A Gallup poll once claimed what the world’s populace wanted more than anything evenfood, shelter, safety and peace wasA good job. “Almost no leader in the world knows this,” it said. “It is a sociological shift of great significance. People want a good job; they don’t want informal jobs or self-employment out of necessity.”
Given its global impact, it’s no surprise the issue has found itself the topic of numerous movies all of which, in their own way, strive to inspire entrepreneurs to get and stay motivated.
While Jerry Maguire is primarily a romantic comedy, Maguire’s mission statement perfectly captures the importance of having a vision and sticking with it, even if nobody else sees it that way. You roll with the punches and, more importantly according to the movie, it’s not what you know, but who you know.
But while many have stuck with the inspirational high-notes of success, the movie Office Space taps into that ever-present issue of having a lack of motivation. Itsmain character, Peter Gibbons, visits a hypnotherapist to help him with his hatred toward his job. In the scene, he says: “I was sitting in my cubicle and realised, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. It means that every day you see me, thats the worst day of my life. Id say in a given week I probably only do about 15minutes of real, actual work.”
These words surely hit home for many and serves to highlight a concept that many bosses still remain ignorant of: agood job isn’t just about the paycheck and insurance benefits. They want their workplaces to be fun and not miserably stressful given how many hours of their lives they will spend there.
But how do you build an amazing company culture that will hook staff from the get-go Trolling through the internet we picked some of the best examples of what happens when you’ve got that magic culture vibe as well as advice from business leaders on how it could be improved.
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(1) Building on a vision
One ofthe best examples of this hails from the eraof Apollo 11. It’s important to note that president Kennedy setthe goalof “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” by the end of 1960s. “In avery real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon.” That’s exactly how NASA staff felt. This was highlighted in 1969 duringA briefing in NASA’s command centre, where the president noticed a janitor. He approached him and said: Hi. Im Jack Kennedy. What are you doing
“Well, mr. president,” the janitor said, Im helping put a man on the moon. This man felt as if he were making history, contributing to the larger story unfolding within the business. Could it get any better than that, to have all levels of a company have a unified commitment to a mission in this case literally
It’s not the first time a round of questions to staff heralded such an understanding of the company’s vision. In a book on “respectable quotes,” author Louise Bush-Brown tells the story of how English architect Christopher Wren walked unrecognised to the men under his employ working on St. Paul’s cathedral.
“‘What are you doing ‘ he inquired of one of the workmen, who replied, ‘I am cutting stone.’ He put the same question to another man, who said: ‘I am earning five shillings twopence a day.’ The third man he addressed answered: ‘I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build a beautiful cathedral.’That man had vision. He could see beyond the cutting of the stone, beyond the earning of his daily wage, to the creation of a great cathedral. And in your life it is important for you to strive to attain a vision of the larger whole.
Continue on to see how the Ritz-Carlton and Zappos are leading an employee empowerment revolution.
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(2) Empowered staff to go the extra mile
The ability to take initiative is a powerful drug. And this is what makes Zappos so great. The company prides itself on having staff do what they think is best for the customer, and that leeway led to an employee having a call that lasted ten hours and 43 minutes. But Steven Weinstein didn’t mind one bit. He said:?”The connection was amazing, and even though I never spoke to this customer before in my life I felt like I knew her for 15 or 20 years. It felt effortless.”
Weinstein brokeA record previously set by Mary Tennant in 2012, who raked up nine hours and 37 minutes, with the call spanning topics such as life, movies and food. “Sometimes people just need to call and talk,” she said. “We don’t judge, we just want to help.”
Most companies would arguably believe it takes valuable time away from their jobs, but founderTony Hsieh decided from the beginning to make customer service the company’s main product.
But no one does it quite like the Ritz Carlton. Employees are trained to anticipate the unexpressed wishes of their guests, and are given $2,000 to delight a guest not just to fix problems. The culinary team at the hotel, for example, once had an upcoming wedding for a Russian family. The chef wanted to create an authentic menu for the bride, so when shecame to the hotel for a tasting she was happily surprised. But after finding out her favourite dishes were prepared by her grandmother, he asked if he could visit her grandmother and learn the recipes directly from her.
(3) Respecting staff and hearing their voices
An example of a leader demonstrating respect to win employees and gain returns was when Campbells Soup had lost half of its market value and was on the verge of collapsing. The company’s environment was supposedly so bad that a manager from Gallup described it as the worst [he had] ever seen among the Fortune 500.
Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbells Soup, wrote more than 30,000 individualised notes of thanks to his 20,000 employees. He took every opportunity to connect with people and make them feel valued. By 2010, employees were setting all-time performance records,including out-pacing the S&P. Recognition is key if you’re in the game of motivating staff, and this particular example also serves to show that it pays to have the right person at the top.
Respect is also a message Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, was a great advocate of. He said: There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organisations overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow. It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energised employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.”
But at the same time, Welch claimed you’d never earn respect if staff don’t feel they can talk to you about everything. “A remarkable absence of candor in the workplace represents one of the most significant obstacles to companies’ success,” he explained. “In a bureaucracy, people are afraid to speak out. This type of environment slows you down, and it doesn’t improve the workplace. You need to develop a corporate culture that encourages and rewards honest feedback. Reinforce the behaviours that you reward. If you reward candor, you’ll get it.”
Meanwhile, the Financial Reporting Council published a study which powerfully explains the connection between company culture and long-term financial success for companies in the UK.
