we haven’t experienced what it’s like to be in a career, so here’s my advice to you. Find a direction, find a vector, find something that you think is aligned with what you find interesting, find what you want to dive into.”

It could be technology. It could be science. Whatever it is, go down that vector, and learn as much as you can about it. Get internships. Go get some real-life experience. Talk to people who are in those fields about their jobs, and see if that mirrors what you want to do and the vision you have of yourself. If it doesn’t, then adjust, but at least you’ve got the direction. Don’t think of yourself in terms of, “I want to be an engineer doing XYZ,” because I can tell you that’s going to change five to 10 years from now.