Small Business Support Squad: A Village and a Vengeance
In pursuit of her passion, an entrepreneur finds a partner to help her reach her full potential
A budding entrepreneur needs to have the courage to defend their vision. Catherine Mattice, founder of Civility Partners, a San Diego-based HR consulting firm that provides programs to combat workplace bullying, has been indefatigably loyal to her vision from the very start. “People would say, ‘Workplace bullying? That’s not a real thing,’” recalls Catherine. “But I had studied workplace bullying in graduate school, and I knew there were 30 years of academic research on the topic. This enabled me to stick to my guns."
It was the nonbelievers who made Catherine even more aware of a definite void in the HR landscape—and it would be her duty to fill it. Her husband and fellow HR professional, Nick Zundel, who Catherine credits for empowering her to take her business to the next level, would be there to bolster her courage along the way, warding off both the negativity and the naysayers, and driving her harder toward her goals.
“There is real value in what Civility Partners brings to the world of HR consulting,” Nick says. “The only way for a business to thrive is for employees to feel happy and excited about going to work. … There’s not many companies that sell a feel-good product. Workplace bullying sounds like a negative thing, but it [has created] a feel-good productin the end.”