[title subtitle=”words: Marla Cantrell
Images: courtesy Elise Mitchell”][/title]
In 1995, Garth Brooks was making waves in country music. At the box office, Braveheart was a runaway hit, and Ebay was unveiling its shopping and auction site.
But something else was happening that year. Elise Mitchell, who lived in Memphis, was a rising star in the public relations field. She saw her possibilities as clearly as she could see the moon on a cloudless night. Perhaps she would one day lead a communications team for a global company, or she might become head of a major office for a public relations firm.
But then her husband Raye, who’d just finished his training to become an orthopedic surgeon, was offered a partnership in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Fayetteville, with a population of just 75,000, wasn’t an ideal spot for someone with global aspirations, and her heart sank at the thought of moving. But once she settled in, Elise decided to start her own firm. Sitting at her kitchen table, she began to craft the company of her dreams. From there, Mitchell Communications Group was formed.
When she thought about her new goals, she realized she wanted one thing: to be the best, both in business and in leadership.
As her client base grew, she needed to expand. In a move that was ahead of its time, Elise began seeking out professionals from across the country who could work part-time on a flexible schedule.
In the first ten years, she developed a virtual network that grew to include twelve women with impressive backgrounds, all of whom had left their full-time jobs for a variety of reasons, such as family obligations.
Elise describes the challenges and victories of that time while sitting in her offices at Mitchell Communications Group.
Outside, the weather that seemed to hang onto autumn for far too long, has turned in an instant to winter, and the wind howls across College Avenue.
Always, Elise turns the story back to others. She names names, giving credit to her co-workers, to her mentors, to her parents and husband, her son and daughter, her faith in God.
Visiting Elise is like being in the presence of a living, breathing TED Talk. “I wanted this company to be warm and welcoming, to be inclusive, and I credit my parents for that. They were scientists and professors, and they helped us understand the world. My father brought his international graduate students home to spend holidays with us, and they’d bring food from their native countries. I’d spend the afternoon talking to them about what their lives were like. My parents taught us to be explorers, to be learners.”
Elise’s upbringing gave her the foundation she needed. She brought with it an incredible amount of drive and curiosity. As time went by, the business world took notice. Since then, she’s been the recipient of many awards, such as Agency Professional of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, and a Top 50 Power Player. Today, Mitchell has more than eighty employees and three offices in Fayetteville, New York, and Chicago.
The company has won more than forty awards, including being named a Top 10 fastest-growing firms globally. Their portfolio includes Walmart, Kraft, Canon, Merck, Hilton Worldwide, and Procter & Gamble, just to name a handful of high-profile clients.
Elise’s newest venture is her book, Leading Through the Turn, published by McGraw-Hill Education. It’s touted as a leadership book, but it’s for anyone who wants to live a better life.
Leading Through the Turn, released this month, opens in 2006, a little more than a decade after Elise started Mitchell. She was devoting every spare second to the firm, and she realized the negative effect it was having.
She needed a long-overdue vacation with her husband. Knowing how much Raye loved fast-moving transportation, she came up with a plan. They’d tour Zurich on a motorcycle.
That one decision changed her life.
The two fell in love with Zurich, a city of art and museums and a perfect view of the snow-covered Alps. As they toured this new place, Elise felt as if she were waking up. Every color was intense. Every turn in the road a discovery. She could feel the wind rushing by, smell the air and everything that traveled through it.
Before, she’d been a destination person, both in her personal life and business. She’d wanted to get to a place and then enjoy what that place had to offer. But on the back of that bike, when the world showed up, so close she could reach out and touch it, she realized the journey was the real treasure.
Of course, there was a good dose of fear as well. Riding on roads that switch back and forth across steep mountains makes you pay attention. There was also the fact that Elise had to give up control, riding behind Raye, with no say in what was happening.
As a leader, Elise understands fear. But it never stops her. “I see it sitting in the room, like a tiger,” Elise says of fear, “but I’ve learned to walk by it.”
Once home, Elise took a motorcycle safety course and eventually bought a Honda CBR 300R. Some time later, while speaking to a group in New York, she used the analogy of the motorcycle to describe leadership. Motorcyclists use the phrase “looking through the turn” to drive home the point that when you approach a bend in the road, you have to look at where you’re going rather than dwell on the hazards of the turn itself. Elise saw leading others in the same way.
As she talked to her audience, she described changing from someone intent on the destination into someone who takes time to experience life. From that talk, she knew she had a book that could make a difference.
I see it sitting in the room, like a tiger,” Elise says of fear, “but I’ve learned to walk by it.”
In every chapter, Elise shares a story of someone who taught her something important. Great leaders make their way onto the pages, as well as friends. One of the most beautiful chapters showcases her friend Tommy Van Zant, who cofounded Sage Partners, a Fayetteville real estate firm, in 2005.
Four years later, after one of the worst ice storms ever to hit our area, Tommy fell while clearing broken trees off his property. The accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.
When Tommy is asked to address a crowd, he doesn’t talk about his accident. Instead, he talks about leading with integrity and making a difference. That fact amazes and awes Elise.
Elise has the same mission. As a CEO, she sees her job description as just one word: steward. That belief helped form the culture at Mitchell, where she and her team came up with a plan to offer their full-time employees one hundred percent employer-paid health care benefits. There are year-end bonuses for every employee, and in-house training. Regularly, employees’ good work is praised in meetings and by each other. But even more than that, team members are showcased for exhibiting behaviors that are the backbone of Mitchell’s values, such as trust, service, integrity, commitment.
The teams also have fun, eating together, tailgating, even having ice cream parties.
A program called Big Break helps attract new, diverse talent. High-performing college seniors from top-notch communications programs, including several minority-serving institutions, are nominated. Six to ten are selected and given an all-expenses-paid, weeklong internship during spring break.
From that program, they’ve made several key hires.
When you build a great company, suitors come calling. In 2012, after many offers and much thought, Elise sold her company to Dentsu, a Japanese international advertising and public relations company. Today, she holds two titles: CEO of Mitchell, and CEO, Dentsu Aegis Public Relations Network. In addition to her role at Mitchell, Elise is leading efforts to build a global PR brand for the network.
Which takes us back to 1995, the year Elise started Mitchell, when she thought she’d given up her dream to lead a communications team for a global company. It seems that she’s achieved even more than she set out to do.
But long before that, when she was attending a Christian college, she listened as many of her friends made plans to live in the mission field, far from home. As she prayed about what her future held, she knew her calling was a different one.
She believed she could be a light in the business world, a place that’s often more trying than inspiring. She wanted to treat everyone in her path well, to make them feel valued, to build something extraordinary.
One of her favorite ways to do that is through Mitchell’s Ignite program which gives money and time off to employees so they can do random acts of kindness and volunteer. They’ve done extraordinary things, such as paying adoption fees at an animal shelter, surprising someone in a checkout line by paying for everything in their cart, to helping nonprofits, women’s organizations, homeless shelters, schools, veterans programs, and victims of domestic violence.
Elise says some of her best times at Mitchell are hearing these stories, seeing the joy giving brings. Just as she says this, the traffic picks up outside her offices. This town that was relatively small when she moved, has grown rapidly. Now, the two counties that make up Northwest Arkansas are home to more than a half million people.
Elise loves it here, the rolling hills, the lakes and rivers. It’s where she and Raye brought up their son and daughter, Mackenzie and Jackson, who make her proud, who fill her heart.
When the weather turns in our favor once again, Elise and Raye will jump on their bikes, not really caring about the destination. They will explore the beauty of Arkansas, they will discover small cafés and world-class vistas, taking it all in, happy to be where they are. And that may be the truest description of happiness there is.
Leading Through the Turn: How a Journey Mindset Can Help Leaders Find Success and Significance by Elise Mitchell, CEO, Mitchell, & CEO, Dentsu Aegis Public Relations Network — $28
Check your local bookstore, find Leading Through the Turn at Amazon.com, or at elise.mitchell.com
