After enjoying a successful management career in the multi-location retail sector, you came to Diaz Group, beginning as a consultant before going full-time. What made you decide to make it permanent?
I made it permanent because I realized that being at Diaz Group resonated with my guiding purpose: to help people, both individually and in teams, achieve better results. I was originally brought in to improve interdepartmental communications. So I began holding one-on-one sessions with each of the eleven members who at that time made up the entire office team. Certain individuals began to stand out. They demonstrated a passion for learning and a genuine desire, not only to help me understand what they did but also to ask for my insight with regard to streamlining their processes. As we grew, I hired new team members, inside and out in the field, with the company’s core values in mind. I knew these new team members would fit right in with those existing standouts to become an extended family, not related by blood but by a purpose to impact the community and build people. And we have continued to grow, building the people, family, and community — the cycle continues and never ends.
In the space of a few years, you have served Diaz Group as a consultant, vice president, human resources director, sales director, and more, all of them effectively, which has made titling you a challenge. Why is it so difficult to define Gil Resendiz?
All that movement is not as disjointed as it may seem. My initial role as a consultant was to identify problem areas in the company’s structure and processes. I assumed the other roles in order to address some of the issues, at least to a point where somebody else could step in and take over. Each time that happened, I would move on to another area. Throughout the last three years, from a strategic standpoint, my purpose hasn’t changed. I’m a strategic catalyst for personal, professional, and organizational growth’ with the specific results in mind. Whatever title is given to me isn’t going to change that.
Family is one of four core values of Diaz Group but you really are family, a relative of the company’s owners. Do you see this as more of an advantage or disadvantage?
LOL… it depends on which day you ask me. Seriously? Being a part of the family called “Diaz Group” is a way bigger advantage than is being a blood relative to anybody here. Sure, the implication in many companies is that being related to the owner somehow means getting certain privileges over everybody else. Right? But as usual, things here are a bit different. The owners of Diaz Group and their blood relations tend to be tougher and more demanding with each other than they would ever be with anybody else in the company, thus holding each other to a much higher standard, by any measure. Whether I consider that an advantage or a disadvantage, that’s how it is. And for now, it suits me.