Meta(Morpho)sys.

• Author: Cary, Michael
• Position: Metasys Inc.'s change of corporate culture - Company Profile

A Charlotte software company changes its corporate culture, shifting from monkey business to "we want to be the gorilla."

It's hard to say whether Patrick Thean is madly insane or just mildly insane. By his own admission, the 170 employees at his Charlotte-based computer-software company fall into one category or the other. He doesn't exempt himself. "That's probably been a big key to our success," he says, laughing.

There's a delirium to the way Thean talks about the goals of Metasys Inc., which he founded in 1991 at age 26. It has had phenomenal growth, nearly doubling its sales in 1996. But Thean, president and CEO, has a grander agenda in mind. He wants to change the world. He wants to pay tribute to James Bond. (His employee ID is 007.) He wants to glorify God. "As a Christian I have an obligation to look at my life and see if what I do is in keeping with God's wishes."

It's late one Monday afternoon, and most of Thean's staff has gone home. He sits at a long wooden table in an elegantly adorned conference room and attempts to encapsulate his life and career in the hour or so he's allotted himself for such things. He'll fly to Atlanta in the morning, then to the West Coast, then back. Time is precious. He doesn't answer questions. He attacks them. His voice rises an octave each time a new adage leaps into his head, every three minutes or so. Life is a journey. Success is relative. Money? It's not the point.

There isn't enough time today to map out the world according to Thean. There probably isn't enough time this century. He wants to chart it out on paper, but there's no pen. Millions in annual sales and no pen. He grabs yours and tries to explain the transportation-management software he develops. He might as well explain nuclear physics. He speaks of "compelling value propositions," "wide functionality," "constraint-based theories." It's his way of saying the software is supposed to help clients manage and track shipments and inventory.

Metasys is an anomaly in button-down Charlotte. Its laid-back, techno-hip corporate culture would be more at home in Silicon Valley. The young staff dresses casually and works at its own pace. Hours vary - 8 till 6 today, 10 till midnight tomorrow. "We try to be flexible - as long as the work gets done," Thean says. Throughout the fall, employees gather in the company TV room for Monday Night Football. Metasys has regular ice-cream parties, occasional Nerf-ball wars. It wants to be a Different Kind of Company. One part Saturn. One part Microsoft. One part Pearl Jam.

But Thean, 33, is nothing if not ambitious. He refers to...