Short Doesn’t Mean ‘Memorable’…

I had a realization today, as I addressed about a dozen members of our “Bistro 106” staff and it was this:

Company culture best gets communicated through the stories we tell.

We have this sign posted in a few places around the community – namely on the inside of doors from the kitchen to the dining room. Each person there probably touches it 20 times per day. Yet, no one could name all six words of the mission statement. Yes, I said ‘six WORDS’.

Please know, I take full responsibility for this.

A culture that doesn’t get talked about – that doesn’t have stories told about it – won’t spread.

Realizing this, I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity.  So I explained how we’d come up with these six words and in this combination: It was because NOT doing these three things was the source of all of our problems, at every level of our organization.

I offered specifics on all the unprofessional, buck-passing, value-crushing things we’d done in the past. It wasn’t pretty, and many of our newer recruits (say 50%) were surprised to hear that this had been the case. The veterans just nodded their heads and recalled how bad things had been. Not that they’re perfect now – in fact, that was partly the reason for this meeting – to take us from a “rules culture” to a “philosophical” one. A culture where people’s passions were aroused and their minds dwelled on their work.

I told stories about two versions of our business: one in which we hold these key components in our hearts and our brains every moment, and another version where we did whatever we wanted. Not hard to imagine how these two worlds would look after a short while.

Nearly as bad was the version in which everyone was simply a wage-slave and wasn’t permitted to think or act for the greater goals of our company. What a miserable life that would be.

In fact, I told them all that if I couldn’t enjoy what I did for a living, I would:
1. Seek to change it for the better through action and suggestions.    If that didn’t work I’d have to…
2. Find work elsewhere, or if that was somehow impossible I’d…
3. Kill myself.

Actually, that last one is a little drastic, but I use the hyperbole for effect. It’s that important to me – people ought to enjoy what they spend the overwhelming majority of their time doing! Anything else is insanity.

Sure, more rules and “Carrot & Stick” management can get any group to be better, but it has it’s limits. It’s rooted in the industrial revolution’s relationship between labor and management. Toyota has long since shown that even for cranking out widgets, it’s a poor model for running a team. Then why should we use it for running people who are supposed to surprise and delight our clients.

I always hated meetings where a group gets yelled at for what a few have failed to do properly. In fact, I hate groups. I love teams, but I hate groups. I’ll always prefer to have a meeting with a team and get them excited about the things we need to do to succeed. When you do this, the carrots and the sticks take care of themselves.