Companies have a huge capacity to capture our imagination when they are purposeful and bring value to customers, meaningful innovation and respect to employees. Fuse these with a strong company character and culture and you have a phenomenal opportunity on which to accelerate performance and build business success.
Two iconic leaders in this space passed away last year - Blake Nordstrom of Nordstrom.com a global fashion retailer and Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines. They should not be forgotten. They understood the power of their people and a strong corporate culture. In 2018, Norstrom topped Market Force’s Customer Loyalty Index amongst fashion retailers for the sixth consecutive year. Southwest Airlines topped the JD Power’s Customer Satisfaction rankings for low-cost carriers.
These two companies both have a remarkable reputation for customer service which starts with their culture. Both cultures are based on trust, safety and respect.
Herb Kelleher himself perfectly illuminated this principle:
“If the employees come first, then they’re happy…. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It’s not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time, it is just the way it works.”
Nordstrom focused on cultivating a sense of co-ownership and a culture of mutual respect. Blake Nordstrom himself described their approach:
“We want all employees to feel like it’s their name on the door and they are empowered to do whatever it takes to serve the customer on their terms. Our open door policy is connected to the idea that we have a stake in this together. It’s up to each of us to play our role in delivering the best experience for the customer.”
I particularly like Blake Nordstrom’s co-ownership approach, it reminds me of the incredible turnaround of the England Rugby Union team under Clive Woodward, who put the following six crucial steps in place:
1. Set the vision to inspire the team
2. Design the experience that supports your goal
3. Build the infrastructure of effective systems
4. Shape the mindset by thinking different and in detail
5. Implement new ideas and initiatives carefully and drop them if they don’t support your aims
6. Coach and analyse to achieve world-class standards of measurable performance
and underpinned them all with the cultivation of an elite team culture.
When I think of what Clive Woodward accomplished and how he went about it, he absolutely mirrored Blake Nordstrom’s co-ownership approach - he set out a clear vision and gave every player the chance to be part of moulding the desired culture and gave them every chance to thrive, succeed and achieve.
He involved the players and asked them for their ideas about playing for the elite England team and detailed these ever-evolving details in a book which became known as the Black Book. Over eight months, it changed and morphed and the end result was a blueprint for the elite professional sports experience that would support the overarching goal of winning the Rugby World Cup.
The book became the cornerstone of the elite culture, the guiding beacon. It was etched in the minds of the players and for any new player into the team, it was invaluable. The players started to believe in the art of the possible and that they were an elite team, destined to World Cup status.
Indeed the approach was focused beyond focused and in fact Woodward said after winning the World Cup that “If I started again in business or sport, the Black Book concept is the first thing I’d create with a new team”.
Setting solid foundations and embedding a desired culture is fundamentally important to the success of a business. Discretionary work, commitment and loyalty can’t be bought. Herb Kelleher put it well: “The core of our success. That’s the most difficult thing for a competitor to imitate. They can buy all the physical things. The things you can’t buy are dedication, devotion, loyalty—the feeling that you are participating in a crusade.”
Have you identified the right culture in your business that will lead you to success? Have you put in place an embedding programme so that the desired culture becomes etched in your company’s fabric and will stand the test of time?