by Marc Benioff
Mindfulness on Every Floor
I have always sought the advice of many kinds of experts to help me become a better leader, and a better bearer of our culture. That’s why I’ve gone to General Powell to help me incorporate philanthropy into the business, and to MC Hammer to help us adapt his successful “street teams” model to build a base of Salesforce evangelists. So naturally, when I needed help instilling mindfulness training more deeply into Salesforce culture, I went to the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh. I’ve long been practicing meditation under his guidance, and at that time, due to a curious set of circumstances, the world-revered spiritual leader happened to be staying at my house for six months as he recovered from a debilitating stroke, accompanied by an entourage of thirty monks from the Plum Village monastic community in France.
One day, I invited the monks to the Salesforce office. I thought, perhaps naively, that they’d love what we had going on. I was shocked when they told me they didn’t like what they saw at all. When I asked why, they reported, less than approvingly, that everyone was talking all the time, and working all the time. “That’s what we do here,” I said. “We work.”
My explanation didn’t mute their disapproval, but they did offer to help introduce mindfulness to our people. One of the monks, Brother Spirit, agreed to lead a seven-hour meditation session. When it “sold out” in record time, that was evidence enough for me—and the monks—that our people wanted more opportunities like it. Clearly, a one-time seven-hour session wasn’t going to cut it. We needed to integrate meditation more fully into our day-to-day culture.
At the time, we were investing heavily in real estate to accommodate our growth, with new offices in our headquarters of San Francisco and entirely new towers in New York and Indianapolis. I asked the monks what I should do to make them better, more mindful places for our employees.
“You should have a whole floor dedicated to silence,” they said.
Obviously they did not understand the square footage prices of commercial real estate in these cities. I would have to negotiate with them.
“What about mindfulness areas on every floor?” I countered.
They approved. From now on, in every office, everywhere in the world, we now have, or will soon have, a small mindfulness room on every floor, a quiet zone where employees can retreat to any time they need to press Pause.
Now, I know this may sound very “California,” but this is not just some New Age idea. Mindfulness is top of mind everywhere, and its practitioners are reaping the benefits: not just for their health, but also for attention, focus, and in turn their work performance. As The New York Times reported, a new study that “brings scientific thoroughness to mindfulness meditation” conclusively showed that “unlike a placebo, it can change the brains of ordinary people and potentially improve their health.” And it’s no coincidence that of the more than two hundred accomplished performers, executives, and leaders Tim Ferriss interviewed for his book Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers, he found that more than 80 percent of them practiced mindfulness or meditation—for reasons you’ll read more about in Chapter Nine, “A Beginner’s Mind.”
Leading with Psychological Safety
Last year at our leadership development program, we invited Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston and author of several bestselling books—most recently, Dare to Lead, about building a leadership culture of courage, vulnerability, empathy, and connection—to work with fifty of our top senior executives. This resulted in a very honest and at times uncomfortable half day of discussion about what behaviors support our values, as well as what behaviors threaten to sabotage them. One issue that came up was fear of speaking up or being a bearer of bad news. When this kind of fear permeates a company culture, the results can be disastrous. It can corrode the trust that holds up a culture. For a company or team to thrive, you need a diversity of voices and people unafraid to bring their true selves and willing to speak the unvarnished truth.
In fact, studies show that creating a culture of psychological safety—one in which people trust one another and don’t fear speaking their minds—results in smarter risk taking and better problem solving.
Given the high importance we place on our innovation ecosystem at Salesforce, this is a huge priority. That’s why our Employee Success (HR) team has been working with globally recognized leaders and experts in the field to advise us on how to ensure that we are practicing what we preach. Attributes like tolerance, integrity, and honesty can’t be buzzwords; every single person at the company needs to feel safe enough to live them.
This is why in management meetings, we make a point to see that everyone around the table—even the most junior person—feels comfortable expressing themselves. It’s why we commissioned a study to understand the impact that an atmosphere of psychological safety can have on team decision making, innovation, and sales results, and plan to launch workshops and development programs to help employees and teams build the kind of trust needed in order for people to feel comfortable speaking up.
We’ve also found that psychological safety is enhanced when we are being transparent and employees feel like they can play a part in shaping the future of the company. That’s why we livestream our management meetings and allow everyone from seasoned Salesforce veterans to new hires to post questions and make comments that executives can view on the big screens.
Moreover, because we’re aware that every family, including ours, is far from perfect, twice a year we conduct a detailed employee survey. We ask employees questions about the culture, about whether they feel valued; and we ask them to rate their superiors on qualities like communicating a clear sense of direction, promoting an inclusive work environment, and whether the managers take responsibility versus assign blame. We asked pointed questions about our ethical behavior. The answers are confidential, but we make all the aggregate scores public so teams can review them and identify areas they need to improve. It also provides employees with useful data when they are deciding whether to transfer to a different department.
On our latest survey, we included even more poignant questions, such as whether people felt there was a culture of politicking and backstabbing as ways to get things done or whether they were feeling burned out or bullied. You’ll never get direct answers if you don’t start by asking the hard questions directly. And you’ll never build a trusting culture unless you directly address those types of divisive or debilitating behaviors.
There’s nothing more critical to psychological safety than inclusion, which is why we encourage employees to join our Equality Groups, affinity groups that provide a safe space for people to connect around various aspects of their identity, from race and gender identity to sexual orientation to religion. This has become such a central part of our culture that today about half our employees are involved in Equality Groups, up from one in four two years ago.
The beauty of our Equality Groups is how they empower people to speak up for their communities when they need it the most, while also providing a forum to invite allies of different identities. When something happens in the world that impacts our employee community, members set up Equality Circles, which are safe spaces to have healthy, productive, and constructive conversations. In this way employees can feel heard rather than suffering in silence at their desks, and it helps to build awareness and empathy across the company.
For example, in January 2017, when the Trump administration separated families at the U.S. border with Mexico, several employees hosted an Equality Circle. Similarly after white-supremacist demonstrations and violence in Charlottesville, employees gathered to discuss their feelings and fears.
One of our newest Equality Groups, Faithforce, is currently the fastest-growing, with a thousand members in less than a year. Two employees started this group with the support
of our Chief Equality Officer, Tony Prophet. He told me how employees were holding secret prayer meetings because they weren’t certain that it was allowed, and how a director of content experience, Sue Warnke, had confided to him that she was a born-again Christian but worried that she should tuck her cross necklace inside her blouse at the office.
With more than half of people in the United States saying that faith—whether Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Christian, Catholic, or anything else—is the core element of their identity, we want all employees to feel safe bringing their full authentic selves to work. So as you can imagine, nothing made me prouder than when Joe Teplow, whose company Rebel we acquired last year, told me about what he called a “remarkable moment of religious harmony powered by Salesforce.” He was about to recite a Jewish prayer in one of the mindfulness rooms of our New York tower when Yousef Abbasi, a solutions engineer, walked in to perform his midday Muslim prayer. Joe moved over to make room, and they prayed beside each other in the languages of their religions.
Fun
I still think of Salesforce as a scrappy, trailblazing start-up. It’s part of our cultural mindset. True, at the time of this writing more than twenty years into our story, we’ve risen to the top of the CRM market and occupy beautiful office towers around the world emblazoned with our name. But we haven’t lost the youthful enthusiasm and trailblazing spirit that has fueled our growth. In many ways this attitude is expressed simply by not taking ourselves too seriously. Having fun is essential to bringing that part of the company ethos to life.
In fact, fun and play are integral to our culture, and not just because they make Salesforce a more enjoyable place to work, but rather, because they improve how we work. Our employees can spend strenuous hours with their noses to the grindstone, trying to meet our goals. Having some levity goes a long way toward reducing tension and restoring focus. It helps in cultivating a beginner’s mind. As the Dalai Lama says, “Laughter is good for thinking because when people laugh, it is easier for them to admit new ideas to their minds.”
It’s why, if you walk into a Salesforce office, you’ll see Astro, Codey the Bear, and even a charismatic Einstein, all in bigger-than-life 3D form perfect for taking selfies—not exactly what you’d expect to see when you enter the headquarters of a leading business software company. You’ll find these characters adorning our website, business cards, and sales materials, too. I remember that when IBM CEO Ginni Rometty and I reviewed our companies’ collaboration, the documents displayed our characters in a national park. At first, this playful scene was clearly off-putting in the world of staid Big Blue. “What are these cartoons?” she puzzled. I explained that our characters represent our products and the national park setting conveys our devotion to family, where many have spent great vacations. Then Ginni lit up, and I could tell she understood. “My happiest memories growing up were family trips to our national parks.”
Research on what makes people happy shows it’s not things. It’s experiences—which is why we host nearly five thousand “official” events a year as well as frequent informal gatherings and dinners in our top cities. It’s why I invited the magician David Blaine to a recent dinner in New York City (he ate a wineglass) and why we’ve had amazing artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, John Legend, Janelle Monáe, Eddie Vedder, and Jewel perform for customers, and amazing artists—most recently Alicia Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, and Metallica—put on concerts at Dreamforce. We want our trailblazers to have unforgettable experiences and share in the fun of our Ohana.
The World’s Best Living Room
Culture is more visceral than intellectual, which is why I often find myself asking: “Does this feel like Salesforce?”
That question was certainly on my mind when I visited our new Paris office on Avenue Octave Gréard for the first time, in the summer of 2015. It’s a striking piece of architecture dating back to 1925 and just one block from the Eiffel Tower. But as soon as I stepped into the entryway I felt that there was something wrong.
In the lobby of this exquisite neoclassical building was a Hawaiian koa wood table. “Why is this here?” I asked. “This seems like such an unusual thing to put here.”
“We were told this is what you want,” was the response from the team giving me the tour. That’s when I thought, Wow, we’re in trouble. It was a revelation. My reaction wasn’t so much about the design choice as the fact that someone had thought that simply outfitting the lobby with a piece of Hawaiian wood could signal our culture! Because we were growing fast and occupied with other problems, I hadn’t stopped to think about how the offices where people work every day—our physical spaces—did or didn’t reflect our culture.
When I got back to San Francisco I walked up and down each floor of our buildings, which make up our urban campus. With all the incredible growth over the years, our workspaces had been added somewhat piecemeal, the result being, I suddenly realized, that each new addition reflected its own moment in time. We looked like very different companies depending on what door you opened; there was no consistency in the spaces we were creating for our employees and visitors. Worse yet, it also felt much too “corporate.” We could be any nondescript company!
Clearly, we were missing a huge opportunity to create a more consistent brand experience and physical environment: a cultural identity that would be conveyed anytime you entered a Salesforce office anywhere in the world. The good news was redesigning our spaces with an entirely new look would be a celebration of our culture and an opportunity to unleash the creativity of our team.
I was fortunate to have Elizabeth Pinkham as my guide when I dove headfirst into this massive project. Elizabeth had been responsible for managing Dreamforce since its inception, so she had a rock-solid understanding of how to bring our culture to life at events. Now I was about to have Elizabeth, who was employee number 51 at the company, do the same for our workspaces. At that time, we were working on opening a new thirty-story office building at 350 Mission, which we dubbed Salesforce East. It was the perfect place to pilot the rollout of our new workspace design.
During this process I was struck with two bursts of inspiration. One came from a Zen phrase: “A garden is not complete until everything is taken out of it.” The other came from a quote often attributed to Einstein: “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
So I called upon my beginner’s mind, erasing any preconceived notions, and took my cues from nature. I envisioned a workspace that radiated calm, not exactly a Zen monastery, but bringing the outside world inside the building with natural light, real plants, rocks, warm colors, natural woods, and of course, environmentally sustainable materials. I imagined the floor covered in green grass and with gravel walking paths, like an urban park, and all the desks exposed to the best light and views.
It was easy to paint a vision in my mind, but I soon learned the complexity of making it a reality: choosing the carpets, fabrics, furniture design, wood grains, wallpaper, paint colors, glass, and more. We connected with the creative team at Burberry, a Salesforce customer, to learn about their design philosophy and how their stores are brought to life. They suggested we build a physical mockup or “mock floor” to see how everything would look in life size. So we built conference rooms and tried out different carpet options, furniture, and lighting—evaluating every nuance of the evolving design. The carpet, made of recycled fishnet, evoked grass weaving through gravel paths, and ultimately the feeling of nature became central to the design. Throughout this entire process, I visited the mock floor frequently and offered feedback on how to make the space feel less corporate, more residential, differentiated, connected with nature—in other words, more Salesforce.
The transformation was amazing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still missing. The natural effect was calming, but there wasn’t enough color, I remember telling Elizabeth as we toured the office one day.
We needed some kind of art.
Then it hit me: Our people!
“We can put up a video screen or a photographic display that shows employees, customers, and community members,” she suggested.
“Think bigger,” I told her.
That’s when our “culture galleries” were born. Nearly life-sized photographs of our Ohana, taken at various events and volunteer activities, were hung on the walls of every floor and elevator lobby. Inspired by a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, Elizabeth showcased the photos in white metal frames. After all, how better to celebrate our people than to elevate them to art?
Nearly everyone who has visited our offices, from Target CEO Brian Cornell and Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and reporters from The New York Times, has walked in and inevitably said, “Wow. This feels so different!” Whether they realize it or not, what they are feeling is the physical expression of our culture, in all its dimensions. That was my goal—to bring our culture to life.
You feel it the moment you walk into any Salesforce office now. Thanks to that eye-opening Paris visit, I now understand the magic of the large ground-floor lobbies in our buildings where we welcome employees, customers, and the community. In addition to massive screens covering entire lobby walls with changing art, you’ll find coffee, snacks, roving greeters outside the security desk, special events, networking opportunities, and even DJs. I want every employee and visitor who walks through our front doors to experience our culture!
But my favorite feature of every new Salesforce tower, from our San Francisco headquarters to New York, Indianapolis, London, Tokyo, and others, is the Ohana floor. Normally, the top floor of a big office tower is reserved for top executives—some companies even make it accessible only by a special, private elevator. Well, I completely rejected that practice, and decided to make the top floor in every tower (and its stunning views) a space that is open to all employees to use for meetings, events, and collaboration during the workday, and invite nonprofits and community groups to enjoy it for free on the weekends.