Is Your Company Sick?

I am not talking about financially sick.  I am talking about just sick in general.  Some companies are profitable despite being sick.  But that should raise the question – Could they be more profitable if they weren’t sick?  Humans have this tendency to assume that when something has success, that they got there through their behaviors and actions.  But when they are not successful it was the actions and behaviors of others that got them there.  Or it was outside forces beyond their control, which is sometimes true but does nothing except provide an excuse. At some point you still have to take ownership of the situation. 

But back to company sickness and assumptions about success.  What does a sick company look like?  Sound Like?  Feel like?  Think about your own working environment.  In a sick company you will find:

1. People are afraid to speak up to leadership.
2. Leadership has made it clear that your differing opinion is insubordinate.  Usually they will deny this but the person with the differing opinion knows better.
3. Leaders sometimes yell at direct reports.
4. There is little or no laughter among colleagues.
5. Changes are always filtered through PR and need to be strategized before anything is done.
6. No one trusts anyone.
7. Time and energy are spent making sure the right people are copied or blind-copied on email in order to cover one’s ass.
8. What is said in public is almost never the same as it is behind closed doors.
9. No one is excited to bring ideas into the company.
10. Most energy is spent trying to figure out how to get people at all levels to be “compliant.”  (My god wouldn’t that suck?  Can you imagine a company full of “compliant” people? What a terrible way to try and build a company!)
11. People really want to go home and are happy to be away from the office on assignments.
12. People do NOT look forward to coming into the office.
13. You make sure your resume is kept up to date.
14. Leaders are leaders in title only.  They are not leaders because others choose to follow them.
15. People do not take responsibility for results.  They spend time generating a lot of activity but no one wants to own the result.  Oh, and you will see a lot of finger-pointing when targets aren’t hit.
16. A lot of employees leave.

I could keep going but you get the picture.  Now let’s assume that a company has just such an environment but is also profitable!  Here is the real issue – Leadership will use profit as the proxy for running a business “right.”  What can’t be seen is whether they are costing the company a lot more profit by running the business in a way that breeds the kind of sickness I describe here.  In other words, just because you are profitable, don’t assume you have the perfect formula.  Perhaps you could be far more profitable if you addressed the pathology that exists within your company.  Responsible leadership doesn’t stop asking questions and self-reflecting on how to get better.  It is never arrogant about success and never stifles voices of opposition.  Responsible leadership is there to serve its constituents and only does so by listening to them and responding to their needs. 

What is it like to work in a company that has the opposite environment?

1. People step-up and want to be accountable.
2. Ideas move fast and are implemented with precision.
3. Actions directly impact results – no excuses.
4. People can’t wait to get to work and sometimes find it hard to leave.
5. There is laughter.
6. There is a constant sense of urgency about the company’s mission.
7. People tell their friends that they should try and get a job there.
8. Leaders listen and are happy to have differing opinions.
9. There is open debate no matter one’s station in the company.
10. The entire organization is involved in a dialogue about how to succeed (in the sick company this is a monologue from the top down)
11. Employees don’t go to other companies very often. 

What would happen if we took the sick but profitable company and could create the environment described in the second scenario?  Does anyone doubt whether it would move them even further ahead?  Does anyone doubt whether this company could innovate and improve continuously? 

The real pathology in the sick but profitable company is the belief that – “it has worked so far.”  I would say; “No it hasn’t.  You are leaving an awful lot of money and growth on the table.” 

Keep you company and your self, well.  Go exercise.

The Mindset of Excellence

In her book Mindset; The New Psychology of Success, Columbia University professor Carol Dweck states that people come with two basic mindsets, “growth” and “fixed.”  These mindsets are really just your beliefs about who you are and how you achieve.

Here is the basic difference; the fixed mindset believes - “I am born with a certain amount of talent.  It is inherent in who I am.  No matter what I do, my success or failure will be determined by that pre-programmed talent.”  This mindset can lead to taking fewer chances, not trying 100% (failure might expose the true talent level), and less overall happiness.  The growth mindset believes – “There is reward in effort.  I can process information, apply it, learn from it and grow. My talent is limited only by my willingness to apply effort in the right fashion.”   This mindset sees set-backs as valuable information for getting better.  This person doesn’t see failure but rather “time spent learning.”  The growth mindset has fewer fears, more willingness to try new things, and greater overall happiness. 

As Dweck writes – “The fixed mindset is like going through life and everyone thinks you are holding a Royal Flush but you only have two pair and you really don’t want anyone to discover it.” 

Here’s a cool kicker – you can change to a growth mindset simply be recognizing the fixed mindset in yourself and deciding to see things differently. 

What about an organization?  How do we see ourselves?  Do we think we are talented and because of that we have such great customer scores?  Do we think that we are just the best at what we do and our way of doing business will maintain us at these high levels?  That sort of feels smug doesn’t it?  These would be examples of a collective fixed mindset.  These statements lack a sense of curiosity and self-reflection.  These statements feel arrogant and closed-minded to me.  These statements have no sense of curiosity.   

What does an organization that has a collective growth mindset do? 

• ·         They focus on ways to get better every day.
• ·         They love the opportunity to turn a negative customer experience into a positive     experience.
• ·         They take what they learn and elevate the thinking of the entire organization. 
• ·         They are excited to discover what they don’t know and apply it to the mission.

They know that there is never time to “rest” and it is urgent that we get better at what we do every single day.  And what is it that we do?  We turn every single member into a loyal lifelong fan and exerciser.  How?  We connect.  We participate in their experience.  We customize every interaction because great hospitality can’t be scripted.  We know that if we have a positive impact on someone’s day that they may in turn have a positive impact on someone else. 

The growth mindset breeds excellence.  It is a hungry, curious, passionate approach to life.  No matter where you are in your life, never think that you can’t get better.  Never stop growing. Always stay passionate. Be excellent.

Don’t forget to train,

Blair

Polluting the Brand

As a business, how wasteful are you?  Are you environmentally responsible and a good steward of resources?  Let’s apply the principles of environmental stewardship to an economic ecosystem for an entire brand.  In this case we will use Gold’s Gym since I own a couple of those although the same logic applies to a single small business in any town or city.  

In an economic ecosystem, think of customers as the natural resource and your ability to renew this resource as critical to the long term health of your business.  Are you just consuming the customer base and reducing the resource pool by pissing-off too many people?  Or are you renewing the resource pool by delighting your customers AND former customers?  For the Gold’s Gym brand overall, what a customer thinks about their Gold’s Gym makes a difference in how they will view my Gold’s Gyms, and vice-versa.  Unhappy customers are the pollution that poisons the ecosystem for everyone. 

A common practice for some gyms is to “use up” the natural resource supply to a point where the only thing you can do to grow is find somewhere that yields new resources.  But the pollution just accelerates if we are not good stewards of our natural resource (customers.)  One day you may wake up in a completely polluted environment and realize you have been running an unsustainable business model.   

The customer is the fuel for your business and our brand. Negative attitudes are the pollution that eventually chokes the life-giving resources out of our ecosystem.  Positive, delighted customers are the oxygen of that same ecosystem.  And just as a hyper-supply of negative attitudes pollutes and eventually destroys all of the resources, a hyper-supply of positive customers and former customers cleanses the same ecosystem over time.   We may never have every customer and former customer become a lifelong fan, but it is certainly a worthy goal for every single gym owner in our system.   

What if every individual Gold’s Gym had to pay a “pollution tax” based on the number of bad attitudes produced and received a “tax rebate” based on the number of good attitudes produced?  How would you fare?  The fact is all of us do pay a “pollution tax.”  If your operation is spitting out nothing but exhaust, you are hurting all of us.  If your operation is generating more “oxygen” than exhaust, you are helping all of us. 

The short-sightedness that breeds bad attitudes for immediate profits will eventually be the death of any brand.  Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question, refers to this as “bad profits.”  If you read that and thought to your self – “all profits are good profits” – you might be just the kind of operator that takes us all down.   

Coaching Great Culture

I had a question from someone a few months ago when we were discussing ways to enable great culture.  We had discussed how to communicate values, set up your human systems (pay, training, development, rewards, etc) in order to support your values, how to define vision and mission and how to systematize all of it in order to keep messages from slipping through the cracks.

Then he asked - “But what is culture?”  I said – “It is the stories people tell about you and the legends you create.” 

And that really is it.  If you want to know what kind of culture you have, understand what people say when you aren’t in the room.  Understand the stories that circle back to you about how your organization “acts.”  And I don’t mean that you cherry pick the stories to make yourself feel good.  You have to have an open mind and be willing to hear it all.   Think about other businesses that you like to deal with and the stories you tell about them.  That defines their culture.

Most of all it is the stories that employees tell about what happens behind closed doors and under stress.  These are the legends that get passed from person to person.  These are the “campfire stories” that define you and your organization.  These are the outputs of culture.  The stories that are told about Apple or Four Seasons are outputs of their culture.  The stories that are told about Enron or Phillip Morris are the outputs of their culture. 

In sports there are two cultures that I most admire; Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay packers and John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins. The stories told about both of these men and the cultures they created are all about team, respect, and accountability.  Are there any other coaches in history that have as many respectful and awe-inspiring stories told about them?  I doubt it.  Are the stories told about you and/or your company respectful and awe-inspiring?  Both of these coaches’ winning records were a result of the cultures they enabled.  

Listen to the men who played for them.  Listen to the stories their opponents tell about them.  Think of what you (and I) need to do in order to create culture where those stories are the norm and not the exception.  Start doing that stuff today and then never stop. 

Detailed Instructions vs. Employee Freedoms

For years we have made sure that our employees have the "freedom" they need to take action with people in order to create happy customers.  We have also written detailed and explicit instructions on some processes.  One of our 9 sets of "Freedoms and Obligations" reads - "You are free to recommend changes to any process, policy, or procedure."  "You are obligated to use all existing processes, policies and procedures."  So which is it?  Do we allow the employee the freedom to do what makes sense to them or do we bind them to written processes?  The answer is "both."  We make changes to processes, policies and procedures all that time based on employee feedback.  They give feedback because they know we will respond.   

What we do not write in specific detail, are the things that can't be "known."  What we can know, we make it a point to codify.  For example, there is no need to reinvent how to answer and transfer phone calls. The mechanics of doing so are easy to write in detail and therefore teach.  But what can't be known is how each and every member "feels" when coming into our gyms (or calling) and what each interaction should be like.  How to handle each situation can't be codified since it can't be "known."  BUT.... We do know our intention in dealing with every member and that CAN be codified and taught!  

This is where most people fail in directing, managing, and leading an organization that can be flexible and not be taken down a path to destruction based on the "opinions" of the owners or leaders.  I see way too many people that believe they can codify and teach to the unknown.  They attempt to script their staff for all possible scenarios as though they have some crystal ball which allows them to "see" into everything that a front line worker will come across.  It is so much more effective to keep your directives crystal clear, but keep them directional! It is also important to keep your directives simple and based on your most important intent.

I recently read "The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions, and Results."  A well-written book by Stephen Bungay which finally helped me reconcile my own propensity to alternate between broad but exploit directives and detailed and meticulous processes.  It was simple and wonderfully confirming.  We have always tended to give direction to what we know, not what we don't know and that means that some things can't be detailed. 

We CAN be explicitly detailed when teaching our vision, mission, values and strategy to our employees.  We CAN be explicitly detailed in our "Standard Operating Procedures" manual.  After all, if I have to clean up blood with bleach, I should be able to write down exactly how to do that. 

It is in the vast expanse of "daily operations" that we cannot be explicitly detailed.  We don't know what will come at us and we need to have great people making great decisions based on their intelligence, experience, and our intentions to make our customers happy and get them to love us.

Our employees have the brains, heart, and autonomy to make that happen.  Their brains are filled with our vision, mission, values and core purpose.  Moreover, they are clear about their responsibility for fulfilling that purpose based on their role with us. Their hearts are caring and compassionate.  Combine those with the freedom to choose and the knowledge that we will stand behind them and you create an engaged and powerful workforce.