CHAPTER 8
Contented Cows Are Connected
I enjoin you to be ever alert to the pitfalls of too much authority. Beware that you do not fall in the category of the little man with a little job, with a big head. In essence, be considerate, treat your subordinates right, and they will literally die for you.
—Major General Melvin Zais, U.S. Army
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Pay a visit to the Concierge Lounge in the Marriott Gateway hotel adjacent to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and you will likely meet Joyce Folk, concierge. Each weekday morning, beginning at 6:30, Joyce hosts several dozen of Marriott’s most regular guests from all over the world. Many of them stumble in for their morning coffee, breakfast, and maybe a meeting in various states of alertness, dress, and grumpiness. Within seconds of entering the room, Joyce will warmly welcome you.
As a New York native, Joyce’s “good morning” doesn’t come with the Southern syrup that one might expect in Atlanta, but it’s authentic, and that’s what counts. And you don’t just meet Joyce; she meets you, and gets to know everything about you—your name, where you’re from, and as much of your story as you’re comfortable relinquishing at that time of day—pretty quickly. And one thing that’s certain is that you will never again be a stranger in her lounge. She makes it a point to connect with people, by noticing and then quietly accommodating their habits, preferences, and foibles. One of the more striking observations from spending a few hours in Joyce’s company is that nearly everyone in the place knows her by name. In humorous acknowledgment of her role and the high ratio of male guests, she adds, “Yeah, I’m a woman with a hundred husbands.”
We do business in Atlanta fairly often, and I can assure you that Joyce and her afternoon counterpart, Crystal, have as much to do with our decision to stay at the Airport Gateway Marriott as do the new facility and its proximity to the airport terminal.
In an age when making someone your Facebook “friend” is too often mistaken for making a true personal connection, Joyce serves as a reminder that decisions to buy from or to follow someone usually have more to do with the relationship than the details of the transaction. And through the other end of the telescope, research suggests that 50 percent of business customers leave not because of a bad product, but a bad experience.
You don’t have to talk with Joyce for long to figure out that this 22-year Marriott veteran loves her job and is loyal to her company. And if you knew Joyce, you’d know she wouldn’t say it if she didn’t believe it. She was recruited from another Atlanta-area Marriott to work at this showcase property even before it opened and told us, “Working for Marriott was my part-time job that I made full-time because of [the company’s] loyalty and dedication to the associates.” When pressed for specifics on why she felt such a connection to the company, she told us we didn’t have enough time for her to tell us everything—“But here’s one,” she said. “Whenever Mr. Steigerwald comes to Atlanta, he always comes here, and he looks at me and says, ‘Hi, Joyce. How are you doing?’ He doesn’t even look at my name tag. But he knows my name, and he says hello. I think that’s cool.”
Mr. Steigerwald, by the way, is Rob Steigerwald—Marriott’s chief operating officer for Americas, southern region, which includes the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. This is especially remarkable, given the fact that we’ve encountered first-level supervisors who couldn’t be bothered to learn their employees’ names. It’s a huge contrast to Rob Steigerwald, and others like him. Leaders at every level who get the best effort from their teams make it a point to invest in their people by getting to know them.
We titled this chapter “Contented Cows Are Connected” to acknowledge the fact that although so many of us today are overconnected electronically (feel free to tweet anything you read here that you like), most of us have a largely unfulfilled need to be more fully connected—both emotionally and psychologically—to one another, our leaders, our organizations, and the work we do. Contented Cow companies make it a priority to really, genuinely connect, with people—usually even before they hire them, and continually throughout the life of the relationship.
During the latter phase of writing this book, we had a chance meeting in Atlanta with a handful of Southwest Airlines leaders, who are managing the Southwest/AirTran integration. When asked what the key to their integration strategy was for merging two very different cultures and operations, we expected to hear something about planes, routes, and fare structures. Instead, we heard two very different things:
With an attitude like that, we continue to like their chances, a lot.
Gone are the days when you finish your formal education and immediately begin your career with the organization from which you’ll retire decades later. It’s no surprise that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measured average job tenure in the United States at 4.4 years in 2010, down from about 19 years in 1950. Today’s workplace derives much more value from the relationship’s strength than its length. Employee engagement today is not so much a question of “How long are you likely to stay?” but instead, “How passionately are you likely to contribute while you’re here?” We think the answer to that question begins to formulate itself a good while before the first employment document is signed.
Let’s Start at the Top—Recruiting
In the same way that consumer brands start making connections with potential buyers before those people ever become customers, Contented Cow employers know that there’s no better time to begin capturing their workers’ hearts and souls than before those people even see an online application.
While millions of unemployed Americans are still competing for too few jobs in countless industries and locations, the so-called Silicon Hills area between Austin and San Antonio is, at least for now, a hotbed of job activity—especially in the tech world. As of this writing, there are simply not enough qualified applicants to fill all of the jobs needed to keep the fire burning along the I-35 corridor of central Texas.
Companies like San Antonio’s Rackspace, which calls itself “the service leader in cloud computing,” know that you’ve got to have a lot more than a Careers tab on your website to connect to the talent needed to fuel a growing business. So when you click on their prominent “We Are Hiring!” flag, you end up on a site called rackertalent.com—an entire blog site that’s been created to help potential employees get a sense of connection with what might be a really cool place to build a career. In reality, you’re probably going to bypass the main Rackspace site and go straight to Racker Talent, because someone on Twitter or Facebook, a current employee, or someone who’s heard of its employer reputation will have sent you there. Complete with blog posts, videos, and other material from Rackspace employees (called rackers), this portal isn’t just a job application website; it’s a way for potential rackers to get to know the company before they seriously consider applying. One message, from a racker named Drew, says, “Rackspace doesn’t really want you to have a job; they want you to have a life.”
Just up the road in Austin we found Ryan Hand, whose title is Recruitment Marketing Guy for a five-year-old company called Bazaarvoice (bazaarvoice.com), a software developer that powers the technology behind online consumer reviews and ratings for such national brands as Best Buy, Sephora, and Procter & Gamble. Check the spelling; it’s bazaar, as in marketplace. Get it?
Hand’s job is to help the company compete for talent—not for customers—with the likes of Rackspace and other tech firms in the region. “We have such a great culture here. I mean we really do, and I’m not just saying that because I’m the Recruitment Marketing Guy. It really is great,” he told us, with enthusiasm that would be hard to fake. “It’s not like we’re doing anything crazy weird here. It’s just a great culture to work in.”
He portrayed to us the challenge he faces (and loves!) in this highly competitive market for talent as follows: “It’s like, I know you work at this amazing place, but come over here and work at this other amazing place.” To help make the case, he and his team are continually developing an online portal where prospective employees can get a taste of Bazaarvoice before they ask about signing on. The portal features videos like the one showing the company’s annual “Science Fair”—an event where engineers engage in friendly competition for the company’s best new ideas. And because people, of course, want to find out a little about their potential colleagues, they’ll also find personal profiles for the managers and team leaders. As Hand explains, “This allows us to say, ‘Hey, this is who we are, and these are some of the fun people we work with, and this is the cool stuff we’re doing. Is this right for you? Is it a good fit?’
“Then when somebody actually comes in, each party is better prepared to have a meaningful conversation. During [the interview], the applicant will say to the interviewing manager, ‘Oh, yeah, I saw your video, and I love the research you’re doing on JavaScript, and I can’t believe you’re a huge Frisbee golf fan. So am I.’”
In Hand’s view, the most powerful attractions at Bazaarvoice are that “our people get to do what they’re passionate about, and the really cool people you get to work with, and I want people to connect with that. I want that to come through, before they even get here. The people we connect with from the beginning—those are the ones who come here and do the best work.”
So the trend is set. It’s necessary, but insufficient, to only have a great culture. Employers who want to find the best talent now open the windows and let potential contributors have a good look around, kick the tires, and make a connection before they make a Commitment.
Consolidated Health Services—Ambassadors for Connection
We’ve long advocated that managers employ something we call re-recruiting, a process whereby companies continue the courtship long after the “knot has been tied” in order to maintain a successful relationship. Indispensable in getting people—especially new hires—Committed to your organization, re-recruiting, or “onboarding on steroids,” actually begins at the moment someone accepts an employment offer. It then continues, realistically, for the life of the employment relationship, with particularly observable bursts of activity in the first year on the job.
We know few employers who do this as well as Consolidated Health Services (CHS). Headquartered in Milford, Ohio, CHS provides home health care services to patients through a network of more than 35 branches throughout Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Talent manager Jennifer Steiger and her boss and vice president of human resources Patty Szelest described to us what happens when a new hire joins the team at this growing company.
CHS has instituted what they call their Ambassador Program in which they pair every newly hired associate—whether serving in a clinical or support position—with an experienced employee, or ambassador. This person’s job is to welcome the new hire and shepherd him or her through those critical first 120 days in their new position.
Management carefully selects these ambassadors (who must serve willingly and by invitation) from among exemplary employees who live the company’s mission and values in their work. They wear an identifying pin at work and are recognized at the annual company awards event that names an Ambassador of the Year. This individual is chosen from nominations made by the new employees they helped during the year. Because the ambassador’s function is not job specific, he or she may or may not hold the same job as the new employee. Here’s how the relationship, and the process, work:
Suppose you’ve just been hired as, say, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at CHS, and you’re starting your new job in seven days. Your ambassador will call you and begin the conversation with something like this: “We’re so excited that you’re going to be starting with us next week. I just want to go over a few things to help make that first day an especially good one for you.” The ambassador will make sure you know how to get to your office, where to park, and review any traffic considerations. She’ll tell you where the drink and snack machines are located and that you’ll probably want to bring your lunch most days, but that one of your coworkers is going to take you out to lunch on the first day.
The ambassador will impart information about the time and place for employee orientation and will tell you what to expect in those first few days. She’ll likely close her part of the call by saying, “I’ll be here at the door to greet you at 8:30 when you arrive, and I’ll introduce you to the people you’ll be working with. Don’t be nervous. Everyone’s really looking forward to having you here with us. Do you have any questions for me?”
When the newly hired employee hangs up the phone and picks her jaw up off the floor, she’ll probably say to herself, “I have never had a call like that from a new employer in my life. I can’t wait to get started!”
And when the ambassador hangs up, she’ll pick up a note card, specially designed for the Ambassador Program, and pen a handwritten note to the person she just spoke to. Echoing and reviewing some of what was discussed, the card bears a special logo on the front, with the words “Welcome” and “Our team is stronger because of you.” On the back are the company’s mission, values, “People First” philosophy, and the tagline “We are so happy you are a part of our team!”
And in case the new team member has any doubt as to how welcome they are, they’ll find something pretty amazing on their first day: an individualized poster with their name and the same tagline as on the card that was sent. It’ll be hanging on the wall of the orientation room and signed by all coworkers, with a message of welcome and encouragement from each one.
It doesn’t stop there. The ambassador meets with the new employee weekly during the first two months, and then once a month for the next two months. At the end of 120 days, both ambassador and new(ish) employee have the opportunity to evaluate each other in their respective roles.
When employees are happy, they are your very best ambassadors.
—Jim Sinegal, chief executive officer, Costco
Connecting in Layers at The Container Store
Without a doubt, the most important and impactful workplace relationship is the one between a worker and his or her immediate supervisor. This connection truly makes all the difference. And when it comes to span of management (that is, the number of people for whom an individual manager has direct leadership responsibility), we’ve been pretty vocal in our disdain for those workplaces that seem to have a need for one overseer for every six or seven worker bees. Still, at some point, work groups reach a size—depending on individual situations—that breaches leaders’ capacity to connect effectively with their members. The inevitable result is a dilution of those crucial relationships. The senior leadership team at The Container Store, the organization and storage retailer that’s a perennial entry on top employer rankings, recognized this dilution in their organization—and took action to reverse it.
Conventional wisdom of late has dictated that employers flatten their structure and strip out unnecessary layers of management that don’t add value. As raving capitalists, we’re all for that. Conventional practice, however, has often been to ignore the word unnecessary and whack out the layers—whether they add value or not. Yet The Container Store’s leadership has bucked this trend and decided to add a layer, right in the middle of the chart, at every single store.
In an online interview with Whole Foods Market’s Co-CEO John Mackey, The Container Store’s CEO Kip Tindell noted that most of their stores formerly had an average of about 80 to 100 employees reporting to a single store manager. Concerned about worker development—and realizing that not even the most talented store manager could adequately address that many employees’ needs—Tindell explained that they “added 3, 4, maybe 5 managers to each store. We took the store managers and made them General Manager, and then we added a bunch of management people to nurture, develop, and train, and counsel every person in the store, be they full-time or part-time. It added a lot to store payroll [and] another management layer, the exact opposite of what most people are doing.”
Tindell added, “I think it was the best thing we ever did. We already had single-digit turnover. Now that’s even lower, the productivity level is higher, and wonderfully enough, payroll—as a percentage of sales—is lower than it was before we added all those people.”
Building Affinity at Incepture
Today’s workplace is pretty much unrecognizable in many ways from that of even a generation ago. Many of us are no longer chained to a desk, shift, building, department, job, manager, or even an employer, to the degree that was pretty common until fairly recently. As with most significant changes, this disaggregation of work processes and relationships has paid dividends, but not without exacting costs, especially with respect to how connected people feel to their work and employer.
Incepture, the Florida staffing company we introduced in Chapter 5, employs about 50 people at their headquarters to manage more than 700 contractors working in their clients’ businesses. The contracting model, which has been a mainstay of the information technology field since long before it caught on elsewhere, works particularly well in project-oriented and certain other situations. However, it presents challenges that contractors, their employers, and the clients must all work together to manage.
Shortly after Earnie Franklin assumed the leadership of Incepture, he began to notice that “our contract professionals didn’t have an affinity with us.” “They couldn’t figure out who they worked for,” he said, something he considered to be quite inconsistent with the kind of business he wanted to build. The contract professionals naturally feel connected to the client organizations they serve. However, because they’re on Incepture’s payroll, they are Incepture employees in every way. As such, Franklin wanted to develop a closer relationship between his contracted employees and the company, without diminishing their value to their clients.
“We didn’t have to move heaven and earth to make that happen,” he told us. “We just had to start being more conscious and careful [about including] our contractors in everything we did.”
Nowadays, Incepture’s quarterly leadership meetings include contractors, and all communication that goes to in-house staff goes to the contractors as well. They’re involved in all company social events, and participate enthusiastically on the company’s kickball team. They’re recognized companywide when they finish a degree, earn a certification, or receive client kudos. Contractors are fully involved in and recognized for participation in the company’s charitable and community activities. And when a contractor’s kid wins a state academic competition, Incepture makes a big deal of it, just as they would if the achiever belonged to a corporate staffer.
Franklin wants to develop long-term relationships with Incepture’s contractors, something that distinguishes Incepture from so many other providers in the same industry. He tells his contractors, “I want you to know that we are your employer. We want you to know that you’re a part of us. If you’re the kind of contractor who wants to make five dollars an hour more, we’ll wish you well every time that opportunity comes up; but you’re probably not the best fit for us.”
The contracting industry operates on somewhat of a continuum of employer reputations. Incepture chooses to operate at the high end of that continuum because, in Franklin’s words, “We want to be an employer of choice among good contractors. And I think we are. So contractors want to come here, because they’ve heard they’re going to have a better experience than they might have had somewhere else. This allows us to attract the ‘A’ players. And ‘A’ players attract other ‘A’ players. Our clients find out that we don’t have anyone but ’A’ players, and they want to hire our contractors. Then [something funny happens]; price doesn’t seem to matter as much.”
Connecting Doesn’t Get Easier with Size
The shows at the [Las Vegas] Hilton are the most exciting shows I’ve ever done. The stage is huge, but the theater is intimate, so we can have a magnificent production and still connect with the audience.
—Barry Manilow
We’ve lost count of the number of CEOs of companies who have told us how much easier it used to be to stay connected with their workforce—back when their employee populations were in the double digits, rather than the hundreds or thousands. The fact is that nothing about employee engagement, or communication, or leadership at the enterprise level gets any easier as the organization grows larger. Indeed, each new face added to the payroll seems to increase the level of complexity geometrically.
To combat the natural “connection creep” that occurs inevitably as an organization grows larger, some companies have installed mechanisms specifically designed to keep communications and corporate affinity strong as they grow.
Borrowing a lesson from Walmart, growing Northern California supermarket chain Nugget Market holds employee rallies every day, in every store. Their aim is to prevent any panicked looks on the faces of associates whom customers call on to answer questions about the store’s ever-changing merchandise and attention-grabbing offers. By way of an in-house TV network, they regularly talk to the troops about products and the value to each employee of delivering exceptional service, as well as to recognize employees who’ve put the company’s values into practice. Staff members are quizzed on the content, and those who watch diligently can receive bonuses that go as high as $1,500.
Connecting with more than 65,000 workers worldwide is a challenge that Bombardier Aerospace tackles, in part, through its “listening cafes.” These are places where senior leaders do little talking, but lots of (get this) listening—to employees, managers, suppliers, and shareholders. Then they actually use what they hear to better lead the company.
Technology has the potential to both facilitate and hinder connections between workers and the organization. We often counsel leaders who are wrestling with how to “better communicate” with the troops to periodically turn off the iPhone, unfriend Facebook, step out of the Twitterstream, walk right past the corporate video studio, and go out and “sit on the footlocker”—a phrase often used by one of our favorite leaders, the late Major General Melvin Zais. Those who do so report back to us about what an exhilarating and illuminating experience it is to go out and connect with the people who keep their businesses running. The reports often end with the phrase “like I used to.”
In the final analysis, there’s really no better way to satisfy your colleagues’ need to connect than to simply sit down and have a one-on-one conversation—or what’s referred to in my wife’s Scottish culture as “a good chin-wag.” Ask your people about what they’re doing, what they’re enjoying, what trouble they might be having. Listen to them talk about their family, their aspirations, their challenges, and their hopes. And yes, their work.
We’re not talking about a performance evaluation. You should, of course, have other conversations throughout the year during which you talk specifically about the person’s goals and their progress in reaching them. But every now and then, just try a conversation with no other agenda than to build the connection and strengthen the working relationship with another person. If you’d like some ideas on getting started—and maybe a little structure for the discussion—try asking something like this set of eight questions:
The list starts with the sublimely simple and progresses through questions that take a little more courage for others to answer—and perhaps even for you to hear.
If you’re going to Commit to having conversations like this, to keep the connections strong between you and those you lead, here are some closing thoughts on making this conversation as productive as possible:
Chapter Summary
Better Practices: