5

GALVANIZING YOUR TEAM

Unity

Every employee knows and supports our mission, vision, values,
and strategy and knows their role in helping to achieve them.

All for one and one for all!
—Alexandre Dumas,
from The Three Musketeers

Standing before 40,000 men, women, and school children at Rice University Stadium on a warm, sunny September day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy declared, “We choose to go to the moon.”

A series of events—played out on the world stage like a high-stakes game of chicken—had led to this moment.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space when he orbited the earth.

The Space Race was on. Space leadership had become a measure of world leadership. And America was already behind.

So eight days after Gagarin’s orbit, Kennedy responded to the Soviet achievement by doing what the best chief executives do. He posed the key question to his leaders who were overseeing America’s budding space program: “Is there any … space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win?”¹

Experts scrambled to answer this question, and after another eight days, Kennedy had what he needed to make his decision: (a) the Soviets’ space achievements put them ahead of the United States in “world prestige”; (b) although America had the resources to beat the Russians, it had “failed to make the necessary hard decisions and marshal those resources” to win; (c) a “strong effort now” was essential, otherwise the Soviets’ early lead in space could not be overtaken; and (d) putting a man on the moon had “great propaganda value” and was seen as a race where the United States “may be able to be first.”²

Armed with this assessment, Kennedy weighed the costs, the risks, and the benefits of overtaking the Soviets in the Space Race and made the first of many “hard decisions” related to America’s space program. On May 25, 1961, speaking before a joint session of Congress, President Kennedy challenged America with the goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” He wanted it done “before this decade is out.” And he wanted to beat the Russians.

PLAYING TO WIN

Kennedy cast a bold vision: if the United States was going to play the game, competing was not enough. The United States would play to win, and so beating the Russians to the moon became the overarching objective of America’s space program. Everything else was secondary.

Perhaps Peter Schutz learned from Kennedy. When Schutz was named CEO of Porsche in 1981, he became the first non-German to lead the German car manufacturer. The drastic move to hire an American engineer was prompted by the company’s decline in prestige and sales. Porsche was no longer winning races. Porsche was also losing money.

I met Peter Schutz in 2007 when he spoke to a group of CEOs in Dallas about achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people. Schutz shares his experience in his book, The Driving Force, and it’s the story of his early days at Porsche he shared that day with us.

Upon his arrival at Porsche, Schutz found himself participating in a tradition where about 40 of the company’s top managers gathered for lunch every Monday. Talk around the table, he remembers, was “fairly dull,” so during a break in the conversation Schutz asked, “What is happening at Porsche today that is so exciting that you can hardly wait to run and tell our customers and dealers about it?”

The silence was deafening.

With that simple question, Schutz pinpointed a “fundamental problem that would not show up on a financial statement.” Schutz realized that “Porsche needed an exciting challenge to power its turnaround. It lacked the driving force of motivated people working on something that truly energized them.”

Confronted with this realization, Schutz convened a meeting of everyone at Porsche who was involved in racing and asked, “What is the most important race of the year?” The 24-hour race in Le Mans, France, he was told. The race would take place 62 days from that day.

“What are our chances of winning?” Schutz asked.

Just as Kennedy received a blunt assessment in response to his question about the chances of winning the Space Race, so, too, did Schutz receive a bleak forecast for winning the Le Mans race. He was told that Porsche’s cars “would give a good account of themselves,” but there was “no chance of these cars winning the overall race.”

Hearing this assessment, Schutz later said that he “thought about their response for about 10 seconds” and then replied: “Let me explain something. As long as I am in charge of this company, we will never go to any race without the objective of winning. Let’s get to work and go racing.”³

In each case, the chief executives:

Cast a vision to engage, unify, and inspire people. Aristotle said, “The soul never thinks without a picture,” and King Solomon said, “Without a vision, the people perish.” Great leaders think big and inspire people to rally around a cause that’s bigger than themselves.

Understood that competing was not enough. Playing to win creates purpose. Purpose sparks unity. Some leaders confuse making money with their organization’s purpose and then wonder why their employees are less than enthusiastic about meeting performance objectives.

Challenged their team to accomplish an objective most thought was unattainable. NASA and Porsche started from a position well behind the competition with the odds stacked heavily against them. In casting their high risk/high reward vision, each executive surrendered day-to-day decision making, effectively motivating his colleagues to solve their own problems. Owning the outcome galvanized commitment and drove peer accountability.

Made the challenge public. Public commitments drive personal and organizational accountability. Declaring your intentions to others increases the likelihood that you will do what you say you will do. The people you are counting on and those who are counting on you know where you stand. For people of strong character, falling short is an embarrassment, which is perhaps the most undesirable of consequences.

Schutz and Kennedy won their races. But in 1961, plenty of people doubted that what Kennedy was saying could or would be done.

GAIN YOUR INNER CIRCLE’S COMMITMENT

To achieve great results, leaders must first earn the commitment of their inner circle.

As debates continued within the White House and NASA around the purpose, strategy, cost, schedule, safety, and scientific agenda related to a trip to the moon, Kennedy did not waiver from his objective of beating the Russians nor from his conviction that the objective could be accomplished.

As a responsible chief executive, Kennedy sought the counsel of experts. As an extraordinary leader, he persuaded his team to commit to and achieve an objective they first believed was unattainable.

In a private meeting between President Kennedy, NASA chief administrator James Webb, and eight other staff members, JFK asked if getting a man to the moon was the top priority of NASA. The transcript clearly indicates a lack of commitment from the scientists. Indeed, the team was divided.

“Everything we do,” Kennedy says, “ought to really be tied into getting onto the moon ahead of the Russians.”

“Why,” NASA chief administrator James Webb starts to ask, “can’t it be tied to preeminence in space, which are your own. …”⁴

Does this ever happen to you? You studied the facts and searched your mind and your heart. You made a hard decision and committed to that decision. You cast a clear vision of what it will take to win, and you’re determined to do what’s necessary to win. Now someone on your team wants to water down the vision. Hedge bets. Play not to lose. There’s a time for debate and a time for action. The time for debate was past. Kennedy’s vision of sending a man to the moon was already public.

What’s more, JFK understands that a vision of “preeminence in space,” which is how the NASA scientists want to reframe the vision, is ambiguous and therefore weak. NASA wants to achieve a scientific objective. Kennedy wants to win the top prize. Like any good leader, Kennedy understands the need for an unambiguous target and knows that “preeminence”—even though he’s used that very word—doesn’t mean much to most Americans.

For this reason, your organization’s mission (its purpose beyond making money) and vision (where you’re going) are especially important. They must translate beyond the financial performance of the organization. They must matter to everyone on your team and inspire people to show up every day and give their best to achieve a goal that is bigger than any individual. It is how great organizations drive accountability.

People want to win. Winning requires unity, commitment, and accountability. Leaders unify their colleagues and put them in position to win.

CONVICTION AND CLARITY

It is natural for an organization’s budget meetings, like this one with Kennedy, to morph into an examination of an organization’s purpose and priorities. In Kennedy’s case, the president and his team must agree on a clear vision and allocate the necessary resources to achieve it. The resources to be successful in space were absent because the conviction to make the hard decisions had been avoided. When it is time to decide, if your vision is important, you must put your money where your mouth is.

Kennedy is willing to do that, and he knows he needs everyone’s commitment to win, starting with those in his inner circle.

So as the meeting continues, Kennedy works to gain their commitment to achieve the public vision (landing a man on the moon) and the implicit vision that has yet to be announced (beating the Russians).

JFK challenges the scientists to “get really clear that the policy ought to be that [landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth] is the top-priority program of [NASA], and … except for defense, the top priority of the United States government … otherwise we shouldn’t be spending this kind of money because I’m not that interested in space. The only justification for it … is because we hope to beat [the Russians] and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them.”⁵

It’s a remarkable admission by Kennedy that he’s “not that interested in space.” Kennedy’s clarity and conviction around his vision is based on his recognition that beating the Russians to the moon translates into “world prestige” for the United States. Kennedy is working to persuade NASA’s leaders to look beyond the scientific objective of “preeminence” to the emotional objective of beating the Russians.

To achieve something so big, so risky, and so improbably difficult requires singleness of purpose. It requires unity. Winning teams have no room for doubters, naysayers, and handwringers.

COMMITMENT FORGED BY CONFLICT

Unity does not mean absence of conflict. A certain amount of tension is inevitable because conflict is the price of individuality.

The key to unity is being able to answer Yes! to the question, Are we in agreement on the big issues?

The price of unity is too high when you and your colleagues suppress your true character in pursuit of a false harmony. People of strong character and high intelligence will consider points of view that conflict with their own from people they respect. For this reason, character counts. High-performing teams achieve unity by talking through concerns, questions, and doubts, and committing to the strategy, the action, and allocation of resources required to achieve the vision. And then they hold one another accountable to their shared commitment.

The more passionate the debate, the greater the need to walk out of a meeting unified once conflict is resolved.

In the meeting with Kennedy and Webb, the give-and-take discussion reaches resolution as JFK establishes the idea that beating the Russians to the moon is America’s, and therefore NASA’s, top priority. As the meeting concludes, Kennedy does three significant things as the ultimate leader who will be held accountable for the success or failure of achieving this vision.

First, like any good leader, JFK doesn’t undermine Webb in front of his team, so Kennedy takes the high road to communicate that the required unity to achieve this objective is close at hand, while acknowledging there’s still a gap: “I know we’re not that far apart,” says the president. “But I do think at least we’re in words somewhat far apart.”⁶

Second, because words matter, JFK asks for Webb to articulate his views in writing, away from the heat of the meeting. Doing so gives Webb time to think about Kennedy’s position and work through the issues. Kennedy understands that unity on this huge project starts with NASA’s Webb, and Kennedy wants them reading from the same script. Says Kennedy, “I’d like to get those words just the same. How about you writing me and telling how you assign these priorities.”⁷

Third, Kennedy agrees to do likewise, saying, “and perhaps I could write my own.”⁸ This generous offer comes from the man whose bold vision for his country has already made him vulnerable to a skeptical American public.

CONVINCING A SKEPTICAL PUBLIC

That meeting with JFK, Webb, and the others was tough sledding. And those people were among JFK’s inner circle. They had to be convinced. Once they were convinced, the NASA officials committed their exceptional talent and energy and that of their teams to beating the Russians to the moon.

Meanwhile, the American public was in a doubting mood. On the one hand, pride mattered: “If we’re so good, why didn’t we get to space first?” On the other hand, practicality was at stake: “Who cares about space? This program is going to cost a fortune in taxes.” And human life hung in the balance: “Even if we spend the money, can we get our guys to the moon and back alive?”

Doubts continued to simmer.

So 16 months after delivering his speech to Congress, Kennedy was using his considerable powers of persuasion to take his case for a moon race against the Russians to the American people, 40,000 of whom had assembled at a football stadium in Houston, hometown of the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

Kennedy’s September 12, 1962, speech—his “We choose to go to the Moon” speech—is easily accessible on the Internet, and its power resonates today. Kennedy’s speech provides a blueprint for any executive seeking to unify a group of people in order to accomplish a difficult task:

Seize attention. “We meet at a college known for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three. For we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, and an age of both knowledge and ignorance.”

Describe the situation and the motivation for action. “The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not. [N]o nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. We mean to be a part of it. We mean to lead it. Yet the vows of this nation can only be fulfilled if we in this nation are first. And therefore we intend to be first.”

Appeal to shared values. “Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships as well as high reward. So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer, to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and our skills. Because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one that we intend to win.”

Acknowledge difficulties and provide context. “To be sure, we are behind, and may be behind for some time. But we do not intend to stay behind. And in this decade we intend to make up and move ahead. [A]ll this costs us all a good deal of money. This year’s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961 … a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year.”

Paint the vision, show commitment, mix with humor. “We have given this program a high national priority, even though I realize that this is … an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket, more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses, several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communication, food, and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that the temperature of the sun—almost as hot as it is here today—and do all this and do it right and do it first before this decade is out, then we must be bold. And I think we must pay what needs to be paid. I don’t think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job.”

Be specific. “During the next five years, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year, to invest some $200 million in plants and laboratory facilities, and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.”

Leave them inspired. “Many years ago, the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mt. Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it, and he said ‘Because it is there.’ Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it. And the moon and the planets are there. And new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And therefore as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. Thank you.”⁹

Whatever you think of Kennedy, he undoubtedly inspired an entire generation of Americans to think big and get on board for the space race. He made public his vision of beating the Russians to the moon. And he held NASA accountable for winning the race.

INSPIRATION IS CONTAGIOUS

One of those inspired Americans was The Container Store founder and CEO Kip Tindell.

“I was a big fan of JFK, even at age 10,” Tindell told me. “I certainly remember watching on television his ability to communicate so effectively, his charm, his leadership. And I was spellbound. The Camelot thing worked on me.”

In 1978, a 25-year-old Kip Tindell founded The Container Store with Garrett Boone and John Mullen.

Their commitment to culture, undergirded by a set of Foundation Principles, has earned The Container Store the distinction as one of the retail industry’s greatest success stories. The company has appeared on Fortune magazine’s list of “Best Places to Work” 15 consecutive years, twice earning the number two position and twice ranked number one.

TALENT IS THE WHOLE BALLGAME

“Talent is the whole ball game,” says Tindell. “One of our Foundation Principles is ‘one great employee can easily deliver the business productivity of three good employees,’ and that’s an understatement.”

The Container Store not only finds and hires great people, it holds on to them. The Container Store’s employee turnover rate averages 6 percent in an industry in which average annual turnover exceeds 100 percent.

Tindell’s roommate at the University of Texas was John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods and co-author of Conscious Capitalism. “Kip, along with John Mackey,” says Casey Shilling, “is one of the big proponents of conscious capitalism, getting the movement going.”

“The nice thing about conscious capitalism,” says Tindell, “is it’s unabashedly in favor of making money. There’s nothing wrong with profit. It’s good. When you have a company that operates that way, the universe conspires to assist you. Everybody wants to see you win.”

GREAT TALENT COSTS MORE

The Container Store pays its employees 50–100 percent above the industry average, and Tindell says “it takes a lot of bravery to pay great people well.” He’s “not an advocate of paying mediocre people well, just great people. Our salespeople today make what our store managers of several years ago made. This type of purposeful rapid rising of salary has allowed us to compete effectively for great talent.”

Tindell believes this approach rewards everyone. The employee wins, who’s getting paid two times what someone else is willing to pay. The company wins, because it’s getting three times the productivity at two times the payroll cost. And customers win because they are interacting with great people who provide great service.

Are willing workers in short supply? Don’t baby boomers complain that Millennials just don’t want to work?

Baby boomers comprise 36 percent of the The Container Store’s workforce; Generation X, 34 percent; and Millennials, 30 percent.

“I don’t think you can indict a whole generation,” says Tindell. “That notion denies the spirit of humanity. People want to go to work in the morning, and they want to work with great people. And they want to accomplish great things and then they want to go home at night feeling wonderful about what they’ve accomplished. We’re much more excited when we do our best.

“There have been studies,” continues Tindell, “that indicate the first 25 percent of an employee’s productivity is voluntary. That next 75 percent depends entirely on how employees feel about their boss, their product, the company. So I think the reason that The Container Store has done so well is because the productivity of our employees is just off the charts. It’s much more fun to be in a company that’s a super-high achiever than one that’s mediocre.”

A company’s reputation starts with its employees. “The two most important underpinnings of our company’s culture,” says Tindell, “are being able to work with people that you think are really great, really motivated, really talented. That’s 1A. Then 1B is ‘communication and leadership are the same thing.’ And that’s a pretty profound thing if you really believe it and you act on it.”

Kip Tindell was big on transparency long before that word was used to describe a communications style. It’s a style that has served him well.

“Even when I was in high school,” Tindell says, “transparency was how I chose friends. The more you know about something or somebody, the closer you get and the more you can love it or them. People who are not transparent are usually afraid, they have deep-seated insecurities. I choose employees the same way I chose friends: based largely on how transparent they are. Transparency and integrity—those are two things I look for most.”

PURPOSE IS CURRENCY

What value do you place on purpose? On excelling at something meaningful?

Wouldn’t accountability be less difficult and high performance more of a natural outcome if the people on your team all were genuinely passionate about what they were doing? These questions turned Jeff Hook into an entrepreneur.

Hook began his career at Hallmark Cards, consulted in two “Big Six” accounting firms, next led the Dallas office for Oracle Consulting, and then served as a senior leader at i2 Technologies. Despite his success, Hook found himself searching for something more fulfilling.

So in 2004, Hook and a small group of developers founded Fellowship Technologies, and created Fellowship One, the industry-leading web-based church management software that helps churches become more effective in ministry and more efficient in administration. In 2009, FT was named to the Inc. 5000 list, climbed the list the following year, and in 2011 was purchased by Active Network.

The early days of FT were much like any other start-up. It was a roller coaster ride: up with wins and down when a big deal slipped away. Yet FT quickly won 26 of the 100 largest churches in the United States and grew quickly. “We had a lot of fun,” Hook told me, “and we achieved enormous success because we had a committed group of people trying to get something off the ground.”

Right from the start, Hook focused on culture. He and his team developed a document, “Culture on Purpose,” that was used as a “guideline for creating a culture of worship, leadership, innovation, service, and authenticity. We live by these core values toward one another, our customers, and our partners. We talk about these core values, we reward performance based off of these core values, and we frequently celebrate them. They are an everyday part of our life at Fellowship Technologies.”¹⁰

Hook says two primary reasons fueled his belief that culture was important. “First,” Hook says, “I’ll use a sports analogy: you see great players play for a certain coach and a certain team and the dynamics are so great the organization gets the most out of that player, and they’re a winner. And when that player is traded to a different organization with a different coach with bad dynamics, the person isn’t worth the salary. So for us, working in the faith market, we knew how important this market is to a lot of people who work here. It caused me to think, ‘If we’re going to be successful instead of just be another company, we have to emphasize the faith aspect within the lives of our employees.’ Doing that contributed to our culture because it meant we attracted people who really wanted to work here.”

Second, while that approach narrowed FT’s selection pool of talent, it also created a filter for hiring people who were passionate about the company’s mission and vision. “We could hire motivated, dedicated, and productive people for less than market rate,” says Hook, “because they wanted to be on our team.”

Hook also subscribes to the idea that money follows passion, and not vice versa. “Everybody knows,” he says, “though most people don’t follow it, that if you want to make a lot of money, go find what you’re passionate about and do that. Over time, because of the quality of the work you do, because of your passion, you will make money. Don’t go looking for some career that makes you money, because in the end you’ll be unhappy and you’ll probably walk away from it. The practical side of this approach is that we were able to attract some really talented people who were willing to take a bit of a cut in pay to be part of a young, vibrant company that was doing meaningful work.”

By using purpose as currency, Hook attracted experienced people who helped get FT out of the gates fast while staying within its budget.

Today, Fellowship Technologies serves 46 of the 100 largest U.S. churches and also supports churches in other countries. Like Kip Tindell of The Container Store, Hook attributes FT’s success to a team of people who want to work with great people and who are unified around a bigger purpose.

“Strategy is important,” said Hook, “but you can have the best strategy in the world and if you don’t have a culture of execution and respect you are not going to be successful over the long term. You create and sustain that type of culture from people who are inspired about their work.”

He believes you can incent behavior, but you can’t incent passion. “It’s my job,” he says, “to help people distance themselves from their pettiness and the minutia going on in their lives. People have their lives at home. So in order to perform as an organization, your people must be motivated enough to exceed their own expectations, which often are quite modest. It’s the leader’s job to bring the right people on board and then bring out the best in each of them.”

CLARITY CREATES CONFIDENCE

To bring out the best from the people on your team, you must tell them what you expect. They, in turn, want to know that what they are doing contributes to the greater goal. So setting clear expectations is an essential component in driving accountability throughout the organization.

Setting clear expectations at every level in the organization is one of the simplest and most effective steps leaders can and should take to drive performance. And yet it’s a step that’s ignored, assumed, or botched by most leaders. In my survey of leaders, only 43 percent “strongly agree” or “agree” that “every role in the organization is clearly defined and communicated.” The implication: more than half the employees are not clear about what is expected of them.

You must be clear about what you expect of yourself, your organization, and those who work for you. You must communicate those expectations. People can’t hear you think. Don’t make your colleagues guess what you want them to do. Unspoken expectations lead to resentment.

Likewise, the clearer you can be about what you don’t want and what is not acceptable, the less time you’ll waste.

As you set expectations, keep in mind that it is not enough to simply tell people what you expect of them. Expectations that are dictated rather than discussed and negotiated before commitments are made are essentially empty promises. Without genuine commitment from all parties involved, the expected performance may not happen.

Just as clarity creates confidence in you and those that work with and for you, the opposite is also true: confusion causes chaos. Ambiguity creates a high likelihood that work is being duplicated, ignored, or performed poorly.

Your operating (or strategic) plan should ensure that everyone is clear about:

Where we are (Point A)

Where we’re going (Point B)

How we’ll get there

Who’s responsible and will be held accountable for specific tasks

Deadlines for commitments

Rewards and penalties related to performance

A few thoughts about deadlines: they are powerful motivators for getting things done, yet they are an under-appreciated (or oft-ignored) element in helping drive accountability (the power of deadlines is examined further in Chapter 7).

My wife, Janet, says that if you want to get something done around the house, throw a party. As the date of the party approaches it’s amazing how much gets accomplished. The same is true of due dates in the workplace. For this reason, the planning sessions I lead for leadership teams include a one-day follow-up session four to six months after the initial two-day session. What happens between the original two-day session and the one-day follow-up session is up to you and your team. The one-day follow-up session is the party.

When your plan includes the above-mentioned components, it becomes your contract at the leadership level. And the basis of your accountability model.

THE UP-FRONT CONTRACT

At the individual level, expectations should be established as an up-front contract with an if/then component.

The power of the if/then component is its simplicity, its clarity, and the fact that it is discussed and agreed to—as the name of the contract says—up front. “If you do this, then you will get this. If you do not do this, then this is what will happen.” Clear expectations and clear consequences for both sets of behaviors are indicated.

Accountability breaks down and emotions swirl when clear expectations are not established up front.

Keep your plan simple. Don’t spend time writing a plan with dozens of pages. Spend your time gaining commitment among your leadership team on what must be accomplished.

Invest the time you save in the planning process on execution because executing your plan will take everything you’ve got. I developed a one-page template called the Migration Chart™ for use in strategic planning sessions to help leaders convert their ideas into the priorities the organization must address as it “migrates” from Point A to Point B (see Appendix, page 265).

In my book, Lead the Way, I examine the planning and execution process. After leading more than 165 strategic planning sessions, I have observed 10 benefits of effective planning you should expect your planning sessions to deliver (see Appendix, pages 267–269).

HOW MUCH INFORMATION WILL WE SHARE?

A purpose, vision, and plan that are clearly and consistently communicated forge solidarity, inspire confidence, and drive performance. Clarity about every significant aspect of your organization, from what you believe to where you are going and the role each person plays, unifies employees.

The key question you must answer is: How much information will we share?

The Container Store shares everything except individual salaries, including board meeting presentations, sales reports, store comps, everything. Nothing is edited, nothing is held back, and people know that. “People know that we are telling them everything,” says Casey Shilling, “and so everybody feels a part of this team.”

Has sharing all of that information ever backfired? What if the information you share falls into your competitors’ hands?

“People occasionally say that I share too much information,” says founder Kip Tindell. “I believe the companies of tomorrow that will dominate are the ones that understand team and understand transparency. Communicating the way we do adds up to a competitive advantage that so far offsets any little fragments of information falling into the wrong hands. The benefits of communicating are fifty-fold to one over withholding information.”

The Container Store communicates future site locations, which no other retailer does. The company communicates price promotions. Customers, employees, and even other retailers can see that information. “I honestly can’t remember an incident where that came back and bit us at all,” says Tindell. “So we are pretty fanatical about it. It’s pretty hard to talk us out of it.”

The Container Store approach is not for everyone. That’s not the point. The point is that if you’ve got the right people on your team, they want to know what’s going on and how they can help. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you don’t tell them what’s going on, people will fill the void with their own information. The likelihood of that information being accurate is pretty small. So you can either give them the opportunity to make up inaccurate stuff or give them the real scoop yourself.

What’s more, most of the information being communicated is not a secret. The secret? A unified team that out-executes your competition.

OVERCOMMUNICATING IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE

Effective leaders understand that communicating truthfully in a confident style that is authentic to them and that connects with all employees is equivalent to the rebar that supports each of the seven pillars of their bridge that will carry the organization from Point A, across the abyss, and safely to Point B.

Nucor’s Ray Napolitan calls it “the continual drumbeat.” He believes that a leader can say something 10 times, but the employee will hear it just once. Napolitan illustrates the importance of the drumbeat to reinforce another key Nucor concept: the repeat sales team. Nucor has riggers, welders, detailers, people responsible for shop drawings, people who load and ship the material, and drivers. Each person, Nucor believes, is part of the repeat sales team. “What happens,” Napolitan will ask employees on the shop floor, “if Detailing details the project correctly, the riggers do everything correctly, welders have perfect welds, loaders load material safely, and our delivery is late? Is this repeat sales? And they’ll say, ‘No.’ So it’s up to the leader to put things in terms everyone can understand. As a leader, you’ve got to believe in your people and help them understand how they fit and are a key part of our mission. It takes all of us working together to succeed.”

Southwest Airlines believes in overcommunicating. “You cannot send a message one time via one vehicle,” says Elizabeth Bryant. “You’ve got to look at daily communication, weekly, monthly, face-to-face, news lines, newsletters, emails, web-based communiques, handwritten notes from leaders. Whatever it takes to help our employees understand where we are, where we’re going, and why their role in that journey needs to happen.”

It’s one thing to tell someone something and expect them to know it, and quite another for them to actually get it. “If we really want to make sure that people understand something,” says Herman Miller’s Tony Cortese, “we have to craft that message and deliver it in multiple fashions, through multiple channels time and time again. That’s something I’ve learned the hard way over the years.”

Herman Miller has learned that communicating with people requires a deliberate process. “We want to hold people accountable and we want to see everything move forward,” says Cortese, “so we need to clearly articulate a vision for them and we need to keep finding different ways to show them that vision, and show them how that vision ties in to what it is that they do.”

COMMUNICATING CHANGE TAKES EVEN MORE EFFORT

Overcommunication is even more important when it comes to informing your employees of significant changes in the organization.

Senior leaders are required to look to the future, consider a variety of strategies and options, and then think through the implications of implementing their decision. You may weigh key decisions for weeks or months and share your thoughts with only a few of your trusted inner circle. You read a lot, talk to senior leaders outside your company, consult your key people, and engage outside experts. Most of your people are not looking, imagining, and thinking as far on the horizon as you. So don’t expect your colleagues to embrace what you say the first time you say it. Although you have been living your decision for weeks, they are hearing it for the first time.

“By the time I make a decision that will carry us forward for the coming years,” says CEO Jeff Bowling of The Delta Companies, “I’m totally convinced that the decision I’m making is the correct one. I understand the logic, the context, the risks, the benefits. I’ve been thinking about it 24/7 for weeks, maybe months.”

Don’t expect understanding, much less consensus, the first time you announce a new initiative.

“It finally dawned on me that I was six to nine months ahead of my team,” says Bowling. “Now, we have communications game plans for those types of changes.”

One rule of thumb for internal communication: by the time you are sick of talking about something is about the time your employees are starting to embrace what you have been telling them.

MARRIOTT’S STELLAR PERFORMANCE

If this perspective about purpose, communications, and unity seems like pixie dust, unicorns, and rainbows, consider this: a Gallup study of more than 1,000 working adults indicates the cost of America’s disengaged workforce exceeds “$300 billion in lost productivity annually.”¹¹

Companies on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list report lower turnover and higher levels of productivity. Publicly traded companies on this list have seen their stock price increase an average of 10.8 percent.¹²

Marriott International, for example, is both a Most Admired company and a Best Places to Work company, and its stock gained 28 percent in the most recent measurement period.

Bill Minnock, senior vice president of global quality at Marriott International, told me the company’s consistent high performance can be attributed to living the “values and principles of our founder, J. W. Marriott, Sr.: ‘If you take great care of your employees, they’ll take good care of the guests and the guests will return again and again.’ We commit to our associates—our employees—and we set stretch goals to drive superior performance, and we communicate consistently. What we do inspires people to stay for a long period of time. I’ve been with the company 30 years.”

With more than 3,700 properties and 18 brands in 73 countries and territories, Marriott International offers the most powerful portfolio of hotels and resorts in the world. Every day the staff at every single Marriott property convenes for a “daily stand-up meeting.”

The daily stand-up meetings reinforce the company’s vision, values, and essential daily activities. “The best of the best at this,” says Minnock, “is the Ritz-Carlton organization. They’re remarkably spectacular at this. So when you start every day like that, it shows commitment, and that commitment will deliver the results we—and, more important—our guests expect.”

THE COST OF DISENGAGEMENT

The flip side of a great customer experience can be traced to a culture where employees are disgruntled, disengaged, and dysfunctional. The results can be measured in high levels of customer dissatisfaction, class action lawsuits, and workforce strikes and disruptions.

As American Airlines and US Airways considered merging, American’s workers rebelled at their company’s initial rebuff of US Airways’ interests because they supported the merger. In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, American Airlines attributed lost revenue of $45 million due to “operational disruptions that affected bookings”—nearly twice the impact of lost bookings caused by Superstorm Sandy. The problems “started a day after American outlined the new terms of employment it would impose on its pilots.”¹³ Coincidence?

I experienced this “disruption” firsthand. While traveling in February from Dallas to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I made connections in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. I anticipated a weather delay, and soon learned that the Chicago to Harrisburg flight would be delayed 30 minutes. When time came to board, the gate agent announced that the previous crew had failed to communicate to the incoming crew a problem with the de-icing equipment. The previous crew had written the report, but didn’t inform the next crew. Passengers and crew moved to a different plane at a different gate, and we lost another 40 minutes. When we finally boarded the substitute plane, we sat for another 30 minutes because the ground crew had loaded all of the baggage on the first plane, had to unload it, and then move it to the new plane. Total lost time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

Was this disruption an isolated incident? Not according to American Airlines. Were these actions deliberate? I doubt it. But the incident illuminates the negative impact a handful of employees had on a planeload of paying customers.

It’s ironic that accountability is a problem for so many airlines, when they require that passengers agree to the if/then contract before takeoff. If you are sitting in a seat on the emergency exit row, you will be asked to perform the functions in the event of an emergency. “If you cannot perform or do not wish to perform the function, then a flight attendant will be happy to reseat you.”

Why do so many airlines expect one set of behaviors from customers but not from themselves?

WHAT IS DYSFUNCTION COSTING YOU?

Disengagement, disruption, and dysfunction are not limited to a particular age, geography, industry, or size of an organization.

I once led a strategic planning session for a firm where the tension among the leaders was so palpable I marveled at this company’s success. I recalled the company had a set of core values its CEO held in high regard, so we pulled up the company website on the Internet, and then I asked each of the dozen leaders to pull out a blank piece of paper and, without writing their name on the page, to assign a number on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being excellent and 1 being lousy for each of the company values. When the leaders finished, I wrote the core value on a flip chart and then wrote the numbers each of the leaders had assigned that value. There were a lot of 3s, 4s, and 5s; no 10s; and only a few 8s and 9s. Not much unity.

I shared with them an African proverb that says, “I take no joy that the hole is in your end of the boat” and then I told them they were in a leaky boat that appeared to be on the verge of sinking. We completed the planning session, and several weeks later I learned that about one-third of the executives in the room that day had since left the firm of their own volition or had been terminated.

Plenty of dysfunctional companies manage to be successful. How much more successful could you be if everyone was unified around the mission, vision, and values of your organization?

10 WARNING SIGNS OF DISENGAGEMENT

Most of us recognize that life provides no absolutes. And when it comes to employee disengagement, the shades of gray are infinite.

You need to watch for the telltale signs to determine whether your colleagues have checked out or, worse, are wreaking havoc within your organization. In descending order, here are 10 warning signs of employee disengagement:

10. Information pipeline dries up. Leaders are the last to know what’s really happening.

9. Employee complaints increase. Grumbling about perceived injustices (large and small) is the order of the day.

8. Absenteeism increases. Sick days and PTO days are maxed out.

7. Turnover increases. Employees are leaving almost as fast as you can hire new ones.

6. Shrinkage and theft increase. “Where did that tool go?”

5. Productivity declines. It takes more people longer to complete assignments.

4. Silos and discourtesy are pronounced. “That’s not my job.”

3. Broken commitments increase. Tomorrow never comes.

2. Quality of service and products declines. “We have more returns and canceled orders than ever.”

1. Brand erosion occurs. “Remember when we were the preferred provider in our industry?”

Any one of these issues can dilute productivity and profitability, and the top three can kill an organization if left unchecked.

Have you observed any of these warning signs in your organization?

CRYSTAL CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

The thought behind “clarity creates confidence” is that setting clear expectations is at the root of achieving high levels of accountability in your organization.

Too often leaders are in such a hurry to reach Point B they assume everyone understands a word (“success,” “excellence”), a vision (“to be the best,” “the preferred provider”), or a value (“integrity,” “results-oriented”), so spending time ensuring that everyone is clear on those words and ideas can seem like a waste of time.

My experience is that without specificity around those words, you leave room for each person to interpret those words differently based on their perceptions, biases, and experiences.

During a meeting with the two founding partners of a firm, the subject of work-family balance came up.

“Work-family balance is important to us,” said one partner. “That’s a big part of who we are.”

“Then why do so many people work such long hours?” asked the other partner.

The two partners agreed on their firm’s values at a 30,000-foot level, but not at a down-in-the-trenches level. If work-family balance was viewed as a color, both would agree the color was blue. The problem is that one partner saw “blue” as “navy” while the other saw it as “turquoise.”

Without clarity, each partner brought a different view—with different measures and different results—to their expectations, creating inconsistencies in holding those that worked for them accountable. That conversation exposed other fundamental difference and the partners later split.

EXPECT GREAT RESULTS FROM GREAT PEOPLE

All of the leaders I spoke with emphasized the importance of setting clear expectations.

“High performance,” said Ernst & Young’s David Alexander, “starts with hiring great people and then communicating expectations. It’s important for that tone at the top to be established, so the people in our geographic area of Ernst & Young need to hear that from me in terms of setting expectations. We work hard to give a consistent message on our expectations to establish accountability—both individual accountability and team accountability.”

Herman Miller’s Tony Cortese says, “We share the belief that if we hold people to a high standard, they tend to deliver. It’s our belief that people tend to rise to whatever the expectation is, so we try to create a fairly high bar for people and they continually amaze us with their high performance.”

“We don’t have very many rules,” said Southwest’s Elizabeth Bryant. “We do receive mandates from the FAA and there are a lot of different organizations that cause us to make certain decisions in one way. When it comes to our people, we have very clear expectations that are defined for every employee and three of those expectations are around the values of our organization.”

For some companies, the relationship between management and unions is anything but unified. At Southwest Airlines, where more than 85 percent of the workforce is represented by a union, the relationship is considered a partnership. “There are times that you disagree, that’s absolutely true,” says Bryant. “You don’t always see eye-to-eye on what the result is going to be, but we always agree that we want what’s best for the employees and, ultimately, our customers. Having this foundation has led to very positive relationships with all of our unions.”

At Nucor, the key to great execution and great results is being clear about what’s expected at every level in the organization. “The way to do that,” says Ray Napolitan, “is to start with talented folks, provide tools and training, and set clear expectations to hold people accountable. A culture of high performance starts with hiring the right people, and then changing behavior with clear expectations. If you don’t change behavior, you won’t change your culture. We make sure that we connect the mission and vision of the company—the big arrow, so to speak—to the employees’ day to day performance.”

Focusing on a few must-win priorities and being clear about individual, departmental, and organizational expectations related to those priorities increases effectiveness at every level of the organization. Directing an employee to “focus” on 10, 12, or 20 areas for improvement is not focus at all. A simple test for employee productivity is to determine if every employee can say whether they’ve had a successful day at work.

Do your employees know what is required of them to produce great results for the company? If employees struggle to answer this question, it’s time to get more specific about what’s expected.

UNDERSTAND WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE

To galvanize unity and drive high performance, people need to know what you want them to do and what’s in it for them when they do it.

Most of the time it’s money, but often it’s something else.

Jeff Hook at Fellowship Technologies proved that people were willing to earn a bit less in their paychecks in exchange for contributing to a cause they found meaningful. The Container Store hires great people who want to work with other winners. And Southwest Airlines accepts only those people who are eager to rally around their cause of connecting people to what matters most in their lives.

Scientific data derived from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs identify a total of six motivators that drive people to high levels of performance, sometimes sacrificing other benefits along the way. The six drivers, in no particular order, are:

Economic—an interest in money

Regulatory—an interest in tradition, process, and order

Political—an interest in power, though not necessarily politics

Theoretical—an interest in learning, logic, and reason

Aesthetic—an interest in form and harmony

Social—an interest in helping people¹⁴

It would be foolish, however, to think that money doesn’t matter to employees, because it does. It’s not always the first consideration, but it’s always an important consideration.

NUCOR’S PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE MODEL

Nucor’s pay-for-performance model is well-regarded for its fairness and flexibility, its practical approach of aligning employees’ interests at every level in the organization, and connecting the work people are asked to do with the rewards they receive for a job well done.

By sharing risks and rewarding productivity at every level of the company, Nucor drives performance at every level. And while Nucor’s base pay at all levels is anywhere from 25 to 50 percent lower than a comparable employee at another steel producer, Nucor’s model fosters safety, quality, productivity, and accountability, and enables Nucor employees to out-earn their peers nearly every year.

Every Nucor employee has a five-part compensation plan that starts with a base pay.

Second, every employee has some type of incentive bonus program. “In some cases,” says Nucor’s Ray Napolitan, “you definitely want different incentive programs because you will get the behavior that you incent.” Nucor’s fabricated products field sales people work on a sales commission plan. Production personnel are paid weekly on a shop bonus based on productivity and quality improvements. Office personnel, such as engineers, designers, detailers, and so on, are paid on a return-on-assets-type bonus as are the department managers (sales, engineering, production, builder services, customer service) so they focus on maximizing profitability. “We’re aligned as a management team,” says Napolitan, “instead of having the sales manager focused on sales volume and the manufacturing manager focused on labor-hours per ton. All of the managers are focused on returning the most to the corporation, return on assets. So instead of a conflict, the managers’ missions are aligned through compensation.”

The third part of Nucor’s five-part compensation plan is a 401(k) match.

The fourth part is a profit-sharing plan that calls for 10 percent of Nucor’s pretax earnings to be distributed to employees based on their annual earnings and the annual earnings of the corporation.

And the fifth part of the five-part compensation plan is the employee matching stock investment plan (EMSIP), where for every $1 of Nucor stock that an employee purchases, the company matches an additional 10 percent.

Service anniversaries are also celebrated, so after five years of service, a Nucor employee receives fives shares of Nucor stock.

A nonfinancial aspect contributes to Nucor’s success, as it does at The Container Store, Southwest, and Fellowship Technologies. “There’s a lot of pride in a Nucor teammate,” says Napolitan. “Nucor takes care of its employees and really walks the talk, and in return the employees recognize that. We’re so proud to work for this company that we want to work harder and smarter and return more and pay it forward back to the company.”

Because a number of ways can be employed to lead people, savvy leaders do well to understand the motives of those they are leading in order to get more of the behavior they expect.

THE MYTH OF CONSEQUENCES

Somewhere along the way, consequences have come to be viewed as unfavorable.

The first part of the myth of consequences is that a consequence is only negative when the truth is that it can be either positive or negative.

The origin of the word consequence is two Latin words: con (originally com), meaning “together” and sequens, meaning “to follow.” It is a neutral word meaning “something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition.”

The second part of the myth of consequences is that people don’t like them. Again, the discomfort has its roots in the mistaken belief that a consequence is code for “punishment” when the word can also mean “rewards.” In my experience, the people who don’t like consequences are those who consistently underperform in their jobs. Stars, on the other hand, love consequences because to them the word is synonymous with a prize.

Accountability is hard work. Nothing will sap your team’s energy quicker than casting a bold vision, gaining commitment, and then not following through. During every planning session, the leadership team confirms an existing strategic direction or agrees on a new one and then establishes three, four, or five must-win priorities to complete in order to move the organization from Point A to Point B.

When those priorities have been set, I divide the leadership team into sets of smaller groups and give them 30 minutes to answer these questions:

1. How will we ensure accountability?

2. What will be our rewards for achieving our objective?

3. What will be our response to underperformance?

When the groups reassemble, answers are shared.

Proceeding with the specifics of the plan is rather pointless until these three questions have been answered and everyone is committed to the collective response.

Accountability will live or die in the day-to-day operations of an organization.

I also give CEOs the option of having everyone sign a Pledge of Accountability at the conclusion of a planning session (see Appendix, page 266).

I admit to the CEOs that it is corny, but I also tell them it’s powerful. Why?

First, it’s a contract. The leadership team has just agreed that achievements will be recognized and substandard performance will be penalized. The reality is that peer pressure will be the motivating factor for each participant to carry out his or her commitment. Leaders don’t want to let their peers down. Or themselves.

Second, the Pledge of Accountability is a visible symbol of the team’s unity and commitment to execute the plan that is developed. Organizations display the signed Pledge of Accountability prominently in their workplace: employee break rooms, by time clocks, on the shop floor, in training areas, conference rooms, and sometimes in the lobby.

Wherever you decide to place it, the Pledge of Accountability is a constant reminder of the leadership team’s unity and each leader’s individual commitment to do his or her part and hold one another accountable.

ALL OF US MUST DO OUR PART

Knowledge is the currency of forward-thinking organizations.

Honest, consistent communication within your workplace can be the make-or-break difference between a divided, dysfunctional, and underachieving organization, and a unified team that is committed to accomplishing great things.

Without the unified and enthusiastic support of everyone in your organization, accountability will be an uphill battle and high performance will remain beyond your grasp.

To accomplish great things, the employees of an organization must be unified around a common goal, and each person in the organization must believe that what they do will affect whether that goal is reached.

“In a very real sense,” said John Kennedy, “it will not be one man going to the moon, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”