In Great Company

by Louis Carter

  Using small gestures to demonstrate respect and gratitude, Jackson showed people that they mattered to the organization. For instance, for five years straight, they sent congratulatory e-mails, birthday cards, and anniversary messages to everyone in the company. Jackson himself delivered handwritten messages congratulating people on personal and professional achievements.

  These small gestures made all the difference. Revenue in the division tripled in less than five years, everyone on the team at one point made the prestigious Century Club (an all-expense-paid company trip for top performers), and in 2011 Jackson himself was named best division director in the organization.

  “We turned around performance and engagement,” Jackson said. “Ours became the division where everyone wanted to work.”

  Jackson’s story is unusual and inspiring, but it is not necessarily surprising. Science supports the idea that small gestures are the secret sauce of respect. For example, researchers at King’s College in London and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the effects of specific emotions on people’s limbic system, a complex bundle of nerves and networks in the brain that affect mood and manage basic emotions like fear and pleasure. They found that social connectedness emerges from feelings of gratitude and appreciation—both are elements of respect.

  All of this tells us that we need to see organizations for what they truly are—collections of people. People want to be understood and acknowledged. We can easily offer this to people, simply by focusing on the little things that really matter to them. The following are a few of the things that add up to the respect that people want and expect.

  Go Heavy on Gratitude

  Saying thank you is one of the best things we can do for the people we work with, and it does wonders for business. One study by Glassdoor found that 80 percent of employees would be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss, and 70 percent said they’d feel better about themselves and their efforts if their boss thanked them more regularly.31

  This simple symbol of respect has more impact than almost any other in creating emotional connectedness. Former Campbell Soup CEO Doug Conant put this practice into action starting in 2001, when he was brought on to turn around the organization at a time when it was in decline and “reeling from a series of layoffs.”32 Over the course of his tenure at Campbell’s, Conant wrote 30,000 thank-you notes to employees for everything from major accomplishments to small acts of kindness. Needless to say, Conant left the organization in far better shape than it was in when he arrived.

  This same custom worked for former Home Depot CEO Frank Blake. During his seven years as CEO, he set aside time every Sunday to hand-write thank-you notes to employees. He estimates he wrote more than 25,000. And when Blake retired in 2017, employees returned the favor: Blake received hundreds of appreciative notes from Home Depot associates.33

  There are limitless ways we can express gratitude in the workplace. Some organizations have literally institutionalized gratitude by making it a stated policy to thank people after particularly labor- intensive projects or accomplishments. Other companies list gratitude as part of their corporate values and make a point to build it into their business. But most companies that put gratitude to great use simply make it customary to thank each other as often as possible.

  Gratitude can exist everywhere in the organization. Far from being just a job for leaders, it can come from the top down, bottom up, and everywhere else in the organization.

  Consider the Human Experience

  Part of respect is acknowledging the human condition and empathizing with what people are dealing with in their personal lives outside work.

  Making a habit of being empathetic is simple and involves some of the steps I prescribe throughout this book. First, listen to people without judging. You’ll never truly empathize with anyone unless you can pause long enough to earnestly learn something about their hopes, fears, and unique circumstances. Next, put yourself in their shoes. It only takes a moment to try to imagine how someone else feels. Finally, do something that shows your empathy: express interest, make a caring remark, offer an idea, or share a similar story of your own.

  Empathy is especially impactful when organizations act in a manner that has a positive impact on their employees’ personal lives. One of the ways Wegmans takes people’s lives into account is by making it easy for them to manage their work schedule in a flexible way. Their system allows workers to choose their own shifts to accommodate things like doctors’ appointments, dependent sick days, and children’s school breaks.

  Empathetic behavior shows people that they are being heard and understood. Respecting people’s lives in this way makes them feel appreciated, and it brings us together around that one thing that all of us have in common: we’re human.

  RESPECT: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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  KILLER ACHIEVEMENT

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  Killer achievement happens when CEOs and companies create support systems, cultures, and structures that set people up to succeed. With this, they become so emotionally connected with colleagues and customers that success becomes sustainable, self- reinforcing, and almost a force all its own.

  Reed Hastings knows a little something about killer achievement. As cofounder and CEO of the streaming and entertainment frontrunner Netflix, the entrepreneur and philanthropist launched the service in 1989 as a movie-by-mail upstart opposite Blockbuster’s bustling brick-and-mortar monolith. Given the two firms’ overlapping interests, Hastings proposed a marketing partnership with Blockbuster in 2000: Netflix would manage the online marketing of both brands, and Blockbuster would promote Netflix in its stores. Blockbuster’s marketing team reportedly laughed Hastings right out the door. You know the rest. Blockbuster went belly up in 2010, and Netflix walked off with the category.

  As of 2018, the company that started with 900 movie rentals has since evolved into an algorithm-driven behemoth that has viewers binge watching 70,000 streaming offerings, including its own Oscar-winning content. In 2017, Netflix raked in more than $11 billion in revenue, and the company had 125 million subscribers.1 How did Netflix make the astounding shift from being America’s most misunderstood and undervalued company2 to becoming number 10 on LinkedIn’s Best Places to Work list in 2018? By developing and scaling a strong culture of achievement.

  Netflix’s achievement-driven people strategy is captured in an infamous and unusual 125-page Slideshare document that has become known as “the culture deck.”3 Viewed 18 million times online and passed around HR and leadership circles, the culture deck is deliberately provocative and boils down to two words: freedom and responsibility.

  A few proof points that typify Netflix’s culture of achievement: Salaried employees can take as many paid days off as they want (freedom), but they are expected to consistently perform at a high level and exceed expectations (responsibility). They have few spending controls or travel and expense limitations (freedom), but they are expected to make spending decisions that are “in Netflix’s best interests” (responsibility). The organization has eliminated all performance reviews (freedom), but the company uses a simple and informal 360-feedback system where anyone can provide feedback to anyone else in the company (responsibility).

  Here are some of the other highlights from the original culture deck:

  Instead of a culture of process adherence, they have a culture of “creativity and self-discipline.”

  Netflix leaders hire, develop, and cut smartly so they “have stars in every position.”

  They “help each other to be great.”

  “They don’t measure people by how many hours they work but by great work accomplished.”4

  Sheryl Sandberg has called the culture deck one of the most important documents ever to come out of Silicon Valley.5 Why? Because it is a big part of Netflix’s success paradigm. And although the company’s specific focus on superstars and uber-achievers is not for everyone (merely “adequate”
performers receive a “generous severance package”6), they are on to something here. The idea of enabling achievement came up over and over again in my research. It turns out that working toward a common goal brings people together. Most of us are happier when clear goals and accountability markers are put onto place, and we are surrounded by like-minded achievers. People crave uninterrupted progress, and they want to dedicate themselves to a larger purpose. Even more, they want organizations to eliminate systemic and practical barriers to achievement so they can feel fulfilled and be their best to help drive success.

  Why Achievement Is So Satisfying

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  Many of us have been raised to believe that working hard to achieve our life’s goals will deliver all the happiness we need. And it’s true in a sense. But it’s not any single achievement that keeps us satisfied over the long term. Instead, it’s several different dynamics of achievement that come together to delight and engage us at work and in our lives.

  The first is goal setting. Research shows that goal setting positively affects employee engagement and individual performance. Even more, one study found that goal setting is part of a virtuous chain: goal setting in organizations positively affects employee engagement, employee engagement positively affects optimism, and optimism positively affects individual performance.7 What part of goal setting is particularly uplifting? Envisioning a positive view of ourselves—aspiration is motivational. Yet, the key to connecting goal setting with engagement is the balance between creating stretch goals that inspire and motivate people while also keeping the goals realistic.

  The second positive dynamic in achievement is progress. A study in the Journal of Happiness Studies showed that making progress toward our goals might just bring as much satisfaction as actually achieving them.8 We mentioned the positive impact of progress in Chapter 4, “Positive Future,” but the point bears repeating: progress is emotionally fulfilling. According to author and behavioral psychologist Dan Ariely, most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling the sense of purpose that goes along with it.9 Similar research shows that breaking major goals into smaller steps that we achieve along the way is similarly uplifting, in part because it delivers a pulse of positive hormones every time we achieve a small win.10

  Emotional connectedness is the other element that comes into play here. The sense of satisfaction that is derived from shared purpose and team support affects achievement. For example, we experience emotional connectedness when we work together with others to achieve a common goal. And publicly sharing our progress with others can actually help motivate us to accomplish our goals.11 Of course, the bump in achievement from group interactions is more likely to have the desired effect when we receive positive support and constructive feedback.

  Finally, it worth noting that ample recent research demonstrates a different type of connection between achievement and happiness. In this case, it’s happiness that drives the achievement. We are more effective, creative, and collaborative when we are happy at work.12

  Achievement, then, is actually a set of behaviors and reciprocal dynamics, not a single event or a moment in time. In other words, the joy is in the journey. Netflix employees love their workplace—not because they logged 9 million or more new subscribers in any particular quarter, but because the company sets ambitious but attainable goals that motivate people to work toward them as a team.

  The Achievement Gap: Barriers to Success

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  In 2003, I conducted a survey of nurses across America to determine what actions motivated high achievement and what conditions created the opposite effect.13 The primary complaint most nurses cited had nothing to do with compensation or patient outcome. Instead, the nurses reported feeling undervalued and underappreciated. Although they spent far more of their time supporting individual patients, they were not given proper respect or adequate credit for their work by the doctors. This left them feeling demoralized and unfulfilled.

  There are dozens of reasons why some organizations can create environments where people are set up to succeed while other companies sink into disarray and dysfunction. Many causes are specific to individual people—they are in the wrong roles or stuck in a career rut—but other issues are common across industries. From my experience, the achievement gap is almost always the result of a misalignment of expectations.

  Like the nurses in my survey, a lack of recognition in organizations creates a misalignment between what people think they deserve and what they receive. Cultures that fail to recognize hard work, lionize one job and marginalize another, or fail to properly align achievement with incentives, all lose their best people to disappointment and burnout. I call this the expectation/reward misalignment.

  Another common mismatch is the experience/skills misalignment. When industries shift due to emerging technologies and changing business models, it leaves large segments of their workforce without the skills they need to achieve. In industries like telecom, energy, and even manufacturing, trends such as digital and mobile technology, sustainability, and artificial intelligence are all changing faster than individual workers can retrain. This leaves companies with talent gaps and people with no way to perform up to their potential.

  A third disconnect that impacts achievement is the goals/systems misalignment. This occurs when goals are beyond reach due to any number of limitations ranging from resources and organizational structure to “head count.” Although stretch goals have worked wonders for companies like Google, 3M, Apple, and Boeing, these organizations give individuals the resources, training, and creative latitude to achieve the seemingly impossible.14 In other cases, the unintended consequences of the goals/systems misalignment run the gamut from disengagement at the personal level, when people can’t deliver, to risky behavior on an institutional scale. In the financial services environment, for example, when marketing goals far surpass staffing levels and regulatory limitations, it periodically leads to illegal and unethical behavior as rules and laws are disregarded in order to meet supersized sales expectations.

  Each of these misalignments makes it impossible for people to succeed and organizations to reach their peak achievement. Sometimes the disappointment goes viral, and it sends the company into a tailspin. In the Best Practices Playbook below, I will describe practical and logistical fixes that address these barriers and imbalances to create a culture of connection that sets people up to achieve.

  Killer Achievement: The Best Practices Playbook

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  In 2012, it seemed like Best Buy was headed for the same retail graveyard where Circuit City ended its run. As with so many other defunct electronics retailers, the formerly bustling megastore had been dragged down by plummeting profits and what is known in retail as showrooming: customers pack into stores to get a feel for high-end products only to head outside to buy the item on Amazon for less. Best Buy failed to make a critical strategic shift in its business, and the ensuing misalignment was nearly fatal. To make matters worse, their chief executive was given the ax under a cloud of scandal and named “Worst CEO of 2012” by CNBC.

  Yet, Best Buy clearly had some fight left in it. According to Spencer Stuart’s Jim Citrin, who led the search for a new CEO, “There was a deep reservoir of passion within Best Buy employees. They had been winners and innovators in the past, but now a critical piece was missing.”15

  So, what was missing? A leader with a vibrant vision to reignite passion in employees and a core strategy that would enable achievement. Enter Hubert Joly. Despite initial skepticism from some industry analysts, Joly leveraged his experience in global hospitality, travel, and entertainment—and he turned out to be the complete package. He had the requisite turnaround experience, service mentality, and technology savvy. And above all, Citrin said, he was “a great strategic thinker” who was “committed to culture and building an environment to get the best people motivated and moving in the right direction.”

  In the Best Practices Playbook below, I will outli
ne how to use the killer achievement element to spark emotional connection, just as Best Buy and other high-performance organizations have (Figure 7.1).

  FIGURE 7.1

  1. Align Strategy with Structure

  Under Joly’s lead, Best Buy strengthened its website while also making crucial improvements at the store level. For example, they began matching Amazon’s prices. That empowered “sales associates at stores to close more sales, and it gave customers a reason to purchase products on the spot rather than ordering online” from Amazon and waiting for the shipment. On their website, they improved search and checkout capabilities, among other things. The new strategy—called “Renew Blue”—suited the shifting industry dynamics whereby customers wanted low prices and an enhanced customer experience online and off. By eliminating the barriers to success, employees were able to focus on achievement. The result? By 2017, sales were strong, and the company announced that its turnaround was complete, and it was moving into a growth phase.

  Aligning strategy with structure unites people in service of a common objective and sets them free to achieve. Here are a few prescriptive lessons that Best Buy and other achievement-oriented companies have to offer that put this specific best practice into context in the workplace.

  Balance Focus and Flexibility

  Organizations need a stated strategic focus to rally their workforce around a common goal. At the same time, they need to empower people to remain flexible and respond to change.

  During their critical turnaround phase, Joly and Best Buy “resisted the temptation to chase shiny objects.”16 Their sights were fixed on reshaping the business by partnering with many of the foremost tech experts. For example, between 2013 and 2018, they carved partnerships with vendors including Samsung (mobile, TV, appliances), Sony, Microsoft, Canon, Nikon, AT&T, Verizon, Google, and even Amazon, and they also they grew their relationship with Apple. In turn, these companies not only invested in Best Buy displays, but many of them also chipped in to invest in labor, training, and marketing at the retailer. (So, not only did these brands have a place to show off their products, but Best Buy sales associates also had a better understanding of their products—how they worked and how they worked with other products or within an ecosystem.)