Push Decisions to the Edge
This last Saturday, I stopped for a bagel. I went to the bagel chain named after a relatively smart guy. I ordered an everything bagel with chive cream cheese, my favorite! I asked if they had chai, and the clerk said, “All we have is coffee.” I looked up at the wall, and from the list there, I ordered an iced mocha. I’ve been doing the low-carb thing and wanted a treat - Saturday is my cheat day. The clerk replied again, “All we have is coffee.” I pointed to the wall, with a confused dog look on my face, and he told me that “corporate made them put the sign up even though they can’t make any of those fancy drinks and won’t let them take it down.” I could tell by the lilt of irritation in his voice he had to answer this question way too many times a day.
Having worked retail for a decade, I groaned inwardly. This happens when people don’t have the autonomy to do their jobs and are not trusted to make good decisions based on a clear corporate vision. If I were asked to write a vision for them based on my recent experience, it would be, “We want to torture our employees by treating them like children and by encouraging customers to ask them questions that make us look foolish. We want our customers to have the same choices at every store regardless of our ability to deliver.” I searched high and low on their website and couldn’t find a vision statement. Shocking! It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to fix this, but it does take some autonomy, clear corporate vision, and some trust or perhaps some canny outlaws.
Unarticulated Needs
Filling needs that people don’t know they have is hard. Earlier this week, I read a blog post that Seth Godin wrote about: Marketing to the bottom of the pyramid. It got me thinking that that’s what I’m trying to do, fulfill unarticulated needs. Needs that most folks don’t know they have. The average person doesn’t know that they could have a work-life that lifts them up and makes them feel great. For the last 100 years, we’ve been programmed to believe that work is a necessary evil, that we need to give up 40-60 hours of our week to purgatory, and that being happy, fulfilled, and engaged at work is more of a fairy tale than a reality.
A handful of companies are practicing new ways of managing companies and people that give people dignity, purpose, and self-determination at work. I know that the tenants of Motivation 3.0 work because of the success of these innovative companies. Companies like Semco with a 30-year track record of success. Yet most of the time, when I have a one-on-one conversation with someone about how companies are increasing productivity by way of empowering employees, what I get back is, “That sounds great, but it could never work at my company. “
There’s an upside and a downside to trying to sell ideas people don’t know they need. On the upside, it’s an untapped market with unlimited growth potential. On the downside, the market has to get created. This is in part, the purpose of this blog, to help spread the ideas of autonomy, mastery and purpose. At the bottom of my pyramid are the millions of workers who don’t know that there is a better way that they can make a difference, if not for themselves than at least for their children. It could take a generation for these ideas to find the tipping point. Like my dad always said, “Nothing good ever comes easy.”
Corporations, our Psychopathic Citizens
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct, masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal.
In the US, corporations, limited liability corporations, and other types of a business have a clear common goal, to make a profit. That is their primary and in many cases their sole purpose. While corporations have been assigned many of the rights given to US citizens, such as first and fourteenth amendment rights, they are certainly lacking in empathy and I think it’s fair to say that many corporations act amorally. That is to say that they operate without morals, good or bad. Corporations have been around since the mid-14th Century and up until the 18th century they were mainly chartered companies that governments used to do their biddings like the British East India Company or educational institutions.
Before the industrial revolution, most businesses were sole proprietorships or partnerships. In both cases, the owners were liable for the debts and the actions of their businesses. Business owners paid the price for their failures and reaped the benefits of their success. Starting in the 19th century, with the advent of the industrial revolution, corporations started becoming more popular, their main feature is that the owners were not liable for their debts and their investors could only be held responsible for the level of their investments.
So let’s say you have $10,000 in your personal bank account, and you own ABZ Corporation, which has $1000 in its bank account. You order 5000 widgets monthly on credit, every month for a year. Widgets cost you $1 each, and you sell them for $3 each. On the 13th month, your widget order gets eaten by your pit bull. Widgets-R-Us want their money. You tell them that the company only has $1000; they can take it or take you to court. Even if they took you to court, they’d not get more than the $1000(I’m not a lawyer, and don’t pretend to know the law, don’t let your dog eat your widgets). You, as the business owner, are not liable. The corporation is liable. If you had a partnership, you and your partners would be liable.
Which one of these business models sounds like it would promote empathy and morality? The one that makes people responsible for their actions or the one that isolates them from their actions?
Corporations have enabled moral ambiguity that has contributed to many of the problems the world is experiencing. From the global financial crisis to BP’s oil rig disaster in the gulf, focusing on short-term profits at the cost of long-term goals sounds like something you’d expect from a toddler, not from educated adults. What can we do?
As employees, we can influence our corporate cultures and move towards creating transparency at our workplaces. It’s hard to make backroom deals and perpetuate shady practices when most people in the company know what’s going on and you have a corporate culture that’s moral and empathetic. As a people, we can embrace motivation 3.0. Self-directed employees who are allowed to develop mastery/optimum performance and be a part of something bigger than themselves are thoroughly engaged and unbelievably dedicated to their work. They stop being cogs and become innovators and collaborators. They also increase profits and productivity.
As business owners, we can look at new corporate structures like L3C, or B Corps. An L3C is a low-profit limited liability company. It’s a cross between an LLC and a nonprofit. A B Corp or Beneficial Corporation has to go through a certification process to ensure that the work they are doing or products they are selling are beneficial to society. It also covers environmental practices, employment practices, and purchasing policies. Currently, there are over 300 B Corps in the US, including Seventh Generation household products and King Arthur Flour.
It’s time we embraced the needed changes to make our companies more sustainable and responsible and our citizens happier and more productive.
Zappos: Happy People, Delivering Happiness and Shoes.
Tony Sheih, CEO of Zappos, has just written his first book,‘Delivering Happiness, a Path to Profits, Passion and Happiness.’ It chronicles Tony’s life, from childhood entrepreneurial efforts to college and his time at LinkExchange. In some ways, it reads like Ricardo Semler’s‘Maverick, The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace,’ Both books talk about lessons learned, mistakes made, and happy coincidences that lead them to success.
What is Zappos? It’s not a ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). It’s not democratically run, like Semco. Zappos does manage to keep its employees very engaged. Engaged employees result in growth and profits by way of creativity and innovation. The management, led by Tony Sheih focuses on the company culture and delivering happiness.
Zappos has a Culture Book it publishes every year. Everyone who works with or for Zappos is encouraged to contribute to the book describing Zappos culture. They publish all comments and only edit for typos, so the good, the bad, everything gets published.
Zappos does use carrots and sticks, though in a way that employees can control. You can take classes that will bring you to the next career level, and after taking them, you get a small raise. You can take them at whatever speed you like or not at all. Employees are empowered to do their jobs in whatever way works best. There does seem to be a large amount of autonomy. If you look at the Zappos Core Value Document, it’s obvious that they focus on mastery as well:
Create a fun, creative work environment where people are largely self-directed, are encouraged to get better at what they do, and acquire new skills, combined with being a part of something larger than themselves and the result is growth and profit. While Zappos may not be a new business model like ROWE, Results Only Work Environment, it is game-changing.
Their purpose is their culture and delivering happiness. They’ve put most, if not all, of their marketing dollars into customer service, letting their customers be Zappos marketers. This approach is one of the cornerstones of Zappos’ success sounds like it came out of Seth Godin’s playbook. Check out www.deliveringhappinessbook.com. Tony is trying to start a movement.
