Finding & Keeping Great Employees (1999)

F I N D I N G &
K E E P I N G
G R E A T
E M P L O Y E E S
FINDING &
KEEPING
G R E AT
EMPLOYEES
JIM HARRIS, PH.D.

JOAN BRANNICK, PH.D.
American Management Association

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professional person should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harris, Jim
Finding & keeping great employees / Jim Harris and Joan Brannick.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8144-0454-5
1. Employees—Recruiting. 2. Job satisfaction. 3. Labor
turnover. I. Brannick, Joan. II. Title.
HF5549.5.R44H28 1999
658.3—dc21 98–41139
CIP
1999 Jim Harris and Joan Brannick.

All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic,
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an imprint of AMA Publications, a division of
American Management Association,
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my wife, Brenda, and my son, Jason; may God
mold me into the husband and father you each
deserve.
—Jim
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
To my husband, Michael, for your love, support,

and patience; I could not have done this without you.
To my parents, John and Wanda Posey, for teaching
me the values of love, respect, persistence, and hard
work; all have served me well.
—Joan
CONTENTS
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
PART ONE: THE POWER OF FOCUS 1
Chapter 1. The Great Challenge 3

The Cycle of Disconnection
Renewing the Connection
Chapter 2. The Culture Connection 11

The Missing Link
The Four Core Cultures
Separate but Equal
The Benefits of Alignment
The Process of Alignment
PART TWO: THE FOUR CORE CULTURES 21
Chapter 3. A Culture of Customer Service 23

A Culture That Solves Problems
Core-Culture Connections
Midway Services: Above and Beyond
Chapter 4. A Culture of Innovation 41

On the Edge of Paranoia
Collective Craniums
vii
viii Contents
Core Culture Connections

Cisco Systems: Making History Every Day
Chapter 5. A Culture of Operational Excellence 61

A Simple Foundation
Big Payoffs
Efficiency: Overcoming the ‘‘Herbies’’
Quality Still Lives
SmithKline Beecham: Simply Better
Chapter 6. A Culture of Spirit 77

Why Spirit—and Why Now?
Three Types of Spirit-Driven Culture
VanCity Credit Union: Right Values and Good
Business
PART THREE: FINDING GREAT EMPLOYEES 97
Chapter 7. Best Practices in Staffing 99

Eight Best Practices in Staffing
Chapter 8. Staffing Best Practices in Action 113

Putting What’s Best Into Action
Chapter 9. Aligning Staffing to Core Culture 141

Customer Service Culture
Innovation Culture
Operational Excellence Culture
Spirit Culture
PART FOUR: KEEPING GREAT EMPLOYEES 153
Chapter 10. Retention Best Practices 155

Eight Best Practices in Retention
Contents ix
Chapter 11. Retention Best Practices in Action 167

Putting What’s Best Into Action
Chapter 12. Aligning Retention to Core Culture 191

Customer Service Culture
Innovation Culture
Operational Excellence Culture
Spirit Culture
PART FIVE: GETTING STARTED 201
Chapter 13. Leading the Charge 203

Step One: Clearly Embrace One Core Culture
Step Two: Prioritize Your Alignment Efforts
Step Three: Obtain Employee Feedback on
Alignment
Step Four: Create Alignment Initiatives
Step Five: Implement Alignment Initiatives
Step Six: Monitor and Evaluate Alignment Initiatives
Moving Forward
Recommended Readings 209
Index 215
PREFACE
‘‘Hiring, retaining, and developing great people is

the biggest challenge and single greatest key to the
success of any business.’’
—Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems
Few business leaders would disagree with McNealy. Many com-

panies, however, consciously or unconsciously create road-
blocks that prevent them from accomplishing this important
goal. They are unable or unwilling to focus their efforts on a
common vision. They create policies and procedures that make
it difficult to find and keep the kind of employees they want.
They do not allocate the time, money, or additional resources
needed to find and keep great employees.
Some companies, on the other hand, truly believe that find-
ing and keeping great employees is their primary challenge, and
their actions support the commitment to that challenge. In our
opinion, these are the companies we can all learn from. Some of
these world-class companies are large, some are small, some of
them are well known, and some are unfamiliar to most business
leaders. Although different, all of these organizations have one
thing in common: They focus on culture. They realize that even
though jobs within the company drive what is done, their orga-
nizational culture drives how things are done. Companies with
xi
xii Preface
world-class staffing and retention practices see their culture as

vital to their organization; they understand culture as the basis
for selecting and rewarding people.
The diversity of companies having world-class staffing and
retention practices demonstrates that this approach to finding
and keeping excellent employees can work in any company. All
it takes is strategic commitment to, and committed focus on, the
organization’s culture. This may not be as easy as it sounds, but
the organizational payoffs for such commitment and focus are
huge, both financially and nonfinancially.
FROM OUR OWN EXPERIENCE
To be considered an expert in your field, we believe you must

have ‘‘lived’’ the topic you are writing about. You must have
experienced it not only intellectually but also on a psychological
and gut level. It is only through experience that insights and true
wisdom emerge.
Our motivation to write this book stems from our own
personal experience. We met in 1988 at the headquarters of a
Fortune 500 retailer. One of us led the executive and manage-
ment training function, and the other led the staffing function at
a time when the company had 40,000 employees in 1,700 retail
operations. Given our responsibilities, we had many opportuni-
ties to create and implement programs designed to attract and
retain top talent. Although always recognized as top performers,
we both left the company. It was not because of job fit, but
because of something else. During the last years of our service,
we both sensed something was missing. Our careers were prog-
ressing, our roles were expanding, and the company was treating
us well; but there was a constant, nagging uneasiness within our
hearts. After dozens of after-hours skull sessions, and more than
our fair share of extended coffee breaks, we finally realized what
Preface xiii
was missing: a personal sense of feeling deeply connected to the

overall purpose of the company.
We also discovered that our previous work experience (in
manufacturing, home building, transportation, federal govern-
ment, and university operations) reflected the cultural connec-
tions and disconnections that exist between employer and
employees. In some cases, we gave our best; in others, we did
not. This was not because of lack of skill, but because we did not
feel connected; we didn’t feel that our efforts were making a
difference.
Many of our professional colleagues and friends have expe-
rienced the same disconnection with their employers. Some have
resigned to join other companies, and others did so to go into
business for themselves. Some of these moves involved more
money, but that was not the driving force behind most people’s
choices. The overwhelming reason these individuals moved from
one company to another was that they felt a stronger connection
to their new employer’s culture. In every case, our colleagues
were more dissatisfied with the culture than with their job re-
sponsibilities. Beyond these personal experiences, our consult-
ing, speaking, and research have reinforced our belief in the
positive power of culture fit. We have seen small, family-owned
businesses create a culture that makes people want to work for
them and, once there, want to stay. Likewise, we have seen large,
publicly traded companies redefine their culture and, through
the process, instill commitment to the organization among their
employees that is unmatched in their industries.
Some might argue that employees ought to know intuitively
how they are connected to the success of the business. Compa-
nies should not have to spell it out for their employees. You
either get it or you don’t, right? Our experience, however, shows
us that you cannot count on employees’ being able to make the
connection on their own. Companies known for their first-rate
staffing and retention practices understand that they have a re-
xiv Preface
sponsibility to create and maintain that connection with their

employees. One of the best ways to build such connections is to
find employees who support the company’s overall core culture,
and keep the ones who already do.
THE MESSAGE OF THIS BOOK
This book reflects certain fundamental beliefs. First, we believe

in people. In our view, people are the real competitive advantage
of any company. Having good people decreases turnover, im-
proves individual performance, attracts a flow of new applicants,
and fosters growth in organizational profit. We also believe that
attracting and retaining the right people is the only way for orga-
nizations to succeed in the future.
Second, we believe in corporate culture. Employees can find
a job anywhere, but they commit to and want to remain with an
organization whose culture they connect with. Certain cultures
create and sustain strong cultural connections with their em-
ployees. In consequence, these organizations have a significant
competitive advantage in finding and keeping great employees.
We believe that if there is a strong connection between the core
culture and the values of the people, great strides in individual
and company performance occur. These organizations under-
stand how critical it is to find and keep people who share the
company’s core values.
Third, we believe the organizations most successful in their
staffing and retention practices are those that leverage their core
culture to attract and retain like-valued employees. Although
job fit is important, culture fit determines whether someone is
highly likely to remain with and be successful with the com-
pany. We see job fit as a minimum requirement for companies to
be able to find and keep good employees. Focusing on job fit
Preface xv
results in hiring someone who can do the job. It does not, how-
ever, guarantee that the person wants to do the job or do it well.
Fourth, we believe in a strategic, more than tactical, ap-
proach to finding and keeping great employees. In this book, we
demonstrate this approach in two ways. First, we outline a stra-
tegic framework that fits businesses of any type, industry, or
size. We do not present tactical lists (such as ten ways to improve
a classified recruitment ad for sales managers). Our approach is
to uncover best-practice strategies to help you find and keep
excellent employees. We provide examples of how various com-
panies have implemented those best practices. You can then
determine how best to apply those strategies to your own com-
pany.
Our target audience for this book therefore goes beyond
human resources managers to include CEOs, COOs, CIOs,
presidents, and operations managers. Further, this book is writ-
ten for organizations that view the staffing and retention func-
tion as a strategic management function, not just a function
whose job slots are shoved into the personnel area.
Fifth, we believe in (and have attempted to provide) simple,
doable concepts and guidance, rather than rambling, esoteric
prose. We believe this book not only provides the strategy and
tools to help you focus your organization’s efforts but also
makes it easier for you to get started in finding and keeping
culturally aligned employees of excellence.
Sixth, we believe that any attempt to find and keep great
employees must be flexible. Although we describe four basic
core cultures, we realize that within those cultures some staffing
and retention practices are more effective than others. We do not
believe that one size fits all. For our approach to be successful in
your company, you need to customize it to your culture.
Finally, we believe that this book can make a significant
difference in organizations—a difference in performance, in pro-
ductivity, and in profitability.
We hope it works for you.
Acknowledgments
We could name hundreds of people here, but we promise to limit

these acknowledgments to those who most directly and pro-
foundly contributed to this manuscript.
Adrienne Hickey, executive editor at AMACOM: You con-
tinue to amaze and support us. From day one, when we men-
tioned our idea for this book, you enthusiastically encouraged
us to send the proposal. Once accepted, you trusted our in-
stincts, challenged our assumptions, and believed in our com-
mitment to make the deadline. Thank you for your faith and
your professionalism.
We remain forever grateful for the openness and enthusiasm
of the executives we interviewed and visited for our case studies.
Thank you, in particular, Lauren St. John at VanCity Credit
Union, Bill Wolf at Midway Plumbing, Thomas Kaney at Smith-
Kline Beecham, and Norm Snell at Cisco Systems, for your time,
willingness, and trust in allowing us free rein in describing your
great cultures.
Additionally, we thank all those who were kind enough to
offer their personal and professional insights. We particularly
appreciate our current and past clients, who, over the years, have
given us the seed of ideas and the inspiration to put these truths
into book form. You know who you are, and we appreciate your
current (and future?) work.
Always saving the best for last, we can never thank enough
i
xvii
xviii
ii Acknowledgments
our wonderful spouses, Brenda Harris and Michael Brannick,

for their unending patience, support, and copy editing. See, we
told you we were making progress! Finally, Jim wants to thank
his faithful dog, Shamus, whose ceaseless devotion for more than
sixteen years continues to soothe his soul.
PART ONE
THE POWER OF
FOCUS
CHAPTER 1. THE GREAT CHALLENGE
CHAPTER 2. THE CULTURE
CONNECTION
CHAPTER 1
THE GREAT CHALLENGE
‘‘The danger for Corporate America is that the [em-

ployee] disconnect . . . sap[s] productivity.’’
—BusinessWeek, June 22, 1998
Everywhere we turn, we hear it.

Why can’t I seem to attract more top talent?
Where are all the good employees?
Where can I find them?
And what can I do to keep the great employees I’ve already
got?
The search for great employees has reached an unprece-
dented level. The labor shortage is now regularly cited as the
major deterrent to organizational success and future growth.
CEOs and leaders in virtually every industry cry out for more
skilled workers. Strategic plans fail, and expansion opportunities
are dropped, for lack of manpower. What was once a seemingly
3
4 The Power of Focus
endless number of potential employees has become a narrow

number of applicants. Furthermore, these few applicants seldom
seem to possess the skill level necessary for job success.
With today’s unlimited array of tools and resources, it
should be easier than ever for companies to find and keep top
talent. The explosive growth of executive-search and temporary-
help firms, combined with Internet sourcing, brings us in touch
with thousands of potential candidates not previously within
our reach. Signing bonuses, liberal moving allowances, and
spouse job-search assistance are now common staffing activities.
Organizations are likewise turning to such creative retention
programs as flexible benefits, stay-on bonuses, and stock op-
tions. Yet we still struggle to find and keep great employees.
THE CYCLE OF DISCONNECTION
The decades of the 1980s and 1990s have been the most turbulent
in business history. Large-scale downsizings, mergers, and ac-
quisitions have reshaped the once traditional long-term connec-
tion between company and employee. Radical technological
advances in combination with the globalization of commerce
have fueled demand for new, higher-level job skills in virtually
all industries. The ever-increasing pressure to work longer,
faster, and harder has driven millions of workers not only to
question their personal commitment to an all-consuming career
but to search for meaning outside of the workplace. These are
not entirely new phenomena, but in the last two decades, the
combined power of these changes have forever altered the once-
strong connection between a company and its employees.
The cumulative effect of this workplace turbulence is a dis-
connected workforce. When, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, a typical American holds more than eight different
jobs between the ages of 18 and 32, long-term connection to any
The Great Challenge 5
one company or career is rare. Today’s career turmoil has left

many workers scarred, scared, and perpetually looking out for
themselves rather than the long-term interests. As one profes-
sional told The Wall Street Journal, ‘‘I never stop job hunting.’’
Employees disconnect on three levels: company, job,

and personal. To find and keep outstanding employees,
organizations must overcome this growing chasm of
disconnection or risk their long-term competitive ad-
vantage.
Company Disconnection
Statistics clearly support the conclusion that employees feel a

lack of connection to their companies. AT&T recently an-
nounced that it desires to cut 11,000 managers by the end of
1999 through a voluntary retirement package. Yet, more than
14,000 managers and employees are now expected to take up
such offers.1 Aon Consulting, a unit of the Chicago-based Aon
Insurance company, found that 55 percent of workers said they
would switch jobs for a pay increase of 20 percent or less. Addi-
tionally, a 1998 survey conducted by Lou Harris and Associates
found that 53 percent of U.S. workers expect to voluntarily leave
their jobs in the next five years.2
Mergers and Acquisitions
Without question, one of the major reasons today’s em-

ployees disconnect with their companies is that they fear job loss
owing to the uncertainty and instability associated with mergers,
acquisitions, and downsizings. It seems almost every company
today is either reorganizing or contemplating a merger or acqui-
sition. We read every day of the latest megamergers among the
Fortune 500, yet some of the most significant mergers are occur-
ring well under the scan of the Wall Street radar screen— among
mainstream America’s traditional mom-and-pop businesses.
Consolidators are rapidly buying small, independent, and
family-owned businesses such as funeral homes, plumbing con-
tractors, and real estate offices, organizing them under one ad-
ministrative umbrella and changing the very face of small
business.
The economies of scale achieved during reorganization,
merger, and consolidation have one inevitable result: job loss.
Workers live in constant fear that their job might be the next
one eliminated. The relentless uncertainty of potential job loss
increases disconnection from the company.
Changing Corporate Focus
Another force that disconnects employees from their com-

panies is management’s ever-changing corporate focus. In their
misguided efforts to gain competitive advantage, managers
search for the latest Holy Grail, following the hottest business
guru’s advice by introducing yet another corporate initiative.
One month it’s service, the next month it’s quality, and next
quarter it’s employee relations. Employees come to question the
credibility of management and the focus of the company. They
wonder what the company stands for, where it’s going, and if
the latest initiative is yet another here today, gone tomorrow
program. Employees are therefore skeptical at best—and cynical
at worst—about their company’s perpetually shifting focus.
Without a constant, long-term core focus, organizations con-
fuse, bewilder, depress, and disconnect both potential and actual
employees.
Job Disconnection
The primary reason employees disconnect from their jobs,

though, is that today the jobs themselves are changing cease-
lessly. Competition has forced companies to quickly change

markets and products, and thus the jobs that produce them. Po-
sition titles, descriptions, and responsibilities change overnight.
New technologies require a never-ending upgrade of job skills.
Further, downsizings and hiring freezes force employees to wear
multiple job hats. Together, these changes create a radical new
job reality: occupational half-life.
Occupational Half-Life
Every so many years, literally one-half of your current job

knowledge and skills become outdated or obsolete. For example,
the occupational half-life in 1970 was estimated at somewhere
between twelve and fifteen years. This means that by 1985, 50
percent of knowledge and skills an employee had in her job in
1970 had become outdated, even obsolete. Frighteningly, ac-
cording to the federal Department of Labor, today’s best esti-
mates of occupational half-life are in the range of thirty to thirty-
six months. A constantly changing job combined with a con-
stantly eroding skills base leaves employees feeling more discon-
nected from their jobs than ever.
The Job and the Core Business
A second reason why employees disconnect from their jobs

is that organizations seldom provide a clear link between the job
and the core business purpose. Within an environment of ever-
changing focus, employees find it hard to keep in sight a strong
link between their role and the company’s core purpose. With-
out a strong link, companies primarily rely upon the latest ex-
periment in bonus or short-term incentive programs to motivate
employees and find themselves in a bidding war for top talent.
What was once a powerful company connection for many
employees—a stable job with a future—has given way to an
ever-changing and unpredictable job world. Faced with the real-

ity of job requirements in flux and the weak link between the
job and the core business purpose, employees long for a new
connection to the company.
Personal Disconnection
As a result of the company and job disconnections, workers

today experience a deep personal workplace disconnection as
well.
More Than a Paycheck
A driving force behind today’s personal disconnection is

that today’s employees are searching for something more than a
paycheck from their work. The baby-boomer generation—those
76 million people born between 1945 and 1964—began their ca-
reers under the de facto guarantee of lifetime employment. They
have, unfortunately, taken the brunt of today’s downsizings and
reorganizations and are reexamining their work and life legacies.
The baby-buster generation—the 65 million people born be-
tween 1965 and 1984—have seen their baby-boomer parents re-
peatedly outplaced and downsized. Realizing that a lifetime job
guarantee is all but dead, they too are looking for a deeper sense
of personal connection to something larger than themselves. Un-
able to find this connection at work, both generations are seek-
ing such connections outside of work.
Voluntary Simplicity—at Work
Employees today are embracing the concept of voluntary

simplicity to fill the chasm of personal workplace disconnection.
Voluntary simplicity is clearly understood when a person volun-
tarily simplifies his personal life. But what does voluntary sim-
plicity at work include? Going from full-time to part-time,

perhaps. Or refusing to relocate, or turning down a promotion
to become a supervisor or manager because it would complicate
life (regardless of increased income). Nonwork examples of vol-
untary simplicity that are loosely related to work often center
upon time: moving into a townhouse to cut back on yard work
and maintenance, relocating to a smaller town with a slower life-
style, or significantly reducing the amount of time for volunteer-
ing with outside groups and causes.
For millions of American workers, putting the career first
while robustly pursuing the bottom line has been replaced with
putting the family/personal life first while robustly pursuing a
better quality of life. The fast track we relished just a few years
ago has lost its luster. After years of rising through the ranks,
many employees pause and ask, ‘‘Is this all there is?’’ and, in
many cases, they don’t like the answer.
The fast track often forces an employee’s personal life to
take a backseat. More and more workers today refuse to allow
this to continue. Rather than worry about how their personal
life affects their work, employees today are more concerned with
how their work affects their personal life. Any aspect of the job
that negatively affects their personal life breeds potential per-
sonal disconnection. Yet, as all business becomes increasingly
competitive, and companies ask even more of their workers, per-
sonal disconnection will increase.
RENEWING THE CONNECTION
Renewing the connection in finding and keeping great employ-

ees is to stop the cycle of disconnection by introducing a new,
stable employer-employee connection above and beyond con-
nectedness to the company and the job. Organizations need to
give employees a deeper, unchanging reason for the company’s
existence and the employees’ success. Employees need to feel

connected to something more permanent and ennobling than a
company logo or job title.
Employees need to feel connected to something more

permanent and ennobling than a company logo or job
title.
If organizations continue to embrace traditional approaches

to finding and keeping top talent (such as generous pay, benefits,
and personal time), they perpetuate the cycle of disconnection
while diminishing their ultimate productivity and profit.
NOTES
1. BusinessWeek (June 15, 1998), p. 53.
2. St. Petersburg Times (February 8, 1998).
CHAPTER 2
THE CULTURE
CONNECTION
‘‘Our culture is our competitive advantage.’’
—Mike Smith, CEO, Lands’ End
A popular TV commercial opens with a manager for a large of-

fice products company reviewing a huge manual of the latest
product price reductions. As he hands the telephone-sized book
to a frontline clerk and instructs the clerk to retag all the listed
items before leaving the store, the clerk pauses only briefly be-
fore exuberantly shouting ‘‘All right!’’ and beginning a dance of
joy around the store. The manager smiles and walks away, say-
ing, ‘‘That kid was a find!’’
What inspires the clerk to want to stay late and retag hun-
dreds of items? What makes him shout for joy rather than jam
the pricing gun down the manager’s throat? How has the man-
11
ager found and retained such an apparently enthusiastic em-

ployee? Either by luck or design, the manager has bridged with
this employee the missing link in today’s staffing and retention
challenge.
THE MISSING LINK
The evidence is clear, and experts agree:
▼ James Collins and Jerry Porras, in their best-selling book

Built to Last, state that an essential ingredient of all excel-
lent organizations is their ‘‘core ideology’’; ‘‘the point is
to build an organization that fervently preserves its core
ideology in specific, concrete ways.’’1
▼ In their landmark book Corporate Cultures, Terrence
Deal and Allan Kennedy conclude that a strong culture
‘‘enables people to feel better about what they do.’’2
▼ According to the Fuqua Report, the top two reasons peo-
ple join a company are the opportunity for personal
growth and the culture; core culture is the key driver of
individual growth.3
▼ Noted human resource and retention expert Jack Fitz-
enz has found that the two reasons why most people
leave a company are the supervisor and the culture; it is
the culture that drives the ultimate relationship with the
supervisor.
▼ Norm Snell, director of global compensation and benefits
for Cisco Systems, fervently believes that a company
‘‘can only tinker with compensations and benefits sys-
tems so much; it’s culture, culture, culture’’4 that must
drive staffing and retention systems.
▼ John Kotter and James Heskett conclude that corporate
culture ‘‘may even be greater than all those factors that
The Culture Connection 13
have been discussed most often in the organizational and

business literature—strategy, organizational structure,
management systems, financial analysis tools, leadership,
etc.’’5
▼ ‘‘The relationship we have with our people and the cul-
ture of our company is our most sustainable competitive
advantage,’’ says Howard Schultz, the founder of Star-
bucks.6
The missing link in today’s search to find and keep great

employees is to align staffing and retention activities to the com-
pany’s core culture. Aligned companies break out of the cycle of
disconnection and find and keep top-notch employees through a
laser-like focus on their core culture. They recognize that they
need to build a strong, stable, and lasting consciousness of con-
nection for both prospective and current employees. Aligning
their staffing and retention processes to core culture is their pre-
ferred method of driving long-term organization success.
Aligned companies break out of the cycle of discon-

nection and find and keep top-notch employees
through a laserlike focus on their core culture.
THE FOUR CORE CULTURES
Aligned companies base their staffing and retention processes

upon one of four forms of core culture.
Customer Service
The underlying purpose of a customer-service culture is to cre-

ate customer solutions. Competitive advantage is gained through
getting close to the customer. These companies strive to think as
their customers do, anticipate their needs, and create value for
them. Customer-service cultures often empower the frontline
service worker, and create strong customer-employee partner-
ship links that build high levels of repeat business.
Innovation
A second core culture is that of innovation. The underlying pur-

pose of an innovation culture is to create the future. Competitive
advantage comes from unleashing the power of technology to
create new products, new markets, and new niches within exist-
ing markets. Their voracious appetite for brainpower is matched
only by an innovation culture’s appetite for staying on the cut-
ting edge.
Operational Excellence
The third core culture is operational excellence. The underlying

purpose of an operationally excellent culture is to create a pro-
cess that minimizes costs while maximizing productivity and ef-
ficiency. Competitive advantage is in attaining process excellence
from product or service creation and delivery. The foundation
of an operationally excellent culture is to constantly improve
systems, procedures, and product or service quality.
Spirit
The fastest-growing core culture is spirit. The underlying pur-

pose of a culture of spirit is to create an environment that in-
spires employee excellence. Competitive advantage is gained
through unleashing people’s limitless energy, creativity, and en-
thusiasm. Spirit-driven cultures often embrace a higher-order
purpose, a corporate goal that stretches toward a greater com-
mon good. They capitalize on the collective energy and spirit of

their people to propel them to excellence.
Culture and Financial Performance
Note that financial performance is not a core culture. Financial

performance is a result or an outcome, not a driver, of organiza-
tional excellence. Companies that claim they are ‘‘financially
driven’’ are simply reversing the true sequence of outcome (for
example, profit or shareholder value) from goal (outstanding
customer service, innovation, operational excellence, or em-
ployee spirit). A deeper look inside such companies shows that
typically one of the four core cultures is the preferred vehicle
toward financial success. Further, Bill Wiggenhorn, president of
Motorola University, reminds us that unless you are a member
of the executive committee, ‘‘’Shareholder equity Rah! Rah!
Rah!’ just doesn’t get people out of bed each day.’’7
Financial performance is a result or an outcome, not a

driver, of organizational excellence.
SEPARATE BUT EQUAL
The four core cultures are separate but equal. No one core cul-
ture is superior to another. None is more likely to guarantee
outstanding financial performance than another. All are equally
powerful in driving long-term organizational success.
In most companies, elements of all four cultures exist si-
multaneously. Without question, customer service, innovation,
operational excellence, and employee spirit are all important.
But to find and keep great employees, key questions must be
asked and answered:
▼ Which one core culture is most important to your com-

pany?
▼ Which single core culture sustains the pure essence of
your success?
▼ Which core culture affords the best route to your com-
pany’s competitive advantage?
The key to finding and keeping excellent employees, there-

fore, is to align your staffing and retention to the one core cul-
ture that best propels your company’s success.
THE BENEFITS OF ALIGNMENT
You enjoy numerous benefits when you align staffing and reten-
tion processes to core culture.
▼ Alignment is strategic. Aligned companies build focused,

long-term staffing and retention practices that drive the core cul-
ture. Staffing and retention functions therefore are strong strate-
gic partners that help build business success. Processes are based
upon the core culture and judged on the ability to maintain com-
petitive advantage. Nonaligned companies are reactive, continu-
ally shifting their focus and implementing tactical programs with
little or no direct correlation to core business success.
▼ Alignment simplifies the staffing and retention process.
Selection and retention decisions are far simpler within an
aligned company. Staffing and retention initiatives are created
from the core culture. Selection, promotion, and retention deci-
sions focus on maintaining a culturally aligned workforce. Non-
aligned companies often have confusing, convoluted programs
designed around several, or all four, core cultures. Selection,
promotion, and retention decisions become confusing and com-
plicated.
▼ Alignment strengthens the core culture. Since staffing and

retention are based upon core culture, decisions reached within
aligned companies perpetually strengthen the core culture.
Without a core-culture focus, nonaligned companies make deci-
sions in relative isolation from understanding core business pur-
pose; thus they perpetuate a more convoluted culture.
▼ Alignment builds strong company connections. Appli-
cants and employees grasp that there is a focused, consistent
purpose throughout the staffing and retention processes. Even
within today’s environment of manic reorganizations and merg-
ers, aligned companies generate a new, stable connectedness hav-
ing core culture rather than lifetime employment as its basis.
Nonaligned companies, especially when faced with reorganiza-
tions or mergers, continue to disconnect people from their em-
ployers as they ignore the opportunity to build new connections
to core culture.
▼ Alignment builds strong job connections. Aligned compa-
nies connect every job to its context and how the job strengthens
the core culture. Applicants and current employees therefore
feel linked to all of the company’s jobs by way of participation
in the core culture. Thus individual job staffing and retention
decisions are based on more than generic personality character-
istics; they focus on which characteristics best sustain the core
culture. Nonaligned companies rely too heavily upon job skills,
ignoring the cultural context of the job and its pervasive impact
on the employee’s success on the job.
▼ Alignment builds strong personal connections. Aligned
companies help bridge the disconnection gap that troubles excel-
lent employees, like the one who told Fortune magazine she was
‘‘tired of working incredibly hard for companies that . . . didn’t
share my values.’’8 The focus on core culture helps aligned com-
panies satisfy employees’ deeper need to make a difference on
connection to personal values. It is also easier at aligned compa-
nies to show how candidates and employees can make a differ-

ence in promoting the core culture, which is a more satisfying
personal connection than any signing or retention bonus could
ever deliver. Employees within aligned companies think twice
about leaving, for fear of losing the special personal connection.
Nonaligned companies continue to fight the selfish side of
what’s-in-it-for-me (among both candidates and current em-
ployees). Without building new connections, nonaligned com-
panies rely far too heavily on money-driven practices in their
attempts to find and keep valuable employees. Such employees
are harder to retain because they often feel compelled to search
for new opportunities and stronger personal connections to
their work and their employer.
▼ The ultimate benefit is a unique competitive advantage:
the ability to consistently find and keep top talent. With staffing
and retention processes based upon their core culture, an aligned
company attracts and retains far more superior employees that
fit well with its core culture than a nonaligned company does.
High productivity can be directly attributed to a focused, con-
certed plan to align staffing and retention practices to the core
culture. With no clear focus for their staffing and retention, non-
aligned companies suffer greater disconnections throughout
their organizations. Staffing and retention becomes a burden
rather than a competitive advantage.
In summary, aligned and nonaligned companies differ

markedly in the nature of their staffing and retention processes:
Aligned Companies Nonaligned Companies
Processes are strategic. Processes are reactive.

Simplify pursuit of business Complicate pursuit of
goals. business goals.
Strengthen the core culture. Convolute the culture.
Build company connections. Promote company

disconnections.
Build job connections. Promote job disconnections.
Build personal connections. Amount to competitive
disadvantage.
Afford competitive advantage.
THE PROCESS OF ALIGNMENT
There are three steps to the process of alignment:
1. The organization must clearly understand how each core

culture uniquely contributes to employee connected-
ness.
2. The organization must embrace one core culture as its
operational driver.
3. Management must then align all staffing and retention
strategies to the core culture.
Does the focus on one core culture totally eliminate all your
staffing and retention problems? Does it automatically attract
thousands of superior employee applicants or transform all the
average performers into great employees? No, of course not. No
one formula can ever produce such results. We are not prescrib-
ing a magic pill that forever eliminates your staffing and reten-
tion challenges. Rather, in this book we outline a method in use
at leading companies that keeps them one step ahead of their
competition. Through their efforts to carefully align staffing
and retention to their core culture, they attract and retain a high-
performing employees at a rate that is the envy of their
competitors. This is the distinct competitive advantage: being
an organization filled with culturally aligned and motivationally
connected employees.
Now, it’s your turn to build a competitive advantage for

your organization based upon one of four core cultures.
NOTES
1. James Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of
Visionary Companies (New York: HarperBusiness, 1994), p. 135.
2. Terrence E. Deal and Alan Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The
Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,
1982), pp. 15–16.
3. The Fuqua Report (May 16, 1998).
4. Telephone interview (March 10, 1998).
5. John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Per-
formance (New York: The Free Press, 1992), p. 9.
6. ‘‘Caffeine Nation,’’ Human Resource Executive (March 1996), p.
28.
7. Jim Harris, Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Com-
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996), p. 21.
8. Daniel Pink, ‘‘Free Agent Nation,’’ Fast Company (December-
January) 1998, pp. 131–147.
PART TWO
THE FOUR CORE

CULTURES
CHAPTER 3: A CULTURE OF CUSTOMER
SERVICE
CHAPTER 4: A CULTURE OF
INNOVATION
CHAPTER 5: A CULTURE OF
OPERATIONAL
EXCELLENCE
CHAPTER 6: A CULTURE OF SPIRIT
CHAPTER 3
A CULTURE OF
CUSTOMER SERVICE
‘‘Our customers are everything. Without them,
nothing else matters.’’
—The Customer Creed at Office Depot
Just about every company’s mission or values statement prom-

ises outstanding customer service, but few companies actually
deliver on the promise. We can all think of examples of compa-
nies that deliver great service: Nordstrom, Home Depot, Ritz-
Carlton, and Walt Disney World. Each has created and sustained
its success through commitment to a culture that sets the stan-
dard for providing superb customer service.
A CULTURE THAT SOLVES PROBLEMS

The underlying purpose of a customer-service culture is to cre-
ate solutions to meet customer needs. As we suggested in defin-
23
24 The Four Core Cultures
ing the customer-service core culture in Chapter 2, competitive

advantage here is in knowing and thinking like the customers,
meeting their current and future needs, and creating value for
them using every means at one’s disposal.
Competitive advantage is in knowing and thinking like

the customers, meeting their current and future needs,
and creating value for them using every means at one’s
disposal.
Creating solutions and providing values are the corner-

stones upon which companies with a culture of customer service
are built. These companies invest a significant amount of time,
labor, energy, and money in providing their employees with the
tools, resources, and training necessary to deliver exemplary ser-
vice. The thought of providing only mediocre, we’re-as-good-
as-everyone-else service is abhorrent to world-class, service-
driven organizations. Every employee within these companies,
from the CEO to the frontline service provider, sees the connec-
tion between her job and the company’s goal of providing out-
standing customer service.
The core cultural values of innovation, quality, and em-
ployee spirit are, of course, important to organizations with a
focused customer-service culture. Yet being customer-service-
driven remains supreme. With a foundation of service excel-
lence:
1. Innovation increases as employees focus on anticipating

customer needs and developing new and better ways to
meet those needs.
2. Quality increases through each employee’s commitment
to provide outstanding customer service.
3. Employee satisfaction increases as each person under-
A Culture of Customer Service 25
stands the critical role he or she plays in helping the

company achieves its customer-service goals.
Companies with customer-service cultures empower the

frontline service worker. Why? Only through an empowered
front line can service-driven cultures create the lasting partner-
ship links between employee and customer that build high levels
of repeat business. Moreover, customer-service-driven cultures
build customer links beyond the front line and into virtually all
operations, by way of feedback loops, face-to-face interactions,
customer survey activities, and the like.
Customer Service Equals Customer Solution
Customer-service cultures go beyond providing only a product

or service to their customers; they provide solutions. They rec-
ognize that today’s consumer needs more than just low price
(although low price is a good thing) and more than just great
selection (although great selection is also good). Today’s cus-
tomer needs answers, alternatives, and solutions to unique prob-
lems.
Employee Training
Home Depot is a prime example of a customer-service–

driven culture that views service in terms of solutions. Beginning
at the point of sale, Home Depot offers a full range of product
knowledge training programs for employees. The first week in
the store, all new hires must complete a product knowledge
workbook on their department. Within thirty days of being
hired, employees complete the product knowledge books for
other departments. All employees are encouraged to complete
all the product knowledge books and be awarded the ‘‘product
knowledge master’’ award, a badge in the design of a cap and

gown to be worn on their aprons.
Customer Training
Home Depot also provides training for customers on how

to use the products. Proudly displayed during a recent visit to
my neighborhood Home Depot in Tampa were announcements
of special upcoming workshops on how to install wood laminate
flooring, how to replace bathroom tile, and how to hang wallpa-
per—every one of them meant to give customers face-to-face
solutions rather than merely to sell product. The store even
sponsors workshops for customers’ kids!
Using Creative Solutions
Another example further demonstrates Home Depot’s cus-

tomer-service-as-customer-solution philosophy. Recently, I was
searching for a solution to a pesky problem: Squirrels were
eating all the food from my bird feeder. I approached a Home
Depot associate and proudly explained a well-thought-out (but
somewhat costly) solution I had come up with. Rather than sell-
ing me the equipment I thought I needed, the associate told me
to take along—at no charge—a less-expensive material that
would be far easier to implement to solve my problem. Not only
did I avoid having to purchase things I did not really need, but I
received a customized solution just for the asking!
Home Depot’s CEO, Arthur Blank, says he loves to hear
stories of how associates save customers money through creative
solutions rather than gouging them with products they may not
need.
Viewing customer service as an opportunity to provide so-
lutions is one thing that separates world-class customer-service
cultures from the rest. Customer-service-driven cultures like
that of Home Depot continuously create solutions for all their

customers.
A Step Ahead
A significant defining factor of cultures driven by service excel-

lence is their passion for a proactive rather than reactive ap-
proach to serving the customer. They realize that to stay ahead
of the competition and truly live their commitment to customer
service, they need to stay one step ahead of the customer.
According to John Graham, author of Magnet Marketing, a
new definition of customer service is emerging. His definition
goes beyond the standard protocol of doing it right the first
time, or providing communication excellence, or making on-
time deliveries, or being responsive to individual customer re-
quirements. These actions are simply starting points for service.
If customers do not receive this level of service, it is a given that
they will go somewhere else. Graham suggests that customer
service for the future requires that companies become a valuable
resource for the customer.1 To do this, customer service compa-
nies need to know their customers better than the customers
know themselves.
A good example of a company staying a step ahead of its
customers is New England Business Service (NEBS) of Groton,
Massachusetts. NEBS is a leading office-products and business-
forms supplier in the Northeast. Realizing that occasionally
some of their forms and supplies may be damaged during deliv-
ery, NEBS anticipates the customers’ response to that occur-
rence by offering free replacements. During the recent El Niño
storms, which damaged many packages, NEBS mailed a letter to
all customers announcing the free-replacement offer and giving
a toll-free phone number for ease of reordering. The offer was
good for six months, and NEBS also provided a billing-cycle
extension for the disaster-stricken business that might be low on

cash.2
Knowing your customer sometimes means knowing that all
customers are not the same. This message of not-one-size-fits-
all is even being heard within religious denominations. Many
churches are becoming more ‘‘customer friendly’’ in their ap-
proach to serving their communities. Whether conducting
church services with contemporary, upbeat music and spiced
with live drama, art, and skits or minimizing the presence of
traditional religious symbols and decor, religious groups all
across the country are discovering a huge new ‘‘customer base’’
through sensitivity to the fact that all customers are not alike.
CORE-CULTURE CONNECTIONS
Customer-driven cultures connect to employees in many inter-

esting ways.
Reach Out and Touch
In companies with a culture of customer service, every employee

is connected to the customer. The message of service excellence
goes far beyond the frontline employee who has the most fre-
quent customer contact. In companies that best exemplify a cus-
tomer-service-driven culture, senior and midlevel managers
routinely meet with and interact with clients, production em-
ployees go to the customer site to better understand how the
product is used, and all employees are responsible for addressing
requests from customers.
In companies with a culture of customer service, every

employee is connected to the customer.
We recently observed a fine example of how even senior

executives take a hands-on, walk-the-talk approach to inspiring
service excellence. While waiting in the gate area for a Saturday
morning departing flight, we recognized Robert Crandall, then
CEO of American Airlines, at a nearby gate. Crandall was care-
fully listening to an American Airlines employee when a cus-
tomer approached the pair and asked a question. Both of them
responded to the customer inquiry, with Crandall taking down
several notes on what the passenger was saying during the course
of the conversation.
We doubt if the customer knew she was talking to the CEO
of American Airlines, but it doesn’t matter. Crandall was clearly
interested in what the customer had to say and would apparently
take that customer’s information back to the relevant depart-
ment at American to address the issue. His goal was not just to
address the problem for that customer but to make an effort for
all customers to benefit from that one exchange. Employees who
work for companies with customer-service cultures create new
opportunities, and take advantage of existing ones, to reach out
and touch the customer, regardless of their level or position
within the company.
The Customer Is Always the Customer
Perhaps the most flak (as well as the most fun) I have experienced
as feedback on my first book, Getting Employees to Fall in Love
With Your Company (AMACOM, 1997), resulted from the
somewhat radical notion of allowing frontline employees input
into ‘‘firing’’ customers. By this, I mean that all companies have
customers that are irritating, irrational, or impossible to please.
These customers cost the company and employees more time,
energy, and money than they are worth. Ultimately, these cus-
tomers take valuable resources away from more valuable cus-
tomers. Customers who strongly support a culture of customer
service need to ‘‘fire’’ customers who are more trouble than they
are worth so that they can best meet their current and future
customer service needs. This notion flies in the face of the con-
ventional wisdom that the customer is always right. Whether
you believe the customer is or isn’t always right, one thing all
service-driven companies agree upon is that the customer is al-
ways the customer, and that, right or wrong, it is everyone’s job
to deliver outstanding service to that source of all business.
Companies resist the idea of firing the customer because,
on the surface, it appears to violate every principle associated
with providing outstanding customer service. On the other
hand, customer service is a two-way relationship that involves
the customer and the employee who is providing the service.
Top companies clearly communicate their performance standard
to employees who are responsible for serving the customer.
These companies are also just as clear regarding customer behav-
ior. Customers not living up to the company’s expectations are
sometimes asked to take their business elsewhere.
Although allowing customers to be fired is not a universally
accepted practice within all customer-service cultures, it is gain-
ing popularity. It allows these companies to lavish even more
time and world-class service on core customers, as well as im-
posing even higher standards of service that decrease the likeli-
hood of any customer needing to be fired. By clearly defining
employee and customer expectations and acting on those expec-
tations, the prospect of firing a customer sends a message to
employees and customers alike about which performance stan-
dards are acceptable and which are unacceptable.
Love and Marriage
In love and marriage, a defining characteristic of a successful

relationship is putting the needs of the other person above your
own. Companies that embody the spirit of customer service
practice this same principle with their customers. They often put
their customers’ needs ahead of the company needs. By doing
so, these companies build long-term relationships and extreme
loyalty from core customers who know that they truly do come
first.
Ryder, the Florida-based transportation services company,
provides a strong example of a company that truly puts cus-
tomer needs first. Companies frequently contract with Ryder to
deliver their goods. As part of this service, Ryder’s drivers often
wear the uniforms of the client companies. This is a win-win
situation for Ryder and its customers. The Ryder customer is
better served because the customer’s name remains in front of
the ultimate customer. In turn, Ryder gains long-term business
and extreme loyalty because its customers see a tangible sign of
Ryder’s commitment to serving them—a sign that clearly shows
Ryder putting the customer’s image needs above its own.
Another company that practices the notion of love and
marriage in its daily operations is PeopleSoft, a Pleasanton, Cali-
fornia–based developer of enterprise-side application software.
PeopleSoft organizes its operations around customers rather
than products or sales. More than 300 account managers are the
customer’s primary point of contact and act as liaison between
the customer and other divisions of the company. The account
manager and the contact person within the customer organiza-
tion are extremely close because of the frequent contact with
and the varied responsibilities of the account manager; it’s not
unusual for a customer to become dependent on an account
manager. Whenever an account manager is relocated or gets pro-
moted, he is responsible for ensuring a smooth transition in the
customer’s relationship with the new account manager. To sup-
port this relationship, account managers at PeopleSoft are not
commissioned sales staff, which is common practice. Rather
than being rewarded on sales performance, account managers at
PeopleSoft are rewarded according to how easy it is for custom-
ers to implement the company’s software, and for overall cus-

tomer satisfaction. Customers routinely experience such great
comfort with their account managers that they see them as part
of their company rather than PeopleSoft employees.
‘‘I Own the Problem’’
In her book Fabled Service, Betsy Sanders says it is no longer

enough to have well-meaning, very nice people attending to cus-
tomers’ needs. The key to outstanding service is enabling those
people to deliver the highest-quality product or service at the
very best price. Although merely good customer service focuses
on friendliness and courtesy, outstanding service focuses on exe-
cution and satisfaction—execution by employees who take real
ownership of the customer situation, which in turn increases
customer satisfaction.3
Companies with a true customer-service culture embrace
the concept that an employee who hears a customer problem
‘‘owns’’ the customer problem. Great service is delivered when
empowered frontline employees are given the freedom to ad-
dress and correct customer complaints or problems themselves,
instead of having to hand the customer off to a manager or to
another department in the company. Such companies reward
employees who solve customers’ problems regardless of their
position or level within the organization. Many nonaligned
companies believe that entrusting frontline employees is at best
naı̈ve, and at worst just plain stupid. Great customer-service-
driven cultures, however, realize that world-class service can
only result from employees’ being empowered and willing to
own the customer’s problem.
Great service is delivered when empowered frontline

employees are given the freedom to address and correct
customer complaints or problems themselves.
To own a customer’s problem, employees must have both

the desire and the authority to take action. Without the desire,
no amount of authority convinces an employee to own the
problem. Without enough authority to act, no amount of per-
sonal motivation can overcome the frustration of wanting to take
care of the customer but not being given the freedom to do so.
Genuine customer-service cultures create environments
that allow employees to own the problems. Nordstrom, the Se-
attle-based department store chain, is famous for allowing its
employees the freedom to solve customer problems. The com-
pany’s now-famous employee policy states:
Rule Number 1: Use your good judgment in all situations.

Rule Number 2: There will be no additional rules.
Throughout Nordstrom, inspired employees enthusiasti-

cally own customer problems because management allows them
the freedom to succeed.
Perhaps the most annoying example of employees’ not
being given the freedom to own the customer’s problem is the
still common (and dreaded) call for a price check. (This problem
is annoying because the customer’s problem was actually created
by the store.) Frustrated cashiers frustrate other employees who
are summoned to run off and find the price for an article, all
the while frustrating everyone else in line. At Target department
stores, if an item’s price does not display on the register, the
cashier is trained to ask the customer if she remembers the price
of the item. If the customer’s price sounds reasonable to the
cashier, he rings it up. Target’s customer-service culture empow-
ers the frontline to own and immediately respond to the custom-
er’s problem.
The first service company to win the coveted Malcolm Bal-
drige award, the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain, takes owning the cus-
tomer’s problem to new heights. Employees are authorized to
invest cash—up to $2,000, on the spot—to do anything they

need to do to rectify a guest’s complaint (e.g., unsatisfactory
room accommodations, lost dry-cleaning, car scratched in hotel
parking lot).4 The unmatched spirit of service received at any
Ritz-Carlton is in part due to the company’s incredible encour-
agement for any employee to take ownership of any customer
problem and fix it—now!
Real-Time Reactions
In today’s fast-paced business world, anything less than an im-

mediate reaction to customer needs is too slow. Every organiza-
tion receives real-time reactions from customers. Some
businesses use the feedback to help make decisions on service
improvement, while others simply ignore the feedback. But
within a service-driven culture, fast, focused, and direct reac-
tions to customer feedback are a defining force for success. It is
critical to the sustained success of any customer-service culture
to deliver immediate, direct customer solutions or else face los-
ing business. Customers walk away if they don’t get unique, cus-
tomized solutions to their problems. Any company able to carry
out quickly such responses continues to reap the benefits of
long-term repeat business. Thanks to effective, real-time reac-
tions to customers, service-driven cultures maintain their com-
petitive edge because their core cultural purpose prompts the
response that the customer needs.
Additionally, service cultures benefit as the same real-time
reactions serve employees in their individual role of ultimately
solving the needs of customers. Real-time reactions reinforce to
frontline service employees when they are on track and when
they are not. Often the feedback is as simple as an employee
receiving a big smile or hearing a simple thank-you from the
boss. Sometimes the feedback takes the form of a daily review
of the employee’s strengths and areas in which service delivery
can be improved. In either case, such real-time reactions to em-

ployees create the foundation from which world-class, service-
driven cultures maintain their unique competitive edge.
Beyond these obvious cases for customer-contact employ-
ees, service-driven cultures use real-time reactions to improve
behind-the-scenes processes and systems that involve literally
every employee. From vendor accounting procedures to dis-
tribution channels, from inventory management systems to
product packaging, service-driven cultures integrate real-time
reactions into the very fabric of their companies.
Great employees within service-driven cultures strongly
connect to the practice of real-time reactions. Driven by their
own need to stay a step ahead and create customer solutions,
superior employees connect with organizations whose processes
and systems support their passionate efforts to achieve world-
class service. It is through integrating real-time reactions into the
core processes of an organization that customer-service cultures
create strong connections for first-rate employees.
Midway Services: Above and Beyond
You answer the knock at your front door. As you open it,
you glance at a freshly washed and beautifully painted
van parked out front. Standing at your door is a clean-
cut, uniformed, professional-looking person. After greet-
ing you with a friendly ‘‘Good morning,’’ the professional
asks, ‘‘May I enter your house?’’ As you answer yes, the
professional then pulls on a pair of surgical-style booties
over shined black work shoes before entering your home.
There follow a careful inspection and from a superbly
printed catalog before any work begins. If you agree to
the work, a red carpet is then placed under the work area
to protect the floor. In the end, the work area is left
cleaner than when the work began.
Who would you say is at the front door? An upscale

builder of custom homes conducting a final interior in-
spection of your multimillion-dollar home? Perhaps an
antiques dealer or restorer estimating repairs for your
grandmother’s china cabinet?
Well, if you happen to live in west central Florida,
you are likely to shout out the correct answer: ‘‘Oh—
that’s my plumber from Midway Services!’’
Midway Services is a Clearwater, Florida, plumbing,
heating, and air conditioning services company. Midway
is a nationally recognized industry leader and frequent
award winner whose 140-some employees generate more
than $10 million in sales by providing cutting-edge cus-
tomer service to homeowners, builders, and remodelers
in the area. Within an industry dominated by small mom-
and-pop shops, Midway Services continues to be one of
the largest and fastest growing companies of its type in
America. Its success stems from an industry-unique cus-
tomer-service culture.
Service Above and Beyond
A few years ago, Midway’s president, Bill Wolf, was look-

ing for a unique marketing approach that would epito-
mize the company’s customer-service philosophy of
‘‘above and beyond.’’ He wanted to create an indelible,
lasting, and positive impression on his customers and the
community. Wolf’s marketing team purchased an inven-
tor’s remote-control blimp, twenty-six feet long and eight
feet in diameter. They painted it with the Midway Ser-
vices logo and began flying over Tampa Bay Buccaneer
games, Christmas parades, and local high school events.
Midway’s airship is a brilliant representation of its above-
and-beyond customer-service philosophy.
Midway embraces a total customer solution. The

goal is to retain lifetime customers, not one-time in-and-
out jobs; the first job is an opportunity to build a long-
term relationship for all of the customer’s plumbing,
electric, and air conditioning needs.
The customer’s perception of total value is critical
to Midway. Whereas most of Midway’s competitors rush
through repairs in a hurry to get to their next call, Mid-
way’s service technicians invest a little extra time with
each customer. The service technician, conducting a
walk-through inspection alongside the customer, exam-
ines the customer’s entire plumbing, electric, and air
conditioning systems, explaining each system’s functions
while answering questions and uncovering additional ser-
vice opportunities. Service technicians also take the time
to carefully explain every item on the bill, ensuring that
the customer understands the value-added of each ac-
tivity.
Customer response is so positive to this hands-on
personalized service that more often than not when addi-
tional services opportunities are uncovered, the cus-
tomer agrees to the additional repairs on the spot. Along
with its industry-leading flat-rate pricing structure (one
price—no surprises), this level of customer service and
customer perception of value soar above and beyond the
competition.
Black Belts, Black Shoes, a Haircut, and a Shave
Midway clearly understands that to deliver superior cus-

tomer service, technicians often have to go the extra mile
and graciously submit to the customer’s sometimes un-
usual requests. Midway therefore designs its staffing
process around uncovering an employment applicant’s
willingness to fully serve others. For example, early in the

first interview, management tells the applicant that
black belts and polishable black shoes are required, as
are a haircut and a shave. Within an industry too often
characterized by slovenly attired repairpersons who sel-
dom display the desire to yield to a customer’s unusual
demands, many applicants hesitate or simply refuse to
accept these unusual standards. Yet this one simple dic-
tum allows Midway to peek inside the potential employ-
ee’s ‘‘heart for service,’’ while allowing unsuited
applicants to graciously deselect themselves from the
staffing process.
The Council of Many

In what is called its ‘‘council-of-many principle,’’ Midway
involves many employees in the staffing process. None
are more important, though, than the service techni-
cians themselves. If applicants pass the initial interviews
and background screening processes, service technicians
take them on service calls. Midway’s service technicians
watch how the applicant interacts and connects with the
customer, observing willingness to do what the customer
asks (especially the unusual), a sense of owning the cus-
tomer’s problems, and drive to provide long-term cus-
tomer solutions. The service technician also judges the
applicant’s willingness to really go above and beyond by
asking her to carry the customer’s newspaper in from the
street, or change a light bulb, or even bring in the mail.
Applicants may accompany several service technicians
during the process. Management then relies on the cu-
mulative evaluations of the service technician for the
final staffing decision. Midway is looking more for the
right person with the right service attitude than for the
right technician.
Retention Above and Beyond
In addition to its extensive recruiting processes, Midway

goes above and beyond in its desire to retain great em-
ployees. Perhaps the most aggravating aspect of life as
a plumber, electrician, or air conditioning technician is
being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
To better help longtime technicians have a life outside
work, Midway has instituted a simple retention policy
that rewards longevity. Any service technician who has
five consecutive years of company service is removed
from the on-call roster. This one policy alone is a power-
ful incentive for service technicians to remain with
Midway.
Midway’s innovative marketing strategy is designed
to further reduce the need for emergency and after-hours
service calls. Instead of relying upon traditional yellow-
pages ads that automatically attract these demanding
calls, Midway focuses on building business through rou-
tine maintenance service schedules and customer refer-
rals. This insightful combination of policies reduces the
number of emergency and after-hours calls as well as in-
creasing uninterrupted evening time even for the on-call
technicians. Thus the technicians with less than five
years service too benefit from Midway’s creation of an
environment that maximizes all employees’ time with
family and friends.
With the same passion as that for serving customers,
Midway goes to great lengths to stay a step ahead for
service technicians. Repairpersons at other companies
may drive a battered van and waste valuable time in
restocking their own supplies, but Midway’s service tech-
nicians are given clean, organized, and regularly recondi-
tioned trucks or vans that are constantly restocked by
warehouse workers. Midway believes that providing the

same care to technicians as to customers helps retain top
employee talent.
Another important element in the retention strategy
is continuous customer-service training. Weekly service
technician meetings focus on new service concepts and
techniques, sharing service success stories, and celebrat-
ing positive customer feedback letters and milestones in
technicians’ careers. An extensive corporate lending li-
brary of books, tapes, and videos allows all staff to keep
their service-excellence skills current. Additionally, Mid-
way has an audiocassette learning series (which rotates
weekly) that allows technicians the opportunity to con-
tinue learning during their extensive driving time.
From booties and red carpets to black belts and
blimps, Midway Services is a world-class example of a cus-
tomer-service culture that attracts and keeps great em-
ployees.
NOTES
1. John Graham, ‘‘Customer Service Redefined: The Game Has
Changed Again,’’ www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/jrg17.htm (April 27,
1998).
2. ‘‘This Month’s Winning Customer Service Story,’’ www.
therightanswer. html (April 27, 1998).
3. Betsy Sanders, ‘‘Ordinary Acts, Extraordinary Outcomes,’’ ex-
cerpted from Fabled Service by Betsy Sanders (San Francisco: Pfeiffer,
1995), www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/ebs1.htm.
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996).
CHAPTER 4
A CULTURE OF
INNOVATION
‘‘Let chaos reign; then reign in chaos.’’
—Andy Grove, Chairman, Intel
In the constant pursuit to create something from nothing, chaos

occurs. The seemingly unmanageable nature of chaos repels
those personalities who are either faint of heart or consumed
with structure and order. Neither person would survive within
a culture of innovation. Rightly so, because a culture of innova-
tion by its very nature is on a unique path—one that, unfortu-
nately, few organizations are willing to take.
The underlying purpose of an innovation-driven culture is
to create and shape the future. Whether in manufacturing, health
care, software development, or consumer goods, cultures of in-
novation strive not only to bring tomorrow’s products and ser-
41
vices to market today but also to passionately pursue their

unique visions of what the future should be and how their prod-
ucts and services will dominate it.
The underlying purpose of an innovation-driven cul-

ture is to create and shape the future.
Being first to market can be a life-or-death proposition for

an innovation-driven company. Considering that the develop-
ment of a single new drug compound can take fifteen years and
$300 million of investment, being first to market in the pharma-
ceutical industry can mean the difference between getting rich
or going broke. In the software business, where competitive ad-
vantage is measured in weeks (days?) rather than years, being
first to market is a far quicker life or death.
Being first by no means implies flawless performance.
There’s a popular saying within the pioneering company Cisco
Systems: ‘‘Being first is not elegant.’’ Yet Cisco’s drive to be first
has made it one of the world’s technologically elite companies.
Just as the ever-popular science fiction series Star Trek pro-
claims, innovation-driven companies ‘‘boldly go where no one
has gone before.’’ Inherent within this approach is a strong de-
sire to invent the future rather than redesign the past. Even with
all its uncertainty, a focus on inventing the future is far more
exciting to an innovation-driven company than simply redesign-
ing current systems and processes. Of course, redesign of cur-
rent systems can be a critical component of organizational
success; however, a core driver within cultures of innovation is
to be part of creating the future.
Unleashing the power of technology is a primary means to
competitive advantage within cultures of innovation. The marvel
of the computer chip has opened countless opportunities for a
company with a culture of innovation to gain market dominance
within virtually any industry. From singing greeting cards to
A Culture of Innovation 43
artificial limbs, from satellite-assisted automobile map guidance

systems to voice-activated software programs, unleashing tech-
nology is an essential element of success within a culture of in-
novation.
The marvel of the computer chip has opened countless

opportunities for a company with a culture of innova-
tion to gain market dominance within virtually any in-
dustry.
Innovation-driven cultures leverage technology, investing

massive dollars in research and development to create new, cut-
ting-edge products; looking for ways to expand their unique
products or services into new markets; and focusing on ways to
proactively exploit new niches within existing markets, tailoring
their offerings to individual clients and individual customers.
Innovation cultures have a voracious appetite for brain-
power. Never can an innovation-driven culture have enough
bright, energetic people around; there is always a desire and need
for more. Therefore, innovation-driven cultures are compelled
to focus their energies on finding and keeping the intellectual
elite, the women and men within the upper quartile of intelli-
gence. A voracious appetite for brainpower within cultures of
innovation is matched only by an appetite for staying on the
cutting edge. With markets appearing and disappearing over-
night, the drive to stay ahead is omnipresent. The pressure to
compete, outperform, and win perpetuates the need for arming
innovation companies with the latest and greatest technology.
Such loaded-to-the-rafters technology not only keeps innova-
tion-driven companies on the cutting edge but also is an absolute
mandate to finding and keeping top talent. The reason is simple:
The best and brightest people want to play with the best and
brightest technology. Without one, you do not get the other.
Innovation-driven cultures are leading the way in what has
become a fascinating change in the corporate pecking order. In

most organizations, the three most powerful positions are typi-
cally the chief executive officer, followed by the chief operating
officer or president, and then the chief financial officer. Since
technology has become such a necessary element of success
across all types of companies, it is now common to find the
company’s chief information officer (CIO) replacing the CFO
as number three in importance in the corporate hierarchy. Obvi-
ously, the CIO has always had a significant role within innova-
tion-driven cultures, but the importance of this role is now
beginning to spread into many other organizational structures.
ON THE EDGE OF PARANOIA
Innovation-driven cultures inhabit a world characterized by

constant paranoia. They are propelled by constant fear that they
could quickly disappear, either through the obsolescence of to-
day’s products and services or through the sudden first-to-mar-
ket appearance of a competitor’s product. If general paranoia
does not exist in the organization, some leaders create it. Jim
Clark, CEO of Netscape, says that one of his primary jobs is to
create paranoia, and the title of Andy Grove’s best-selling book
suggests that Only the Paranoid Survive.1
Much of the paranoia inside today’s innovation-driven cul-
tures stems from the frightening reality of knowledge half-life.
To contemplate this is to ask the question, ‘‘How long will it take
50 percent of the latest, hot-off-the-press products or services to
become obsolete?’’ Estimates are that the half-life of computer
hardware is a mere three years.2 This means that within three
years, one-half of the hardware configuration on your brand-
new, high-speed laptop with all its bells and whistles laptop will
be obsolete. Take a guess what the estimated half-life of com-
puter software is today. If you guess more than one and a half
years, you’re wrong. It is frightening to think that half of your

current, costly, top-of-the-line software will be outdated within
eighteen months. But even more frighteningly, imagine if your
business is hardware or software development! Is it any wonder
that such innovation-driven companies live in constant para-
noia?
The key to surviving it, according to world-renowned in-
formation technology guru James Martin, is to focus on the ex-
ternal enemy (the competition), not the internal partner.3 Great
care is taken to create an us-versus-them mentality within inno-
vation-driven cultures, a mentality that sustains paranoia about
the competition while simultaneously inspiring employees to ac-
cept production deadlines that commonly seem impossible to
meet. Sensing—or even fabricating—intense attacks from all
competitors, innovation-driven companies remain on the edge
of paranoia.
COLLECTIVE CRANIUMS
Without question, the number one asset in innovation-driven

cultures is brainpower. Any executive within a culture of inno-
vation will agree: The collective genius is the company’s greatest
competitive advantage—indeed, its only one. Regardless of the
industry, any innovation-driven organization without a staff of
bright, bold, and energized employees quickly becomes tomor-
row’s roadkill. To staff and retain a workforce filled with intelli-
gent, imaginative people is the best and only hope for survival as
an innovation-driven culture.
One company in particular is famous for its quest for all-
consuming brainpower. Microsoft hires for one thing: smarts!
As founder Bill Gates says, ‘‘There is no way of getting around
[the fact] that in terms of IQ, you’ve got to be very elitist in
picking people who deserve to write software; 95 percent of the
people shouldn’t write complex software.’’4 Microsoft’s ap-

proach is straightforward: Hire the brightest people anywhere,
pay them big bucks, and turn them loose. The software indus-
try’s general consensus is that great programmers are not just
marginally better than good ones, but an order of magnitude
better. The bottom line is that the one who hires at an order of
magnitude above the norm wins. The main reason Microsoft
keeps on winning is its collective craniums.
Another characteristic of a culture of innovation’s unrelent-
ing focus on brainpower is the economic downline effect. To
take an example, it is observable that one superior programmer
can create up to one hundred downline jobs, within the organi-
zation and the general economy. Through tapping the intellec-
tual passion of just one superior programmer, countless
opportunities arise. First, it becomes easier to attract other
brain-rich talent to the company. Second, there is more likeli-
hood of internal job creation for the company. Third come more
opportunities for company growth into new products and ser-
vices. Fourth, it increases the potential for job creation outside
the company. A positive economic downline effect emerges.
CORE CULTURAL CONNECTIONS
There are several ways a culture of innovation connects with its

employees.
A Need for Speed
Actor Tom Cruise, portraying a hot-shot navy pilot in his hit

movie Top Gun, popularized what could be the mantra of all
innovation-driven cultures: ‘‘I have a need for speed!’’ Speed to
create, speed to market, and speed to upgrade are all critical to
any successful innovation organization. Yet the frantic pace asso-
ciated within most cultures of innovation is impelled not so

much by management decree but by market mandate.
For innovative companies, the need for speed goes beyond
product-development cycles and into the very core of opera-
tional success. The Home Shopping Network (HSN) of St. Pe-
tersburg, Florida, created the TV retailing revolution. Its internal
computer systems are in the vanguard of sophistication, infor-
mation analysis, and speed. On-air personalities view two moni-
tors: One displays the signal being broadcast to all viewers, and
the second displays an information screen filled with real-time
data. HSN’s powerful systems tabulate everything from the
number of phone calls received, the number being answered, and
the number of calls on hold to a perpetual update of sales data
(number of units sold, number of units in inventory, total sales
dollars). Such real-time data give every HSN on-air host the
power to calculate the potential success of any on-camera item
within two minutes of its appearance. If the item looks like a
slow mover, another is quickly brought on-camera. HSN has
transformed its need for speed into an amazing competitive tool.
Great employees connect to the need for speed within cul-
tures of innovation. They love the opportunity to employ better
and faster technologies to create and shape the future.
Cannibalization and Creative Destruction
Imagine working in an organization determined to create a new

product that will eliminate the company’s own top selling prod-
uct line. For most organizations, this would be akin to eating its
young. Yet when Lewis Platt, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, said,
‘‘We have to be willing to cannibalize what we’re doing today in
order to ensure our leadership in the future,’’5 he spoke directly
to the core connection behind his company’s continuing leader-
ship in PC printers. As Platt and other leaders of innovation-
driven cultures know, the willingness to cannibalize the com-
pany’s successful products and services before the competition

does must be an inherent connection between employees and the
company.
Cannibalization and ‘‘creative destruction’’ reign supreme
in most successful cultures of innovation. Regardless of what the
organization’s current bestseller is, it relentlessly pursues new,
better, faster, and more powerful products or services. With the
combination of knowledge half-life and the realization that mar-
ket dominance can be measured in weeks rather than years, cul-
tures of innovation must encourage cannibalization and creative
destruction to remain competitive.
Employees of excellence find it an exhilarating challenge to
take apart today’s best to create tomorrow’s winners. Top talent
welcomes the opportunity to play with, tinker with, and simply
smash existing processes and products in the search for new,
better, faster, and even more fun ways to create the future.
Freedom to Succeed
An important corollary to cannibalization and creative destruc-

tion is the absolute mandate to give employees the freedom to
succeed. World-class innovation and creativity never occur
within organizations populated by overregulated, overmanaged,
and overcontrolled employees. Successful cultures of innovation
actively encourage employees to challenge the status quo in a
never-ending quest to produce new and better products and ser-
vices.
When living within a culture that promotes the freedom to
succeed, one outcome is certain: Mistakes will be made. Many
companies, whether innovation-driven or not, struggle and fail
because of management’s inability to tolerate mistakes. The at-
tempt to create play-it-safe policies and procedures that signifi-
cantly limit the chance of mistakes chokes the very nature of
innovation.
Successful cultures of innovation are built upon manage-

ment’s active encouragement of a particular process of making
mistakes: Make them quickly, make them at low cost, learn from
them, and move on. Technology leader Hewlett-Packard is such
a strong proponent of giving employees the freedom to succeed
that one of its basic operational premises is ‘‘we reserve the right
to make mistakes.’’ HP knows, as do all other successful cultures
of innovation, that to play it safe and limit mistakes is to remain
hopelessly mediocre.
Top innovation-driven cultures emancipate action for their
employees. Employee emancipation is defined as ‘‘giving people
the protection they need to excel, the power to control their own
destiny, and then getting out of the way.’’6 To remain competi-
tive, cultures of innovation continuously give employees wide
latitude of experimentation as they strive to create the future.
Great employees within innovation-driven companies con-
nect to an environment that allows the freedom to succeed. They
flourish within organizations that offer the freedom to complete
their work within broad operational boundaries. Without the
freedom to succeed, employees are likely to seek new work op-
portunities where mistakes are encouraged and employee eman-
cipation is guaranteed.
Take It to the Limit
As we noted in discussing Nordstrom in Chapter 3, the golden

rule within many leading cultures of innovation is that there are
no rules! As in NASA’s Apollo moon missions, innovation-
driven cultures push the edge of the envelope every day. Only
by constantly stretching existing technology, processes, and sys-
tems to the limit can these cultures produce the quantum leaps
in advances so necessary for organizational survival.
Mavericks abound within leading cultures of innovation.
Their passion for taking all elements of their work to new
heights helps their companies maintain an edge in development

and delivery. Coupled with the ever-present battle to fight prod-
uct obsolescence, the innovation-culture winners are those that
allow their creative mavericks ample space to push, push further,
and push even more, testing the very limits of every aspect of the
operation. That is why such innovation leaders as Cisco Systems
invest up to 11 percent of their annual budget in research and
development. Without such huge investments, even today’s net-
working giants would quickly become tomorrow’s forgotten he-
roes.
Great employees relish taking their work to the limit. When
not allowed to stretch the confines of their processes and push
their equipment to the hilt, talented employees become bored
and restless very fast. But with a living philosophy of taking it
to the limit, innovation-driven winners remain a step ahead.
Have Fun: Kill the Enemy
Such is the mission of the phenomenally successful high-end

software developer PeopleSoft. Fun is often a vital part of a cul-
ture of innovation. The incredible pressure to perform; the man-
date to create faster, better, and more powerful products; and the
endless push to outperform yesterday’s successes all combine to
create an often high-stress, high-pressure workplace.
The pursuit of fun is an emotional and psychological re-
lease. Witness the unheralded popularity of the Dilbert syndi-
cated comic strip. Toiling away within a faceless, mundane, and
oppressive workplace, Dilbert’s characters offer an in-your-face
look at a humorless environment. The real fun of the Dilbert
series is that such workplaces are everywhere. Yet such an envi-
ronment is deadly for innovation-driven culture. When robbed
of the natural need to laugh, lighten up, and have a little fun,
workers succumb to the overwhelming pressures characteristic
of a culture of innovation that quickly squelch all employee ef-

forts in their quest to create the future.
Interestingly, an all-too-common companion of the fun
factor in innovation-driven cultures is a passion to ‘‘kill the
enemy.’’ The enemies may be external competitors, both large
and small. Sometimes the enemies are internal, such as compla-
cency, departmental bloat, and missed deadlines. Regardless of
where they reside, the enemies of a culture of innovation must
be found and destroyed.
In combination with the previously discussed state of per-
petual paranoia, ‘‘have fun: kill the enemy’’ resonates strongly
with top employees. They unabashedly concur that only a take-
no-prisoners approach can achieve market dominance. Employ-
ees love to win while having some fun along the way. They crave
being in an atmosphere of innovation-driven companies that em-
braces this pairing of motivational goals.
The Thrill of Adventure
Intense, exciting, hectic, stressful, fast-paced, focused, casual:

These are some of the words that employees we know use fre-
quently to describe their innovation-driven culture. Such a com-
bination of diverse emotions hardly affords employees a relaxed
and easygoing work environment. On the contrary, a culture of
innovation is one of the most stressful work environments in
existence. Yet it does offer one guarantee that is sensuously ap-
pealing: the thrill of an adventure.
Lars Kolind, president of Oticon Holdings A/S, a leading
Danish international hearing-aid manufacturer, says that a key
to its success is ‘‘making people happy and secure while they
are working in a very unstructured, chaotic, difficult, and ever-
changing environment.’’ Intel uses the phrase ‘‘Make a signifi-
cant difference or get out of the way.’’ Quantum, HP, and Apple
all have similar philosophies. In each case, the mandate to be
great, if nothing else, ensures a thrilling ride toward creating the

future.
The thrill of adventure in innovation cultures is often ac-
companied by a payoff for success that can be just as gratifying.
Particularly in the computer software industry, there is incredi-
ble excitement in watching a company’s rising stock value or
contemplating the worth of additional stock options. Few of us
can discount the potential motivational appeal of a bulging stock
portfolio in a growing, successful company. Yet financial gain,
albeit exhilarating, is not always the primary thrill for em-
ployees.
For many employees within a culture of innovation, the
greatest thrill is earning the right to join the next hot-project
team. Once on that roller coaster, it is tough to get off. Even
within an environment of killing hours, the adrenaline rush from
project successes is often more appealing than any personal fi-
nancial gain. Being part of today’s (and potentially tomorrow’s)
hot-project teams is a significant motivator for many top em-
ployees.
Great employees within innovation-driven cultures connect
to the thrill of the adventure. They realize that part of the high
inherent in their career is the dizzying gamut of emotions they
experience along the way. Intense pressure, unrealistic deadlines,
and a breakneck pace all add to the excitement of the journey.
Cisco Systems: Making History Every Day
There are any number of things [hot buttons] we could

tell you about Cisco [networking giant] in this space to
entice you [subliminal messages] to explore a career
here [bonuses, stock options], but what’s the point?
[you’re unique] You’ve heard countless superlatives
[best, best, best!] from all the companies; what could we
possibly say [blah, blah, blah] to entice you into getting

connected at Cisco Systems?
So opens the ‘‘Culture’’ page on Cisco’s Website. Com-

pelled to read on, you find in the next paragraph a mag-
nificent yet subtle description of why Cisco will continue
to dominate Internet networking through their employ-
ment mission, which is: ‘‘Connecting the right people to
the right jobs, and superlatives won’t work when we’re
talking about your career. You need real answers without
the hype and genuine assistance in exploring whether
Cisco is the right place for you.’’
Refreshingly candid. Technologically advanced. Pro-
gressively cool. Excitingly unique. These are the feelings
that arise as you scan your computer screen—and all of
this from merely surfing their Website. You might think
the Cisco site is just another example of today’s pervasive
problem of overblown public-relations hype. You might
think that Cisco is just another company painting a beau-
tiful picture of what it is and what it stands for, without
the organizational substance to back it up. If you think
this about Cisco, think again!
Cisco Systems is the worldwide leader in networking
systems for both the Internet and corporate intranets.
Living the mission to ‘‘shape the future of global net-
working,’’ Cisco’s networking solutions ‘‘connect people,
computing devices, and computer networks, allowing
people to access of transfer information without regard
to differences in time, place, or type of computer sys-
tem.’’7 Headquartered in San Jose, California, and with
major operations in Research Triangle, North Carolina,
and Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Cisco develops and sells
networking products in more than ninety countries, with
13,000 employees worldwide. With FY 1997 sales of $6.4
billion, Cisco Systems holds the number one or two posi-

tion in virtually every market segment it competes in.
Think Cisco; Get Connected
Cisco is built upon connections: people connecting to

each other, to the mission, and to the company. This con-
nection starts at the top. President and CEO John Cham-
bers is absolutely passionate about blending his
company’s high-tech focus with a high-touch leadership
style. His unrelenting goal is to have his employees
‘‘know my voice, my touch.’’ Beyond the standard quar-
terly management meetings now commonplace in most
progressive companies, Chambers goes a step further to
connect with his employees by sponsoring a monthly
‘‘birthday breakfast.’’ Designed exclusively for frontline
employees, Chambers explicitly discourages executives
from attending, thereby encouraging an open (and often
brutal) communication forum. Employees quickly con-
nect to the opportunity for directly interacting with their
leader, for challenging corporate goals, and for uncover-
ing leadership gaps between top management and the
front line.8
Innovation-Driven Every Day
The Cisco culture is suffused with people and systems

focused on innovation. Although currently owning 75
percent market share in network routers and 40 percent
market share in network switches, Cisco is obsessed with
cannibalization of its products. The goal is to render its
products obsolete every six to twelve months. With the
radical pace of knowledge half-life, Cisco knows that to
maintain competitive advantage and to achieve its mis-
sion ‘‘to shape the future of global networking,’’ it must

sustain a culture that thrives on creative destruction of
existing products.
Cisco’s innovative spirit is also seen in many progres-
sive corporate strategies. A major growth vehicle for any
innovating company is acquisitions, not only to obtain
the targeted company’s products and processes but also
to acquire its knowledge-rich employees. But the people
side of Cisco’s acquisition strategy is simple yet powerful:
not to dislodge employees or families unless absolutely
necessary. As the world’s leader in computer networking
systems, Cisco leverages its networking expertise to en-
courage newly acquired talent to telecommute as a de-
sired alternative to relocation. Embracing such an
innovative strategy lessens the trauma for the outside
employee involved in an acquisition, demonstrates Cis-
co’s cultural commitment to its employee’s well-being,
and minimizes the expense of family relocations.
Another innovative strategy within Cisco is its con-
trarian view of benchmarking. Cisco sees the process of
benchmarking as allowing other companies to set the
standards. Cisco prefers to set its own standards. The
take-it-to-the-limit approach does not allow the company
to wait around to benchmark its performance to other
companies, whether inside or outside the industry.
Rather, Cisco benchmarks against itself, constantly
pushing its own world-class standards to ever-higher
levels.
Transforming a Graceless Process
Beyond Cisco’s innovative strategies in such areas as

product cannibalization, acquisitions, and benchmark-
ing, perhaps the most noted and acclaimed cutting-edge
programs reside within staffing function. Using continu-

ous research from current and prospective employees,
Cisco has designed an entertaining and information-
filled process to attract top talent—wherever it may be.
Engineers (as with any other talented group, for that
manner) hate the traditional recruiting process. Begin-
ning with the agony of trying to find the right words to
put on a paper resume and ending with a used-car-sales
approach of haggling over price (compensation), Cisco
completely redesigned and innovated the traditional
staffing process. To describe it with a phrase used inter-
nally, the goal was to transform a graceless process.
There are several key components to this transformation.
Hire the Top 10 Percent That Fit the Culture
Cisco is dedicated to—even obsessed with—hiring the

top 10 percent of talent that fit the Cisco culture. Many
innovation companies only try to hire top talent, regard-
less of the fit with the company culture. This is where
Cisco blows away most competitors. By ensuring a strong
fit with the culture, Cisco’s innovation-driven culture
sets its sights on new levels of productivity and market
dominance.
What defines the top 10 percent of talent that will fit
into Cisco’s culture? Through creating a ‘‘top employee
profile,’’ Cisco learned that the top 10 percent are funda-
mentally curious, are results-oriented, embrace change,
and are multidisciplinary, with an intense desire to make
a difference. They also learned a very valuable lesson: The
top 10 percent are basically passive job seekers.
Cisco’s challenge, as with many innovation-driven
cultures, is to lure the passive job seeker in other compa-
nies away from current positions. Traditional recruiting

focuses on active job seekers, those out of work, recently
downsized, or currently scanning the classifieds for a new
position. Cisco knows that the top 10 percent are seldom
out of work, are rarely the first to go during downsizings,
and are unlikely to read classified ads. How, then, to con-
nect with the top 10 percent?
Through a series of top-talent profiles, focus groups,
and interviews with current employees, Cisco’s people re-
searchers discovered where talented-passive job seekers
hang out: in places like movies theaters, art fairs, micro-
brewery festivals, and home and garden shows. Cisco
began placing advertising in movie theaters and became
a more visible presence at the locations frequented by
passive job seekers—including the Dilbert home page.
Yes, Cisco has a hot link in that very place many top tal-
ents visit for a laugh. Perhaps most impressive and most
innovative, however, are Cisco’s own Website staffing ef-
forts.
Website as Advertising Link
When you visit the Cisco home page and click on the
‘‘Jobs@Cisco’’ button, the first thing you see is a head-
line graphic that shouts: ‘‘We know where your friends
are—Welcome to Cisco—Would you like a job?’’ Cisco
leverages its Website not so much as a classified ad but
more as an advertising link, trumpeting the power of the
culture to lure top talent into applying with an industry
leader. Choosing from a menu of offerings that range
across hot jobs, benefits, university relations, diversity,
and job fairs, Website visitors are enticed to click on the
‘‘culture’’ button. This is clearly a site that defines the
Cisco corporate culture as an innovative one.
The culture page discusses Cisco’s purpose, mission,

communications strategies, flexible approach to work,
diversity process, and work environment, as well as pro-
grams and facilities available to employees. This last list-
ing boasts that Cisco’s employees are some of the most
well-known experts in networking, so why not work with
the experts?
Such an innovative focus within staffing practices
has paid a huge dividend for Cisco. More than 60 percent
of all hires are referrals from current employees, a fact
that significantly decreases the traditional costs of non-
referral recruiting. More than 90 percent of all hires go
through Profiler, an online application process, again re-
ducing the cost of traditional paper-pushing recruiting
and heightening the quality of the applications culled in
the process.
Learn, Contribute, Grow

Keeping great talent at Cisco involves far more than the
traditional activities of chanting slogans and waving ban-
ners. To begin, just scan the following list of services
available to employees:
▼ Cafeteria (opens early, 7:00 A.M.; closes late, 7:00

P.M.)
▼ Onsite dry cleaning pickup and delivery
▼ Onsite stationery store
▼ Onsite car wash program
▼ ATM, stamp vending machines, mail room privileges
▼ Shuttle buses to CalTrain and rapid-transit stations
▼ Commuting vouchers
▼ Fitness center with professional staff and classes
▼ Volleyball and basketball courts, walking and jog-
ging trails
▼ Multiple annual fairs (health, safety, earthquake

preparedness, etc.)
▼ Internal e-mail aliases; special interests from gar-
dening to technology
These benefits are the tip of the iceberg of efforts to re-

tain top talent. Norman Snell, the director of global com-
pensation, benefits, and HR operations, sees his role as
focused on driving the Cisco culture through retention
and rewards activities, rather than simply tinkering with
compensation and bonus plans. Since he knows that cul-
ture fundamentally determines retention of excellent
employees, he focuses much of his energy on a few potent
cultural drivers.
First, everyone is an owner at Cisco. Every employee
has opportunities to own company stock. As of mid-1998,
48 percent of the more than $2.5 billion in unvested gain
at Cisco is held by individual employees, a huge number
that powerfully demonstrates the employee-as-owner phi-
losophy. In total, Cisco gives 4.75 percent of equity back
to employees, a massive reinvestment to current em-
ployees.
Second, Cisco targets base pay at the 65th percen-
tile, just above average. This is well in line with most
other world-class companies, which pay comfortably
above average without the desire to join the all-too-
common high-stakes bidding wars. With a powerfully
balanced retention program, like other aligned organiza-
tions Cisco has found you need not pay in the extreme to
retain superior employees. It is far more important to
create an exceptional culture that allows winners to hang
around other winners.
Third, alongside his colleague Beau Parnell, the di-
rector of human resources and organizational develop-
ment, Snell devotes significant time to reminding people

of the larger mission of the company. Parnell notes that
technical employees have a passion to ‘‘learn, grow, con-
tribute, and have an impact on the industry.’’ He also
readily proclaims that ‘‘people love to go on a crusade,’’
and seven of every ten employees at Cisco are ‘‘techies,’’
possessing a passion for the latest technology toys. Con-
sistent with the mission, Cisco reinvests 11 percent of its
budget into research and development, further reinforc-
ing its commitment to shape the future. The result of
such retention processes is a single-digit turnover rate,
an almost-unheard-of low number in a technology and in-
novation-driven culture.
The drive to fulfill the mission is at the heart of Cis-
co’s culture of innovation. From technology to its growth
and human-resource practices, Cisco is clearly a great
example of such a culture. When asked by the authors
why he stays at Cisco, Snell said it best: ‘‘Because we’re
making history every day!’’
NOTES
1. Andrew S. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the
Crises Points That Challenge Every Company and Career (New York:
Currency/Doubleday, 1996).
2. Interview with executives of Cisco Systems (May 4, 1998).
3. James Martin, Cybercorp (New York: AMACOM, 1996).
4. Randall E. Stross, The Microsoft Way (Reading, Mass.: Addison-
Wesley, 1996), p. 35.
5. Alan Deutschman, ‘‘How H-P Continues to Grow and Grow,’’
Fortune (May 2, 1994), pp. 90–94.
pany (New York: AMACOM, 1996), p. 99.
7. Cisco Systems Website, ‘‘Cisco Fact Sheet’’ (March 1998).
8. Matt Goldberg, ‘‘Cisco’s Most Important Meal of the Day,’’ Fast
Company (February-March 1998), p. 56.
CHAPTER 5
A CULTURE OF
OPERATIONAL
EXCELLENCE
‘‘It is unthinkable to hire, promote, or tolerate

those who cannot or will not commit to this way of
work.’’
—Jack Welch, CEO, General Electric
Jack Welch made this statement in his 1998 annual letter to

shareholders and employees. His passionate commitment to
‘‘this way of work’’ leaps from the page. What is he so forcefully
promoting? He is leading the charge to build at GE a corporate
culture obsessed with operational excellence. But GE is not
alone in its passion for operational excellence. The United States
has witnessed phenomenal growth in the number of successful
61
companies that embrace this culture, now including such house-

hold names as McDonald’s, Toyota, and Xerox.
The underlying purpose of an operationally excellent cul-
ture is to create processes that minimize costs while maximizing
productivity and efficiency. Such a process focus allows opera-
tionally excellent companies to quickly recognize and contain
unnecessary production and delivery costs that add little value.
Although outsiders might call them cheap, operationally excel-
lent companies are proud to be some of the world’s most cost-
conscious businesses. Yet as penny-wise as they are, operation-
ally excellent companies seldom fall into the trap of being
pound-foolish in their quest for world-class productivity.
The underlying purpose of an operationally excellent

culture is to create processes that minimize costs while
maximizing productivity and efficiency.
Maximizing productivity and efficiency is critically impor-

tant within operationally excellent companies. Attention, re-
sources, and dollars are constantly invested in the tools
necessary to increase productivity and decrease cycle time.
Whether in manufacturing, retail, education, or services, these
companies are obsessed with creating a lean, mean, smoothly
operating machine.
Competitive advantage stems from process excellence in
product or service creation and delivery. From seamless supplier
chains to virtual inventories, operationally excellent companies
strive to create systems that ultimately keep costs low while
maintaining state-of-the-art production and distribution sys-
tems that maximize economies of scale.
Although the other core-culture components of customer
service, innovation, and employee spirit are important, the key
emphasis within an operationally excellent culture is on process
efficiencies. Through such emphasis on efficiency, these cultures
A Culture of Operational Excellence 63
attain the other standards of excellence too, as customer service

and satisfaction rise, innovation flourishes, and employee satis-
faction and job security increase.
Through emphasis on process efficiency, operationally

excellent cultures attain the other core standards of ex-
cellence too, as customer service and satisfaction rise,
innovation flourishes, and employee satisfaction and
job security increase.
A SIMPLE FOUNDATION
Although attaining process excellence can at times be extremely

complicated, its foundation is quite simple and straightforward.
Nucor Steel of Charlotte, North Carolina, a $3.6 billion spe-
cialty steelmaker, exemplifies this realization. A leader obsessed
with operational excellence, Nucor’s chairman Ken Iverson says,
‘‘Seventy percent of [our success] has to do with culture.’’ How
so? Nucor’s strategy and culture is wonderfully simple: to build
steel manufacturing facilities economically and to operate them
efficiently. Nucor builds the same basic mini mill design
throughout the country and then teaches employees to ‘‘simply
produce more products for less money.’’ Nucor’s operationally
excellent culture is the model for today’s intensely competitive
steel industry.1
General Electric is another example of a culture obsessed
with operational excellence. Leaders abound within GE who en-
courage their 260,000 employees to become zealots for Six Sigma
quality, the rigorous quality improvement program that focuses
on reducing defects to 3.4 defects per million processes. For such
a hugely diversified company as GE, this means 3.4 defects for
every million aircraft engines, every million light bulbs, and
every million appliances, locomotives, financial service transac-

tions, or power systems produced and delivered.
McDonald’s is another global enterprise with a culture of
operational excellence. Whether in Moscow or Miami, a Mc-
Donald’s hamburger is prepared to exactly the same standards
of excellence. Springing from its four foundation beliefs (quality,
service, convenience, and value), McDonald’s ‘‘Hamburger Uni-
versities’’ (training facilities) are known worldwide for their em-
phasis on teaching the fundamentals of operational excellence to
every franchise manager in every nation possessing a McDon-
ald’s restaurant. With such an obsession for process excellence,
McDonald’s is an inspirational model for worldwide success of
any culture driven by operational excellence.
BIG PAYOFFS
Although an intense focus on operational excellence does not

come cheap, the payoffs can be staggering. For example, GE
invested over $450 million in 1998 in quality initiatives alone
but expects that the effort will return more than $1.2 billion to
revenues. L. L. Bean, the nation’s largest outdoor catalog com-
pany, recently completed a $38 million, 650,000-square-foot
order fulfillment center in Freeport, Maine, to better handle the
company’s business of more than $1 billion. The result: An
order that five years ago took two weeks to fill and deliver can
now be processed and packaged for overnight delivery within
two hours.2
EFFICIENCY: OVERCOMING THE ‘‘HERBIES’’
In his best-selling novel The Goal, Eli Goldratt offers an elegant

example of another key to operational excellence: overcoming
process bottlenecks. During a camping trip with his son’s Boy

Scout troop, the main character realizes that the scouts can only
march as fast as the slowest marcher, a boy named Herbie.
Everyone slows down or stops so Herbie can catch up. Herbie
therefore becomes the bottleneck to the overall operational effi-
ciency of the marching troop.3
Operationally excellent cultures relentlessly focus on elimi-
nating the ‘‘Herbies,’’ those sometimes recognizable and some-
times tough-to-find bottlenecks to productivity. Precise internal
performance measuring and feedback systems revolve around
specific work processes to better uncover many elusive Herbies.
New streams of processes are then created to overcome, elimi-
nate, or minimize the impact of such process roadblocks.
QUALITY STILL LIVES
Operationally excellent cultures often frame their process-im-

provement foundation principles upon the works of such famil-
iar quality gurus as W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and
Philip Crosby. Companies today blend the best ideas from such
giants into their unique cultural needs, thereby creating their
own special approach to process excellence. The overriding ele-
ment common to these approaches, however, is an absolute
focus on improving the processes that sustain their unique com-
petitive advantage within their respective markets.
A significant aspect of operationally excellent cultures is
their mandate for fact-based information. From change initia-
tives to new markets, information analysis is at the heart of pro-
cess improvement. From fact-based assessments of market
demographics, customer needs, and competitors, quality-driven
organizations carefully study how to create, develop, and deliver
their products to best meet strategic goals.
Cultures of operational excellence continue to embrace the
now-famous Japanese management concept of kaizen. The quest

for permanent, daily, continuous improvement is of paramount
importance. Without emphasis on personal and professional
kaizen, the competitive advantage of operationally excellent cul-
tures inevitably suffers.
CORE CULTURE CONNECTIONS
Here is how a culture of operational excellence connects to em-

ployees in several important ways.
Standardize
Although centralized planning as a political system may have

died with Soviet communism, as an economic model central
planning is alive and well. Operationally excellent cultures often
go against the grain of current popular management thinking.
Rather than promoting a bottom-up, decentralized approach,
many operationally excellent cultures promote a top-down, cen-
tralized approach.
Standardization is central to the success of a culture of op-
erational excellence. Clear, consistent procedures ensure the uni-
formity that this model of core culture holds as essential to
excellence. Whether buying a McDonald’s Big Mac or a Ford
Escort, customers are assured that through the company’s stan-
dardization of process, the hamburger or the car is the same in
Berlin and Boston.
Although many workers may disdain such a big-brother
environment, the exceptional employees within operationally
excellent companies thrive on being asked to follow standard
policies and procedures. They understand that for the company
to succeed, they must follow well-crafted, performance-enhanc-
ing standards. Great employees within operational-excellence
cultures do not see performance to exacting standards as over-

bearing; rather, they take pride in knowing their adherence to
and focus on meeting such standards increases organizational
competitiveness, success, and ultimately their own job security.
Get It Right
J.B. Williford (Jim Harris’s father-in-law) is a wonderful man. A

military man by profession, his value system is that there is only
one way to do anything: the right way. ‘‘Do it right and get it
right the first time’’ is how he lives and works. (Naturally, as
with many of us, the right way is usually his way.) He is abso-
lutely passionate about doing things the right way. He beauti-
fully connected to the military way and was a perfect fit for the
air force’s operationally excellent culture.
Getting it right means doing everything possible to make
the process work the first time. Rework is a cardinal sin. Any-
thing that impedes first-time pass-through quality is assessed
and corrected. All efforts are geared to ensuring a first-time,
every-time process.
Getting it right also means making the right tools and re-
sources available to the right people so they can succeed. Imag-
ine the car rental giant Hertz attempting its phenomenally
successful and efficient check-in system (leave the plane; ride a
bus directly to your car; get into the prestarted car; drive away)
without the proper up-front informational process and tools.
It’s absurd to even consider an alternative approach, and that’s
the point. Yet many organizations attempt just that, undertaking
similar get-it-right processes without having the right people,
tools, and resources, and often failing miserably.
Great employees within operationally excellent cultures
connect to the get-it-right approach to work. They have a pas-
sion for first-time quality. They take enormous pride in not only
doing the right thing, but in doing it the right way—the com-
pany way.
Measure Twice, Cut Once
While running a custom home building company in the 1970s, I

learned a valuable lesson that was told through an old carpen-
ter’s adage: Measure twice, cut once. All great carpenters care-
fully measure their wood cuts once, and then again, ensuring
maximum accuracy and minimum error. As a result, fewer costly
errors occurred when we took the time to double-check our
measurements. Yet when errors did occur, whether in the mea-
surement or the cut, I have often heard carpenters say, ‘‘Well, a
carpenter can hide his mistakes—but a doctor buries his.’’ There
was another lesson in that bit of humor: Mistakes are vigorously
avoided within operationally excellent cultures, but they are also
understood within the grander scheme.
A more popular rendition of the measure-twice, cut-once
connection is that ‘‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.’’
In an operational-excellence culture, everything is measured. If
it moves, if it does not move, or if it even thinks it might move,
it is measured. Numbers are attached to literally everything,
from the initial concept to the end product. Employees in opera-
tionally excellent cultures receive a sometimes overwhelming
array of information, data, and process analysis upon which to
measure and improve their performance. Whether by quality,
quantity, time, or cost, such precise measurement allows the
company to fine-tune every aspect of the process.
Top-notch employees in cultures of operational excellence
connect to constant measurement of their performance. The
measurement systems immediately give them feedback as to
whether or not they are doing well or where they need to im-
prove. Great employees applaud the real-time feedback systems
available and are often self-motivated to improve their work

without supervisor input.
‘‘Stay Within the Lines; the Lines Are Our Friends’’
A few years ago, a popular TV commercial portrayed a stately

schoolteacher admonishing the class to ‘‘stay within the lines;
the lines are our friends.’’ The camera pans to one student who
is daydreaming of smashing his 4 ⳯ 4 pickup truck through a
large cake and defiantly driving quite outside the lines for an
off-road mountain adventure. This student would have difficulty
connecting with an operationally excellent culture.
Operational excellence mandates that employees stay
within the lines of process excellence. Indeed, the (guide)lines
are their friends. Individualism is not abolished within such a
culture, but restraints on unlimited individuality are necessary
to maintain order. Following carefully crafted, researched, and
revised operation guidelines is the sure path to success. For ex-
ample, the McDonald’s operation manuals spell out in great de-
tail what every employee needs to know to meet the company’s
rigid standards. Included within these manuals is everything
from the obvious (the exact temperature for cooking their fa-
mous french fries) to the not-so-obvious (how each bathroom
must be cleaned, and how often). Founder Ray Kroc achieved
his dream of building a restaurant chain that would become fa-
mous for its uniformity of food preparation and presentation.
Rules reign supreme within cultures of operational excel-
lence. Whether rules in procedures, process, or even product-
line extensions, variety is rejected and procedures are king.
Creativity and freedom of expression, although necessary for
long-term excellence, are only allowed within well-defined pa-
rameters. For example, Tulsa-based Commercial Financial Ser-
vices, the world’s largest bad-debt collection company, has a
three-volume procedures manual of incredible detail. According
to credit card guru H. Spencer Nilson, such a rules-driven focus

allows Commercial Financial Services to be ‘‘the largest, best-
trained, and most efficient debt-collection operation in the
world.’’4 By staying within the lines at Commercial Finance Ser-
vices, employees further their company’s industry-leading per-
formance.
Employees within such a culture understand the power of
uniformity. They seldom view guidelines as constrictive but
rather as guarantors that they are on the pathway to excellence.
By staying within the lines, top employees maintain the momen-
tum of operational excellence.
Waste Not, Want Not
In a culture of operational excellence, any waste is abhorrent.

Precision in all endeavors is everything. Waste is spotted, at-
tacked, and quickly destroyed. Throughout the 1980s, compa-
nies viciously fought against internal waste. A great example of
superseding what was, just a few years ago, a horrendous waste
of time, paper, and money is what is now a common commercial
activity: the paperless intercompany transaction.
Virtual integration of producers, suppliers, distributors,
and sellers has all but eliminated the paperwork of yesterday.
Through electronic commerce and continuous-replenishment
systems, tremendous waste has been eliminated; offenders have
been forced into sometimes reluctant participants under the
focus and insistence of operationally excellent cultures. For ex-
ample, Wal-Mart’s continuous replenishment system is un-
equaled in efficiency. Integration of product from factory to
store is a marvel to behold; it’s the company’s key competitive
advantage. Little effort is wasted in product ordering, and little
effort is expended in moving product to the stores.
High-performing employees in cultures of operational ex-
cellence connect to the waste-not, want-not approach. They
scour their work areas for undetected waste, enthusiastically

sharing both their discoveries and remedies.
SmithKline Beecham: Simply Better
Simply Better (SIMPLY adv. Ⳮ BETTER adj.). Phrase

belonging to or associated with the company SmithKline
Beecham. Denotes a way of working that encourages
continual improvement by each individual. Simply ⳱
keeping things simple, efficient, and straightforward. Bet-
ter ⳱ an inherent desire to continually improve, to gain
an advantage.5
In 1989, the U.S. company SmithKline & French merged

with U.K.–based Beecham to create what was at that time
the fourth largest health care company in the world,
SmithKline Beecham (SB). SB senior management un-
derstood from the outset the tremendous opportunity
they had in the merger to create an entirely new culture
founded on the rich history of both companies. To be a
world-class company, they began the ‘‘simply better’’
journey, an ongoing strategic process that has trans-
formed SB’s combined culture into one of operational
excellence.
Today, SB’s pharmaceutical division produces and
markets many of the world’s top anti-infection, cardio-
pulmonary, and vaccine products. Perhaps most known
for their consumer health care division, SB also makes
such household over-the-counter drugs as Contac, Tums,
Aquafresh, and Nicoderm. SB is also a world leader in
pharmaceutical benefits management services, clinical
laboratory work, and in health care management and
cost containment services. With 1997 sales of $12.7 bil-
lion, SB is a steadily growing giant in the global health

care industry.
Process, Process, Process

The foundation for SB’s culture is its S-D-C-A/P-D-C-A
process. All process management at SB begins with a
Standardize, Do, Check, Act (S-D-C-A) process that helps
ensure consistent, reliable results. Once S-D-C-A creates
the desired level of operational excellence, all related
projects or activities then embrace the Plan, Do, Check,
Act (P-D-C-A) sequence, SB’s systematic process ap-
proach to working smarter.
Process thinking and process management are criti-
cal to SB’s continuing success. Whether in health care
services, pharmaceuticals, or benefits management, all
employees strive to achieve efficient, effective, standard-
ized, and reliable processes. Fact-based analysis is there-
fore essential, moving SB beyond reliance on intuition in
all key business initiatives. Long-term business improve-
ment initiatives are linked to daily work, thereby propel-
ling continuous, incremental improvements toward
corporate goals.
Measurement is another key ingredient to the suc-
cess of SB. As CEO Jan Leschly likes to say, ‘‘If you’re
not keeping score, you’re just practicing.’’ Critical-step
measurements enhance SB’s ability to make real-time ad-
justments and improvements to overall processes. Al-
though ultimate value is measured in the customer’s eye,
SB trains all employees on the value of the individual’s
work and how it adds to overall operational excellence.
Simply Better Staffing

As Dave Pernock, senior vice president of sales and mar-
keting, points out, SB’s innovative staffing processes are
simply better because of their focus on being personal,

consistent, and involved. SB relies on internal manage-
ment, not external recruiters, for the majority of its
staffing needs. Pernock believes that internal manage-
ment gives a ‘‘personal, refreshing review of the com-
pany’’ to candidates, something no outsider can do.
Further evidence of the power of the personal approach
is that SB employee referrals account for more than 40
percent of all new hires. Armed with a brochure and au-
diotape titled ‘‘The Company You Keep,’’ which describe
the SB culture and workplace, employees actively recruit
candidates through one-on-one personal contact.
A uniquely personal demonstration of the SB staffing
process is the town hall recruiting trip. Teams of SB man-
agers fly into medium and small-sized towns to share one-
on-one about the SB culture and career opportunities.
Most important, they treat the applicants as customers,
sharing annual reports, giving overviews of current proj-
ects, and allowing candidates to ask any questions they
like about working at SB. This progressive twist to the
now-common corporate town hall meeting helps SB stay
ahead of the competition in attracting top talent.
Perhaps the most novel personal staffing technique
in SB’s current arsenal is its simply-better process-im-
provement approach to campus recruiting. After seeking
permission from the college, SB sends out managers to
walk around the campus, talk to students about what
they look for in a prospective employer, and ask how SB
can become a better recruiter—and they ask the stu-
dents to talk on tape! Not only does distributing the re-
sultant taped comments throughout the SB system help
improve campus recruiting processes; it sends a powerful
message to the students that SB cares, listens, and is
constantly focused on process improvement. Many stu-
dents say they can’t believe that a company actually

sends someone to campus before the on-campus inter-
views to ask for their opinions and ideas.
Regardless of location, SB’s recruiting process is rig-
orous, standardized, and consistent. All managers in-
volved in the recruiting process attend internal training
programs and are certified on the SB way of recruiting.
Whether in Belfast or Brooklyn, internally trained re-
cruiters can consistently apply their standard processes
to uncover top talent. Further, with such a standardized
staffing process, SB minimizes wasted time, reduces un-
necessary duplication of effort, and streamlines its global
staffing processes.
Simply Better Retention
SB’s retention strategies are furthered by many out-

standing processes, but none is more powerful than the
focus on continuous learning, keeping employees in the
loop, and communicating to employees the company’s
expectations of all its leaders. To jump-start productivity
among new hires, SB complements individual testing
with up to twelve weeks of rigorous product and services
training. An annual recertification process promotes
continuous learning for field staff. SB’s Center for Strate-
gic Leadership drives lower-level and midlevel manage-
ment learning through an annual credit-based program.
Managed by the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the
program requires participants to read for and pass a cer-
tain number of mandatory and elective credits every year
or face remedial training.
SB understands how keeping employees in the loop
of company information is critical to high retention. Dur-
ing a recent potential merger, SB executives stayed con-

nected to employees by using a toll-free phone number
to call their ‘‘voice mail town hall.’’ Key questions were
taken from the voice mail and answered on a weekly in-
ternal broadcast to all company operations. Employees,
nervous about the potential impact of the merger, were
motivated to stay as they heard open, honest answers to
expression of their concerns. Many divisions sponsor reg-
ular ‘‘meet the boss’’ symposiums where employees in
groups of fifteen to twenty are allowed to ask any ques-
tion they wish, including anonymous queries written on
note cards.
Leadership behavior is a key element in SB’s reten-
tion success. Managers are rewarded and promoted based
upon their ability to drive the core culture. Furthermore,
employees are told what they can expect from their lead-
ers, including being involved in challenging and mean-
ingful work, supported in their attempts to improve
process, recognized and rewarded for their contribu-
tions, given honest and open feedback on their perfor-
mance, and treated as a true team member through
honest and fair interactions. Through such a focus on
leadership behaviors and employee expectations, SB con-
nects with its high-performing employees, which results
in enviable levels of retention and productivity.
Fostered by the vision of top management, designed
around the foundation of improving core processes, sup-
ported by new-thinking, staffing, and retention pro-
grams, and encouraged through management’s showing
that it has the courage to walk the leadership talk,
SmithKline Beecham’s ‘‘simply better’’ way is a great
blueprint for operational excellence.
NOTES
1. Kenneth Iverson, Plain Talk: Lessons From a Business Maverick
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
2. Kate Kane, ‘‘L.L. Bean Delivers the Goods,’’ Fast Company (Au-
gust-September 1997), pp. 104–113.
3. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North
River Press, 1992).
4. Jerry Useem, ‘‘The Richest Man You’ve Never Heard Of,’’ Inc.
(September 1997), pp. 43–59.
5. Excerpted from the handbook ‘‘Get Involved—It’s the Way We
Win,’’ outlining SmithKline Beecham’s corporate approach to cultural
renewal.
CHAPTER 6
A CULTURE OF SPIRIT
‘‘If you take care of your people,

they’ll take care of you.
If you don’t take care of your people,
they’ll take care of you.’’
Years ago, while attending an executive training program, I (Jim

Harris) heard these lines from a workshop leader. This simple
but forceful message burned into my consciousness and also
made its way into my notes at the seminar. The presenter’s pow-
erful message is a fine example of the primary philosophy of the
newest emerging core culture in corporate America and else-
where: the culture of spirit.
The culture of spirit is quickly gaining ground as a recog-
nizable and primary core culture. From seeds planted in the
1980s, spirit-driven cultures have grown to become one of to-
day’s mainstream business realities. From such pioneering com-
panies as ServiceMaster, Chick-fil-A, AES Corporation, and
77
Tom’s of Maine emerged a new business model, one that is not

afraid to tap into the human side of business.
Executives in spirit-driven cultures do not fall into the trap
of touting that ‘‘employees are our company’s greatest asset.’’
Rather, they proclaim that employees are the company, and they
back it up with a sincere, concerted effort to build a culture that
uplifts the spirit and energizes the soul. The assumption is sim-
ple: By taking care of its people, the people take care of the
business. Process, customers, and innovation are important, of
course, but no more so than tapping the spirit of the individual
employee.
Spirit-driven companies are obsessed with creating environ-
ments that unleash the limitless creativity, enthusiasm, and en-
ergy of people. They often embrace a higher calling, a special
cause, or a unique path to personal enrichment, all to better
themselves and the world. Whatever can be done to shape the
work environment to better enable an employee’s natural gifts,
values, and abilities to emerge is a top priority. Competitive ad-
vantage is therefore gained not so much through machines and
process, but rather through the collective energy and spirit of
employees bound together by a special cause.
WHY SPIRIT—AND WHY NOW?
There are many reasons why spirit-driven cultures are the fastest
emerging core corporate culture in the United States.
Backlash to Downsizing
The first is the backlash to proliferating and continuing corpo-

rate downsizings. Downsizings by their very nature imply a lack
of concern for employees. However unfair this implication may
be, frontline employees equate downsizing with bad. Radical
A Culture of Spirit 79
competition, globalization, and, yes, poor management have all

had a negative impact once perceived as a permanent connection
between employees and employers. Many of today’s excellent
employees are looking for a connection that surpasses yester-
day’s broken promise of job security.
Pay Inequity
A second reason for the fast growth in spirit-driven cultures is

the huge discrepancy between frontline and CEO pay. It seems
we read every day of another CEO receiving a massive stock
payoff even as the company cuts staff, closes facilities, and
misses operational plans. Such massive inequity eats at the very
heart of employees, diminishing their already tenuous loyalty to
the company and creating a chasm of disbelief between the front
line and the executive suite. Although employees realize they
have little control over how much pay their company executives
receive, they cry for rational (and even emotional) explanations
as to why they should recommit to their companies. Many of
today’s great employees are looking for connections to their
companies that bridge the abyss of pay discrepancy.
Declining Prospects for Advancement
Third, the narrowing career advancement ladder is producing a

distinct shift to more spirit-driven cultures. With layers of man-
agement disappearing daily, so goes opportunities for promo-
tion and advancement. Because many employees today continue
to be motivated by advancement opportunity, they become frus-
trated as the obvious next career steps disappear. Great employ-
ees are looking for company connection beyond promotions.
Workplace as Social Community
The fourth reason for the growth in spirit-driven cultures is that

the workplace has become the new social community. Not too
many years ago, the primary social community was the neigh-
borhood where we lived. We all vividly remember the neighbor-
hood where we grew up. Perhaps we knew everyone who lived
on the block and for the several blocks around us. We even knew
all the neighborhood dogs by name, their owners, and which
ones would bite! Yet today’s average employee is working longer
hours than ever before, and spending more time with work col-
leagues than with families or neighbors. The company has be-
come the social community. Deep and lasting friendships are
now more likely to emerge among workmates than among
neighbors. Employees are even more likely today to know the
names of their coworkers’ pets than their neighbors’ names!
Spirit-driven companies recognize the reality that today’s em-
ployees are looking for a deeper social connection to the work-
place and fellow coworkers.
Employee Disillusionment
The fifth reason for the growth in spirit-driven cultures is the

overall disillusionment of many of today’s workers. Most em-
ployees today do not want to feel stuck in an organization or
job for which they feel no passion, no great calling. They want
to feel fulfilled, to enhance their lives and the lives of others.
Many disillusioned workers (notably former military officers)
are now looking to nonprofit organizations for personal ful-
fillment.1 Spirit-driven cultures often connect with employees
in deeply personal, fulfilling ways.
THREE TYPES OF SPIRIT-DRIVEN CULTURE
Spirit-driven cultures tend to fall within three broad categories:

religion-focused, socially focused, and employee-focused.
Religion-Focused Cultures
Perhaps the most controversial emerging culture on the corpo-

rate landscape is the religion-focused culture. Their bold point
of departure is an open and forthright belief in God, from which
they grow the business accordingly. Sometimes condemned or
even mocked for attempting to mix the seemingly irreconcilable
realms of religion and business, these organizations stand firm
in their belief that running a business on religious principles in-
spires employee excellence that in turn engenders productivity
and profits.
Chiseled into a huge marble wall outside their Downers
Grove, Illinois, headquarters are ServiceMaster’s four objectives:
To honor God in we all we do,

to help people develop,
to pursue excellence,
and to grow profitably.
William Pollard helped grow ServiceMaster, a building

cleaning and maintenance giant, into a multibillion-dollar ser-
vice business guided by religious principles. The culture builds
employee dignity through a focus on the ‘‘soul or spiritual side
of the person doing the task.’’2 Going against popular opinion,
Pollard contends that ‘‘God and business do mix. For us, the
common link between God and profit is people.’’3
S. Truett Cathy took a similar approach in building Chick-
fil-A, a closely held fast-food company headquartered in At-
lanta. The corporate purpose at Chick-fil-A is (1) to glorify God
by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us, and (2)
to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with
Chick-fil-A. According to Cathy, being a success in business is
the best way to honor his religious beliefs. The results are im-
pressive. Even with a six-day workweek (stores are closed on
Sunday), Chick-fil-A consistently outsells competitors that are

open seven days a week and averages a less than 6 percent annual
store management turnover versus a 40 percent industry average.
Hundreds of spirit-driven companies across America are
more open and obvious than ever before about how they build
their cultures upon religious principles. For example, the mis-
sion at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, the successful
amusement park management company, is to ‘‘create memories
worth repeating in a manner consistent with Christian values.’’
Interstate Battery, based in Dallas, provides employees with op-
portunities for religious study, growth, and outreach. Leaders at
Hall-Mark Electronics, an electronics distributor also headquar-
tered in Dallas, often pray together on key business issues. These
organizations suggest how diverse, religion-focused cultures do
manage to blend their often-conservative yet time-honored
principles into a profitable, successful enterprise.
Socially Focused Cultures
Until the 1990s, the thought of creating social change while

earning profits was laughable. The prevailing sentiment was that
social concerns were social concerns, business concerns were
business concerns, and one could not mix the two. Not until
progressive, socially conscious companies like Ben & Jerry’s
Homemade and Tom’s of Maine demonstrated that social con-
scientiousness and profits were possible did corporate America
begin to take serious notice.
Pragmatic idealism may best describe the approach of so-
cially focused cultures. They are pragmatic in that they aggres-
sively pursue business success, yet idealistic in that they possess
a passion for having a positive impact on society. Motivated by
this pragmatic idealism, socially focused cultures strive to un-
leash their employees’ need to better themselves and the world
around them.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade has traditionally measured suc-

cess in terms of both profits and social issues. The Vermont-
based specialty ice cream and dessert maker has weathered the
sometimes scalding business commentary that accompanies any
higher-road company that occasionally slips or falls into tough
times. Yet cofounder Ben Cohen continues to fervently believe
that ‘‘business has a responsibility to give back to the commu-
nity.’’ Accordingly, more than 7.5 percent of the company’s pre-
tax profits continue to be donated to worthy causes around the
world. The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation sponsors such socially fo-
cused programs as an all-children’s Afro-Latin percussion band
that fights drug abuse and homelessness; a project that provides
farm animals to impoverished communities; and various housing
and economic development programs. In addition to the pretax
profits used by the foundation, one-half of the income generated
through fees from visitors’ plant tours is donated to specific
community service groups in Vermont.
Even within its current move to tighten business practices
under a new CEO (Perry Odak), Ben & Jerry’s continues to
stand firm in its support of social causes. Through Odak’s infu-
sion of more pragmatic business practices, the bottom line is
improving, and with it the ability to support the social agenda
they hold so dear.4 With a renewed focus, Ben & Jerry’s contin-
ues to be a wonderful work-in-progress on how to build and
sustain a socially based culture.
Kinko’s, the successful business services company, takes a
slightly different approach to being a socially focused culture.
According to founder Paul Orfalea, ‘‘our coworkers believe that
they are contributing to something larger than Kinko’s.’’5 The
Kinko’s experience is more than just a business connection for
the customers, a place for copying, report generating, bookbind-
ing, and related office services. Rather, Kinko’s is a primary so-
cial connection for customers—a place for independent,
typically home-based businesspeople to gather, socialize, gab,
trade horror stories, and help each other learn to run their busi-
nesses better. The entire in-store experience at Kinko’s produces
strong social connections among employees and customers,
which in turn builds strong business connections.
From international missions of service to creating social
connections for customers, socially focused cultures have
emerged as a viable business model. Such trailblazers as Ben &
Jerry’s and Kinko’s illustrate both the potential challenge and
the rewards of taking a higher social road.
Employee-Focused Cultures
Employee-focused cultures walk the talk of placing the employ-

ee’s needs at the forefront of the operation. Their uniqueness is
based upon a simple premise: The best way to take care of busi-
ness is to first take care of the people. In this way (and similarly
to the way in which the employer can meet employees’ religious
or spiritual needs and their desire to be of service to social
needs), as the company meets the needs of the employee, the
employee is then better able to meet the needs of the business.
As the company meets the needs of the employee

(which can be said to include religious or spiritual
needs and the desire to be of service to a social needs),
the employee is then better able to meet the needs of
the business.
Realize, however, that employee-focused cultures are not

country club environments where employees are endlessly pam-
pered. Actually, most employee-focused cultures are incredibly
demanding operations with high standards of excellence (and
corresponding expectations). Why is this the case? Thanks to
their concerted efforts to take care of the employees’ needs first,
employee-focused cultures are able to ask for and receive enthu-

siastic employee performance.
Rosenbluth International, the Philadelphia-based multibil-
lion-dollar travel company, epitomizes an employee-focused
culture. CEO Hal Rosenbluth believes that ‘‘the highest achiev-
able level of service comes from the heart, so the company that
reaches its people’s hearts will provide the very best service.’’6
His company reaches its associates’ hearts in a variety of ways.
Their annual three-day company celebration for all 4,500 associ-
ates is called Live the Spirit. All headquarters meetings are
posted, and any associate interested in the topic may attend. The
‘‘associate for a day’’ program lets employees shadow a senior
executive for the day and learn firsthand how the company oper-
ates. Rosenbluth’s best-selling book, The Customer Comes Sec-
ond, further illustrates his focus on employees.
Although replete with the latest technology, Rosenbluth
International sees it as merely a tool for the employees and not
the focus of competitive advantage. Putting employees first is its
chosen means to success. Rosenbluth’s phenomenal success boils
down to one powerful concept: to serve clients best, we have to
put people first.
Employee-focused companies also include ‘‘family
friendly’’ workplaces. Recently ranked the most family-friendly
company in America by BusinessWeek, First Tennessee Bank is
also one of Forbes’s financially top-performing banks for the
past five years. According to First Tennessee spokespersons, the
amazing array of family-friendly policies heightens employee
commitment, which in turn produces outstanding service and
profits.
First Tennessee’s commitment to a family-friendly environ-
ment is more than just corporatespeak. It is spelled out in every-
thing from employee handbooks to management training
programs. Management understands that often the most power-
ful employee connection to the company is through the immedi-
ate supervisor. So First Tennessee trains and holds supervisors

accountable for supporting their family-friendly programs.
CORE CULTURE CONNECTIONS
Whether religious, social, or employee-focused, a spirit-driven

culture connects to employees in several important ways.
Servant Leadership
Servant leadership is the concept that the greatest leaders are

first of all servants to those they lead. By serving her people
first, the servant leader better understands the needs of the em-
ployee, can more quickly react to his needs, and can more easily
coordinate the tools and resources necessary for his superior
performance. Management decisions, policies, and even corpo-
rate direction all feel a positive impact through servant leader-
ship.
A special bond is created in spirit-driven companies be-
tween servant leaders and the frontline people. They see manage-
ment as caring, employee-focused leaders. This caring is
reciprocated with strong bonds of loyalty and commitment to
company goals. Although no more powerful than the bonds cre-
ated within cultures built upon excellence in quality, service, or
innovation, those within the spirit-driven culture center upon
the humanness of work. A self-fulfilling prophecy emerges as
the servant leaders focus on the human spirit of the workers, and
in turn the workers reciprocate their spirit by striving toward
organizational goals.
Another element of the servant-leader connection is its
power as a role model for serving the front line first. When pro-
motion-seeking employees within a spirit-driven culture en-
counter a servant-leader approach, they inherently duplicate this
style within their own leadership activities. In effect, servant

leadership helps extend to all levels a take-care-of-the-front-
line-first management philosophy.
Work for a Greater Good
A powerful connection within spirit-driven companies is the

common urge to work for a greater good. Whether focused so-
cially, through religion, or on employees, connection to the
common cause inspires excellence throughout the operation.
Working for a greater good also taps into a subsurface human
need: to leave a lasting legacy.
Incredible levels of commitment, sacrifice, and noble efforts
can be observed within organizations dedicated to leaving a leg-
acy. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we all desire to
do something for posterity. We all want to be remembered for
something that stretches beyond our everyday existence. Many
professionals give their lifetime of work to nonprofit organiza-
tions in order to do so. Religious institutions are a prime exam-
ple. Thousands of other nonprofit groups exist not so much on
the basis of cash flow as on the united flow of employee efforts
to leave a legacy for those they choose to serve.
Private-sector companies can also attain the same level of
commitment and connection as nonprofit organizations do,
through helping employees develop a sense of legacy in their
worklife. With sincere, honest, nonmanipulative effort on the
part of senior management to work for the greater good, em-
ployees are far more likely to be self-motivated to contribute
their piece of the legacy, be it an internal company project or
one extending out to the community.
Build People First
Spirit-driven companies hold dear the precept that you must

first build the person before you can ask the person to excel.
Spencer Hays, CEO of Southwestern/Great American Com-

pany in Nashville, a $600 million diversified publishing, cloth-
ing, and insurance company, says ‘‘You can’t build a business;
you build people.’’7 At Timberland, the New Hampshire–based
footwear manufacturer, they proudly state, ‘‘We are investors:
We invest in employees.’’ This build-people-first philosophy be-
comes a powerful connection between employees and the com-
pany.
A central tenet within most spirit-driven companies is an
obsession to train, develop, and nurture all employees, regard-
less of level. It is easy and quite typical in corporate America
to concentrate most employee development on management or
highly technical jobs. In a spirit-driven company, this approach
with its inadvertent neglect of the personal and professional
growth needs of any group of employees is just short of blasphe-
mous. Because an individual’s dignity is held sacred within a
spirit-driven company, building people first means building all
people and not just the select few.
Faith, Hope, and Charity
The book of Hebrews (11:1) says, ‘‘Faith is being sure of what

you hope for and certain of what you do not see.’’ Spirit-driven
cultures are known for their ability to connect hoped-for yet
unseen results with the employee’s desire to make a difference.
This special connection of faith, hope, and charity is often the
key to distinguishing a spirit-driven culture from the rest.
Whether through powerful missions, visions, celebrations,
posters, or daily reminders, spirit-driven companies consistently
reinforce to employees that they hold a joint journey along a
different road from that taken by most workers. Employees are
often overwhelmed with communications and information on
their progress toward the united purpose. Although often con-
sidered too touchy-feely for quality, service, and innovation
core cultures, spirit-driven cultures leverage the unique combi-

nations of faith, hope, and charity to actively engage the hearts
and souls of their workers.
Beyond the Bottom Line
Spirit-driven companies measure their success by a different set

of standards from those of most nonaligned companies. Instead
of measuring organizational success exclusively upon the bot-
tom line, spirit-driven organizations tend to measure success and
impact on more than just profit.
The standards by which spirit-driven companies measure
success are as varied as the companies themselves:
▼ AES Corporation, a progressive power generating com-

pany headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, annually reports to
stockholders its progress (or lack of it) in meeting their goals in
terms of the values of integrity, fairness, fun, and social responsi-
bility.
▼ The Noel Group, a Stevens Point, Wisconsin, travel busi-
ness, publishes a booklet entitled ‘‘Foundations’’ that shares the
foundation values and principles that cofounders John and Patty
Noel embrace in their dedication to ‘‘leave a lasting legacy in life
to make the world a better place for all of us to live.’’ All pro-
ceeds from sales of the two-dollar booklets are donated to Noel
Group’s Make a Mark humanitarian program, dedicated to
building orphanages, schools, and clinics worldwide.
▼ Patagonia, a leading outdoor clothing company, mea-
sures its success in environmentally friendly production. An
open letter to customers in the 1997 fall catalogue lamented that
‘‘the production of our clothing takes a significant toll on our
earth,’’ and went on to profess the company’s rededication to
lessening such an impact.
Regardless of the path, spirit-driven companies often in-

spire long-term employee retention though measuring both
company and individual success beyond the bottom line.
Competitive Yet Humane
Please do not be fooled: Spirit-driven companies are not weak,

soft, cuddly places to work (Southwest Airlines is a good illus-
tration in dispelling that notion). Their standards are just as high
as those of other core cultures, and sometimes higher. Yet within
pursuit of these high standards, they strive to maintain the hu-
manness of business.
Some of the fiercest, most competitive business executives
in America lead spirit-driven cultures. They often have an in-
credible desire to win, but not at all costs. Anything that could
have an adverse impact on the special connection with employ-
ees is carefully evaluated. If forced to implement policies or pro-
grams that might negatively affect the special bond, spirit-driven
companies quickly communicate the decision, discussing the
ramifications and the rationale, and clearly communicating man-
agement’s understanding of the impact. Spirit-driven companies
keep the human connection even in tough times.
Spirit-driven companies also attempt to connect to the
whole person. Rather than focus solely on the pocketbook or
the operations manual, they find ways to consistently remind
themselves that people are more than just a pair of hands and a
pair of eyes.
Many progressive companies such as Eli Lilly in Indianapo-
lis take a holistic approach to employee relations. Their policies
and programs are designed to address the whole human being.
Such a competitive yet humane approach is symbolic of spirit-
driven companies in general.
VanCity Credit Union: Right Values and Good Business
Nestled within the magnificent Canadian Rocky Moun-

tains, Vancouver is a progressive, shining-star city, the
pride of British Columbia. There is a special spirit that
inhabits the city of Vancouver, a spirit based on pride,
purpose, and people. Befitting this spirit is a shining-star
company headquartered downtown, one that epitomizes
the pride, purpose, and people of this great city.
VanCity Credit Union is Canada’s largest credit
union. With total assets of $5.5 billion and 1,500 employ-
ees at forty-five branches, VanCity serves virtually every
part of British Columbia. In addition to its core credit
union operations, VanCity’s subsidiaries include insur-
ance services, a real estate development group, Canada’s
first branchless online bank, an investment management
service, and a community foundation that supports chari-
table organizations in employment development, non-
profit enterprise, and affordable housing.
The basic business philosophy at VanCity is ‘‘We do
good when we’re doing good—we do good when we’re
not.’’ Always striving to earn great returns for its mem-
bers, VanCity is first and foremost a spirit-driven culture,
an organization passionately devoted to supporting doz-
ens of community-building programs throughout British
Columbia. From the top down, employees are inspired to
join in contributing to worthwhile projects that promote
the greater good of both members (customers) and citi-
zens. Here is just a sampling of the amazing array of so-
cial programs supported by VanCity:
▼ Loans to entrepreneurs based upon their character

and credit history, not their collateral
▼ Business planning and funding for existing women’s

enterprises
▼ A community car-sharing network
▼ A food and community garden cooperative
▼ Environmental protection projects
▼ A recycling depot in downtown Vancouver
▼ Housing grants for women leaving prison
▼ Low-income housing projects
▼ Job skill development, education, counseling, and
referral programs for street-involved youth
VanCity’s most recent employee survey verifies the com-

munity commitment. More than 95 percent of employees
believe that VanCity is a ‘‘valuable and contributing
member of our community’’ and ‘‘encourages staff to be
involved in our community.’’ More than 87 percent would
recommend VanCity as a ‘‘good place to work.’’ This
community-centered spirit is at the very heart of the
credit union’s success.
Corporate Image as Recruiting Magnet
Most companies fail to use the power of their community

image as a recruiting tool. Not true at VanCity, which
leverages its unwavering commitment to corporate social
responsibility as the primary recruiting tool. External
communications focus on corporate citizenry and the
core values of social responsibility. Programs and policies
center on how workers can best serve their members and
their communities. VanCity’s strategic community ser-
vice image pays a huge dividend in its recruiting efforts.
VanCity’s community image is based upon its corpo-
rate attitude to be seen as cooperative, flexible, helpful,
socially conscious, resilient, and service-minded. This
image, justified through the many community programs

it supports, magnetically attracts like-minded citizens.
They see VanCity living up to the rhetoric and are there-
fore attracted to apply. A larger group of citizens contin-
uously applies for membership in huge numbers, based
upon the organization’s unique perspective.
The customer experience at VanCity is so powerful
that members themselves frequently apply for jobs. As
one manager described it, members ‘‘hunt us down, join
us, experience us as a customer, love what they see, and
then decide to want to work for us.’’
With such a spirit-driven corporate image, VanCity
finds itself in the enviable position of often having too
many superlative applicants from which to choose.
VanCity’s staffing and management approach is to
‘‘interview hard, manage easy.’’ A competency-based in-
terviewing system combined with multiple interviews is
the preferred selection method. The combination of at-
tracting through corporate image and interviewing
through competencies allows VanCity the luxury of hiring
the very best people whose values match its spirit-driven
culture.
Keeping the Spirit Alive
Lauren St. John’s role in managing her department of

corporate spirit is to create opportunities ensuring that
the special VanCity spirit remains alive within each em-
ployee. With the philosophy that ‘‘good morale is good
business,’’ her staff focuses on a variety of initiatives to
keep top employees productive, happy, and loyal.
Employees are kept in the loop of company informa-
tion through a variety of internal communication sys-
tems. Task forces and focus groups allow input into
compensation and flexible benefits programs. Employee

opinion surveys audit the culture and form improvement
initiatives for the executive action plan team. CEO and
executive breakfast programs allow employees face-to-
face feedback from leaders on key business issues. Staff
newsletters and electronic bulletin boards keep employ-
ees in touch with the latest corporate news.
Recognition and motivation programs at VanCity ex-
tend beyond monetary rewards into employee commu-
nity involvement and personal development. The annual
recognition banquet celebrates company success as well
as reinforcing the behaviors important to team success.
Quality of life and employee training are critical to
employees at VanCity’s. With 89 percent women employ-
ees, VanCity invests significant time and resources in top
offerings in employee well-being programs, child-care as-
sistance, and flexible benefits. Programs that include job
sharing, resource libraries, and life-skills programs all
support the lifelong learning of VanCity employees. All
together, VanCity maintains one of the highest employee
retention rates in its industry.
With absolute dedication to the greater good, unre-
lenting passion to be held to a high standard, and cease-
less concern for improving the world around it (not to
mention having a department of corporate spirit), Van-
City Credit Union is a great example of a spirit-driven
culture. The last sentence in the opening letter of the
1997 annual report beautifully summarizes the organiza-
tion’s corporate spirit: ‘‘For every time our members
choose VanCity, it’s proof that the right values and good
business can succeed.’’
Little wonder that VanCity is the shining-star com-
pany of Vancouver.
NOTES
1. Hal Lancaster, ‘‘Disillusioned Workers Look to Nonprofit Orga-
nizations,’’ The Wall Street Journal (April 13, 1998).
2. C. William Pollard, The Soul of the Firm (New York: HarperBusi-
ness, 1996), p. 20.
3. Ibid., p. 22.
4. Paul C. Judge, ‘‘It’s Not Easy Being Green,’’ BusinessWeek (No-
vember 24, 1997), pp. 180–182.
5. Fast Company (January 1998), p. 166.
6. Hal Rosenbluth, The Customer Comes Second (New York: Wil-
liam Morrow, 1992), p. 24.
7. William Barrett, ‘‘An American Original,’’ Forbes Online (De-
cember 1997).
PART THREE
FINDING GREAT
EMPLOYEES
CHAPTER 7: BEST PRACTICES IN
STAFFING
CHAPTER 8: STAFFING BEST PRACTICES
IN ACTION
CHAPTER 9: ALIGNING STAFFING TO
CORE CULTURE
CHAPTER 7
BEST PRACTICES IN
STAFFING
Staffing involves everything that an organization does as part of

hiring an applicant. Staffing consists of two basic sets of activi-
ties: attracting candidates (employee recruitment) and screening
candidates (employee selection). Specific activities include such
things as:
▼ Defining job and organizational requirements

▼ Posting position openings internally
▼ Advertising job openings externally
▼ Evaluating job candidates
▼ Making the hiring decision
Organizations that staff most effectively link their staffing

strategies to their corporate culture. We refer to these companies
as aligned, and they are rare. Aligned organizations know their
core purpose, and they incorporate it into everything they do
related to staffing.
99
100 Finding Great Employees
Aligned organizations (those effectively linking

staffing strategies to corporate culture) know their core
purpose, and they incorporate it into everything they
do related to staffing.
EIGHT BEST PRACTICES IN STAFFING
We identify eight staffing best practices that aligned companies

use to find great employees. These best practices work for two
major reasons. First, they introduce the notions of job fit and
culture fit into the staffing equation. Second, by incorporating
the culture-fit component into staffing best practices, the em-
ployer creates strong cultural connections with the applicant be-
fore they are even hired. The company is therefore assured of
hiring someone who can do the job and support the company’s
core culture.
Staffing Best Practice One: The ‘‘WOW’’ Factor
Tom Peters defines WOW as ‘‘stepping out (individuals at all

levels in a firm and independent contractors) and standing out
(corporations and other organizations) from the growing
crowds of look-alikes.’’1 The notion of the WOW factor has a
significant impact on the effectiveness of staffing because it im-
mediately sets aligned organizations apart from other compa-
nies. Not being seen as part of the crowd is a tremendous
competitive advantage as a business recruits and selects appli-
cants.
Aligned companies know what makes them unique relative
to their competition. They also know how to communicate their
uniqueness effectively to a well-defined target market. Most im-
portant, aligned organizations leverage their uniqueness to cre-
ate a solid foundation for building a world-class workforce in
Best Practices in Staffing 101
which everyone supports the company’s core cultural driver, be

it customer service, innovation, operational excellence, or spirit.
Aligned companies ‘‘brand’’ their staffing process. Because
they have a clear idea of what sets them apart, compared to non-
aligned companies they are better able to communicate this im-
portant information to others. They incorporate their culture
into all communications and activities related to the staffing
process. They also place essentially equal importance on the two
notions of job fit and culture fit. Given a choice, they look for
applicants who fit well with the organization on both counts.
This strategy perpetuates their culture and keeps them unique
and successful relative to other companies.
Staffing Best Practice Two: Applicant as Customer
Nonaligned companies typically see applicants and customers as

two separate and unique groups of people. Even when recruiting
customers for jobs within the company, nonaligned companies
tend to view their advertising, customer service, marketing, and
recruiting activities as unrelated to one another.
Aligned companies, on the other hand, understand the
value of treating the applicant as a customer, which they do in
three ways.
Know What You Want in an Applicant
First, aligned companies know the qualities and characteris-

tics of their ideal applicant just as well as they know the qualities
and characteristics of their customer. It is not unusual for non-
aligned companies to invest significant resources so as to know
and understand customers. Nonaligned companies, however,
rarely invest the same level of resources in knowing and under-
standing their ideal applicant. Many companies typically define
the applicant as whoever responds to the classified ad or who-

ever completes an application.
Aligned companies invest considerable money, people, and
time resources in understanding who the ideal applicant is,
where to find this person, and how to make it easy for the ideal
candidate to find and contact the company. Aligned companies
then use this information to design unique and highly effective
staffing programs.
Communicate the Same Message to

Applicants and Customers
A second way that aligned companies treat their applicants

as customers is by communicating a consistent, culturally
aligned message to both customers and applicants. D. Wendal
Attig, a nationally recognized expert in the area of corporate
branding and founder of the Advisory Team in Clearwater, Flor-
ida, believes that ‘‘effective company branding requires a con-
gruency between the promise that the company makes to
customers and the promise that the company makes to its em-
ployees.’’2 According to Attig, the promises made to the cus-
tomer through advertising, marketing, and corporate branding
significantly affect an applicant’s ability to understand the com-
pany’s core culture. In turn, applicants then judge how they
might fit within that culture. It is therefore imperative to create
branding messages consistent with the core culture so as to at-
tract culturally aligned, potentially great employees.
Give Applicants a Positive Experience
A third way aligned companies treat applicants as custom-

ers is to ensure that all applicants have a positive staffing experi-
ence. Aligned companies go to great lengths to maintain an
upbeat, positive relationship with all applicants—even those not
hired. From friendly, personal contact with first-time applicants
to carefully crafted rejection methods, aligned companies pas-

sionately focus on treating candidates so well that they quickly
reapply for future openings (as well as remain lifetime cus-
tomers).
Staffing Best Practice Three: Image Is Everything
Aligned companies create excitement and enthusiasm about

their organization. This excitement makes people interested in
working for the organization. The first step in creating excite-
ment is to create a strong and positive company presence. Non-
aligned companies often believe they have that already by virtue
of constantly advertising for applicants. Job seekers may cer-
tainly be aware of the organization, but they may infer negative
messages about the company if all they see are never-ending
classified ads for openings within the company.
Aligned companies, on the other hand, create an image that
portrays them as both community leaders and industry experts.
Applicants form impressions about companies from various
sources:
▼ The company’s support of various local and civic organi-

zations and causes
▼ The company’s support of nationwide initiatives and
programs geared toward social change
▼ The company’s reputation in its industry, as described in
industry-related publications
▼ The company’s reputation as an employer, as described
by past and current employees
The community and national causes supported by a com-

pany communicate a great deal about the values of the organiza-
tion. The more your company is ‘‘out there’’ both in terms of
being a successful business and in giving back to the community,
the more likely it is that truly great applicants having a passion

for the company’s core culture will apply for a job.
Simply providing a general overview of your company in a
classified ad, at a job fair, or on your Website is not enough.
Aligned companies not only take advantage of opportunities but
also create their own opportunities to get the word out about
the company and its core focus. They do this by supporting
local and national programs that are consistent with the com-
pany’s core culture. Aligned companies have also been known
to play up different aspects of their culture depending on the
specific interests of the applicant or group of applicants they
want to hire. This strategy does not mean that the company
presents a different culture to different applicants. It does mean
that the company emphasizes different aspects of its culture that
it thinks would be most appealing to a particular applicant or
group of applicants.
In a recent message on an Internet site for human resource
professionals,3 Mr. John DePolo, Vice President for Consulting
for Bay Cities Research, Inc., in Palm Beach, Florida, described
factors that affect people’s decisions to change jobs. The factors
included such things as interesting work, employer flexibility, a
perception that employees can make a difference, and an apoliti-
cal environment within the company. Mr. DePolo suggested that
even if all those factors exist, ‘‘it’s vital that the community, at
large, knows it. If you can, send your employees out into the
technical community—to conferences, user groups, etc.—and
make sure others know that it’s a great place to work!’’
This strategy is not only important to high-tech organiza-
tions; others can benefit from it as well. Creating a strong, posi-
tive, public image of your organization as a great place to work
is critical to finding and keeping great employees. Yours can be
the greatest organization to work for, but if only a few people
know about it, you still have difficulty finding good employees.
A very effective, yet often overlooked, strategy for finding great
employees is to create and sustain a strong, positive, and very

public image.
Staffing Best Practice Four: Get Real
Organizations, just like people, are strong in some areas and

weak in others. Some organizations communicate their strengths
and weaknesses openly in the early stages of the staffing process,
while others do not. Nonaligned companies routinely use a best-
foot-forward or first-date strategy with applicants because they
do not want to risk losing them. What they do not realize is that
they may keep this person in the short term, but they are likely
to lose him in the long run. Putting your best foot forward re-
sults in wasted time and resources because applicants do not
fully realize what they are getting into, and when they do, they
may select out of the process. In nonaligned companies, appli-
cants often do so only after they have been with the company
for a while and experienced firsthand the strengths and weak-
nesses of the organization.
Aligned organizations, by contrast, know precisely where
they are strong and where they are not. Moreover, they clearly
communicate that information to all prospective new hires.
Aligned companies see the value of ‘‘getting real’’ with their job
candidates. They share ‘‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’’ early
on in the staffing process. This does not mean hanging out dirty
laundry in the initial interview, or describing in recruiting mate-
rials the downside of working for them. Aligned companies sim-
ply relate the positives and negatives of the job and the
organization in an objective, nonevaluative manner and let the
candidate decide whether this is an opportunity that she wants
to pursue.
In the short run, candidates who are turned off by this dose
of reality opt out of the staffing process early on. In the long
run, getting real maximizes the fit between candidate and organi-
zation. The candidate knows much better what she is getting

into because the organization has clearly communicated that in-
formation from day one.
Joseph Rosse and Robert Levin describe several examples of
giving realistic previews, which is one way to get real with job
candidates.4 Examples include allowing retail candidates to ob-
serve or experience the work required between Thanksgiving
and Christmas prior to hiring for the Christmas rush. Rosse and
Levin also discuss one organization that makes a well-known
consumer product with a fun image. This company makes the
extra effort to give candidates tours of the factory floor and the
offices so candidates know they are not ‘‘coming to work in
Santa’s workshop.’’ If these examples sound impractical because
of the time involved, consider a popular alternative: videotaping
this type of experience. At a minimum, make sure you devote
some time to discussing the pros and cons of the job and the
organization in the interview process. Overall, this practice en-
sures maximum fit between the applicant, the job, and the orga-
nization.
Staffing Best Practice Five: Job or No Job
Aligned companies know that it is no easy feat to attract and

hire top talent, especially those that are innately aligned with the
core culture of the organization. In today’s competitive labor
market, good applicants do not remain applicants for very long.
Companies must seize the opportunity when they find cultur-
ally aligned top talent.
Nonaligned companies typically use job openings to begin
(and end) their job searches. A position becomes vacant and the
company begins the staffing process for that position. The pro-
cess stops when the position is filled. In nonaligned organiza-
tions, the job opening drives the staffing process. The
nonaligned company’s entire focus is on filling the job, and fill-

ing it fast.
Aligned companies do not wait for a job opening to occur
before setting out to attract and hire culturally aligned talent.
They keep their eyes and ears open constantly for good candi-
dates. When they find them (and they always do), they hire them
regardless of whether there is a specific job opening or not. They
know top talent when they see it, and they create a place for it.
Staffing Best Practice Six: Multiplicity
Nonaligned organizations tend to stick to a small number of

familiar methods to recruit and select employees. They run a
classified ad in Sunday’s paper to recruit applicants, and they
screen job candidates through phone or one-on-one interviews.
Moreover, when filling a position, they typically involve only
one department or function in the staffing process. They have
HR perform all the functions related to staffing, or they involve
only the department that has the open position in the staffing
process.
Aligned companies understand the value of using multiple
methods and involving multiple people and departments in
staffing their organizations. They run classified ads. They post
their openings on their Website. They participate in job fairs.
They sponsor community-related activities and provide em-
ployment information at those activities. They interview candi-
dates. They test applicants. They do all of these things, and
more.
Not only do aligned companies use multiple methods, but
they also involve employees from various parts of the organiza-
tion in the staffing process. If there is an opening in marketing,
aligned organizations are likely to schedule a job candidate to
talk with HR, the prospective supervisor in marketing, some of
the coworkers in the department, and in some cases even internal
or external customers of the position. Staffing is not just a

human resource function in these organizations; it involves
everyone in the company because the company views recruit-
ment and retention as a major factor that is responsible for
growing the business.
Staffing Best Practice Seven: The Great-Employee

Profile
As previously noted, nonaligned companies tend to use job fit

as their primary means of defining a great employee. They de-
fine the knowledge, skills, and abilities required in the job and
then look at the match with the skills that the job candidate
possesses. Nonaligned organizations do not usually think much
about organizational fit; if they do, they tend to focus on very
general, socially desirable applicant qualities such as being a self-
starter or a good team player.
Aligned companies know who their ideal applicant is (see
best practice number two); they also know precisely who their
ideal employee is. Knowing the characteristics of the ideal em-
ployee further ensures that the aligned company maximizes the
fit between the person, the job, and the organization. Precisely
defining your ideal employee creates the standard by which you
compare all applicants. This information is critical in creating,
sustaining, or reenergizing a culture that supports your organi-
zation’s core focus.
Aligned organizations often create a ‘‘great-employee pro-
file’’ to help them sustain their cultural focus. The profile in-
cludes information about job requirements and expectations as
well as personal characteristics that are associated with the com-
pany’s culture. For example, someone who does not value serv-
ing others and solving others’ problems is unlikely to remain in
a customer-service organization. Someone who does not value
cutting-edge thinking and creative solutions to problems is un-
likely to remain in an innovation-driven culture. By incorporat-

ing information on organizational culture into your great-
employee profile, you know better the type of person you are
looking for and are more likely to keep that person after he is
hired.
Staffing Best Practice Eight: Beyond Benchmarking
Nonaligned companies tend to use tried-and-true staffing meth-

ods, and once they are in place they rarely change. ‘‘We’ve al-
ways done it this way’’ underlies the nonaligned company’s
approach to staffing. External forces, such as a competitive labor
market, drive the decision to change methods. If an external
event occurs, nonaligned companies tend to react by looking
to their competitors for ideas on how to improve their staffing
process.
A final best practice separates aligned companies from non-
aligned ones. The former do not wait for something to happen
to force them to change their staffing practices. When these or-
ganizations find that a staffing practice is working for them, they
do not become complacent and keep using that same method
forever. They constantly challenge themselves and their employ-
ees to identify even better ways to find great people.
A related characteristic that aligned companies share is that
they do not copy what other companies are doing. In fact, other
organizations usually copy them. Just as significant personal
growth comes from introspection or looking inward, significant
business change and growth often comes from looking inward.
Aligned companies involve employees at all levels in answering
the tough questions surrounding how staffing practices can best
support the company’s vision, purpose, and future direction.
Even though aligned companies investigate and consider what
other companies do related to staffing, they typically do not
weigh that information too heavily. They also do not need that
information to move forward in making changes in their own

programs.
Going beyond benchmarking suggests that there are two
ways aligned companies differ from the nonaligned. First,
aligned companies know the status quo; they track and measure
organizational performance frequently. From a staffing stand-
point, they collect and analyze metrics related to the staffing
function so they know, at any given moment, what is working
and what is not. The metrics consist of more than simply calcu-
lating cost-per-hire, or monthly or annual turnover rates for dif-
ferent positions or locations within the company. Aligned
companies measure the relative frequency of use of different re-
cruiting sources, the average time to fill a position, and, more-
over, the quality of employees hired using their staffing
methods.
Second, aligned companies know there is always room for
improvement. No matter how good things might be, aligned
companies know that things can be better. They constantly
strive to make things better.
To have a fully aligned staffing function, you must

measure what you currently do and use that informa-
tion to revise and improve. Measurement is the key for
keeping and improving staffing practices that consis-
tently attract culturally aligned top talent.
To have a fully aligned staffing function, you must measure

what you currently do and use that information to revise and
improve. This information provides the foundation for deter-
mining what works and what does not and allows adjustments
to be made as needed. Measurement is the key for keeping and
improving staffing practices that consistently attract culturally
aligned top talent.
NOTES
1. Tom Peters, The Pursuit of WOW (New York: Vintage Original,
1994), p. xi.
2. D. Wendal Attig, personal communication (April 28, 1998).
3. John DePolo, ‘‘High Tech Recruiting Practices,’’ HRNET@
cornell.edu (April 17, 1998).
4. Joseph Rosse and Robert Levin, High-Impact Hiring: A Compre-
hensive Guide to Performance-Based Hiring (San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass, 1997).
CHAPTER 8
STAFFING BEST
PRACTICES IN ACTION
Aligned companies lead the pack in the quality of applicants

they recruit and select. Contrary to popular opinion, aligned
companies possess no magic formula or secret weapon for suc-
cessful staffing. They use the same tools that are available to
everyone else. They hold job fairs, they advertise and post their
job openings, they interview job candidates, and they test job
prospects. They do all the things that go along with finding good
people. The big difference between aligned companies and their
nonaligned counterparts lies not in what they do but how they
do it.
PUTTING WHAT’S BEST INTO ACTION
Regardless of the core culture, aligned companies integrate most,

if not all, eight best-practice strategies described in Chapter 7
into their staffing function. This chapter provides dozens of ex-
113
amples of how they do it. Since one of the goals of this book is
to help you create an action plan to better align your staffing
strategies to your core culture, please strongly consider the fol-
lowing advice. As you read the many examples within each best
practice in this chapter, ask yourself the following questions:
1. How do you currently integrate the eight best-practice

strategies into your staffing function?
2. How might you integrate the essence of each example
into your current staffing plan?
3. What needs to be modified, expanded, eliminated, or
created to integrate these examples into your existing
staffing programs?
Through answering these questions, you jump-start your

action plan preparation and are much closer to aligning your
staffing strategies to your core culture.
Staffing Best Practice One in Action: The WOW Factor
As we saw in the previous chapter, the WOW factor refers to

how companies capitalize on their uniqueness to create an envi-
ronment that applicants want to work in. Aligned companies use
the WOW factor in their staffing practices to communicate their
uniqueness in all that they do prior to hiring a candidate. Here
are some great examples of how various companies incorporate
the WOW factor into their staffing processes.
▼ Girls (and Boys) Just Want to Have Fun.

Southwest Airlines provides one of the best examples of
how a spirit-driven culture can incorporate the WOW factor into
its staffing function. Southwest capitalizes on a reputation as
being a fun place to work and reflects that reputation in its clas-
sified advertising as well as hiring practices. For example, one
Staffing Best Practices in Action 115
recruiting ad shows a teacher scolding a little boy. The tag line

of the ad reads, ‘‘Brian shows an early aptitude for working at
Southwest Airlines . . . at Southwest Airlines, you get check
pluses for breaking the mold. For ‘coloring outside the lines.’ ’’
Another ad shows a photograph of CEO Herb Kelleher dressed
as Elvis. In the ad, the tag line reads, ‘‘Work in a place where
Elvis has been spotted. Send your resume Attention Elvis.’’1
Southwest goes even further to ensure that the culture of
fun is reflected in its hiring process as well. Through a variety of
group-hiring activities, the company assesses applicants and
hires employees who are other-oriented, outgoing, and have the
same sense of fun on which the company culture was built.
▼ Get Personal.
Winchester Hospital, in Winchester, Massachusetts, pro-
vides a wonderful example of how any innovation-driven culture
can use the WOW factor effectively in its staffing practices. The
hospital profiled Michael Gogola, the new chief information of-
ficer, in its recruitment efforts to take the facility in a new direc-
tion regarding information technology. According to Gogola,
‘‘We wanted to attract the best and brightest people, and we
wanted something that would differentiate us from the endless
array of technical openings listed in the newspapers.’’2 So, the
ads displayed a photograph of Gogola and described his efforts
to update the hospital’s technology. Other efforts to personalize
recruitment efforts at Winchester included providing onsite
child care facilities and offering free ski lift tickets during the
winter for employees who submitted referrals of qualified indi-
viduals for possible recruitment.
▼ There’s No Place Like Home.
In a strategy that could be effectively used in any customer-
service culture to increase stronger customer connections, the
city of Dubuque, Iowa, used the WOW factor to fill the city’s
labor shortage. Dubuque launched a ‘‘come home’’ campaign,
with city leaders focusing their recruiting efforts on former resi-

dents. They figured, Who is more likely to appreciate the city’s
culture and be willing to move to Dubuque than a former Dubu-
quer? The city began the campaign during the holiday season to
take advantage of former residents’ visiting relatives in Du-
buque, hoping that the relatives too would play a key role in
persuading their visitors to consider moving back to Dubuque.
The leaders of the recruiting effort also put 28,000 inserts
into alumni magazines from Iowa universities, and they even
sent letters to graduates. The city has also launched a come-
home Website that lists local job openings and allows job hunters
to apply for jobs online. The site also lets returnees shop elec-
tronically for houses and cars—and reminds them where to get
a fishing license.
▼ When Are You Leaving?
Lockheed Martin, known for its culture of innovation, of-
fers a unique benefit to employees that many see as an effective
and unusual staffing tool to lure employees who will support
Lockheed’s innovative culture. An entrepreneurial leave of ab-
sence program allows employees who want to start their own
business to do so, using two years of unpaid leave and having to
pay only the company’s rate for health insurance during this
time. Once the two years is up, the employee can either leave the
company or return. Lockheed Martin benefits in two ways.
First, the program is relatively unique and therefore a strong
recruiting tool. Second, for the successful employee spin-off
ventures, the company makes equity investments and strikes li-
censing agreements.
▼ Cool Places.
Federal Express provides a great example of how an opera-
tionally excellent culture can incorporate the WOW factor into
staffing. FedEx recruiters noticed that it took a long time to find
and hire information systems (IS) workers with the right mix of
technical skills. One reason was that many young professionals

did not want to relocate to the company’s corporate headquar-
ters in Memphis, Tennessee. Rather than trying to force appli-
cants to see the benefit of living in Memphis, FedEx moved
many of its new IS positions to Dallas, Colorado Springs, and
Orlando. Talented IS recruits now have their choice of locations.
This strategy proved to be very attractive and thus good for the
company in terms of finding and keeping employees who sup-
port their culture.
Staffing Best Practice Two in Action: Applicant as

Customer
Companies that treat their applicants as customers know their

applicants as well as, or even better than, they know their cus-
tomers. They also ensure that each applicant has a positive expe-
rience with the company during the hiring process. Regardless
of whether the applicant is hired or not, the company gains or
maintains a valued customer. Here are some good examples of
how various companies treat their applicants as customers.
▼ Casting a Net.
Cisco Systems, known for its innovation-driven culture,
uses Profiler, an online resume creator of the company’s own
design, to allow the applicant to ‘‘paint a picture of yourself that
differentiates you from everyone else.’’ Profiler’s easy-to-fill-in
boxes allow Cisco to carefully analyze each applicant’s core mo-
tivations and skills, evaluating them so as to quickly identify a
good potential match.
Another good illustration of Cisco’s innovative culture and
customer-service approach to dealing with applicants can be
found in a sidebar with Profiler. Since applications generally ar-
rive during regular business hours of 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M.,
while most applicants are at work, Cisco provided an ‘‘Oh no,
my boss is coming!’’ hot button. Realizing that a supervisor or

colleague might step into the applicant’s work area while the
employee is filling out an application to go to work for Cisco,
the hot button automatically puts up a screen that displays a
bulleted list of ‘‘Seven Habits of a Successful Employee’’! The
list includes such success habits as taking risks, embracing
change, not settling for just an OK project or job, and demand-
ing innovation. Two more lists are also accessible: a ‘‘List of Gift
Ideas for My Boss and Workmates’’ and ‘‘Things to Do Today,’’
which includes getting your Halloween costume from the dry
cleaners. If this is not enough to communicate to the Website
visitor during the application process what the culture is like at
Cisco, at the end of the Profiler application is a line that says,
‘‘OK, the fun’s over—get back to work!’’
▼ Radical Rejections.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade provides one of the most striking
examples of how a spirit-driven culture treats its applicants as
customers. Several years ago, it announced a ‘‘Yo, We Want You
to Be Our CEO’’ contest. Advertisements in most of the nation-
ally known business publications prompted 20,000 ice cream fa-
natics to apply for the position. Author Harris applied but was
sadly shocked that he was not called in for an interview. He
was, however, even more flabbergasted at what he received in
response to his query.
Enclosed in his ‘‘rejection’’ packet was a full-size Official
Rejection Letter—suitable for framing. The multicolored cer-
tificate had a picture of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, side by
side, each wearing a huge top hat emblazoned with the logo of
his favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor (White Russian and Chocolate
Chip Cookie, respectively). With the caption, ‘‘We almost
wanted you, Jim Harris, to be our CEO,’’ it went on to say that
‘‘it warms our hearts—and blows our minds—that someone of
your high caliber would even consider a career with us. Your
talents and potential convinced us that a much higher calling
awaits you. You’re just too valuable to the world to be peddling

ice cream. Be happy, go lucky.’’
Also included in his ‘‘rejection’’ packet was a coupon for a
free pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream as well as a Call for Kids
brochure that discussed several worthwhile children’s agencies
located in Vermont, with encouragement to contact local agen-
cies to volunteer.
▼ Trolling the Aisles.
Organizations with an innovation-driven culture could
learn a thing or two from Amy Naples, a technical recruiter for
Bluestone Software in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Visiting a
local bookstore, she noticed a group of young men browsing
through books on Java and CⳭⳭ programming in the computer
section of the store. Like any successful recruiter, she immedi-
ately strolled over and started talking about openings at her
company and handing out business cards. She says, ‘‘It’s just
become part of my life. There is not a technical person I meet
who I do not ask whether they know of another high-level tech-
nical person looking for a job.’’3 (Naples admitted taking her
recruiting efforts one step further by putting her business card
in books that she thinks her best prospects are likely to read.)
▼ Cop a Coaster.
Sanchez Computer Associates, in Malverne, Pennsylvania,
uses a great staffing strategy that any customer-service–driven
culture could use to strengthen its culture: recruiting the cus-
tomers of other businesses. Sanchez is a banking services soft-
ware company that encourages job candidates who visit
Flanigan’s Boat House, a restaurant in a nearby technology-
oriented corporate center, to ‘‘steal this coaster, and win a free
lunch’’ by taking along a bar coaster that advertises jobs at San-
chez. Flanigan’s customers are primarily young people who
work at the corporate center; qualified candidates who bring a
coaster to an interview at Sanchez receive a certificate for a free
meal at the restaurant.
▼Location, Location, Location.

Some customer-service–driven companies treat their appli-
cants as customers by playing up their location in recruiting ef-
forts. Liberty Mutual Information Systems, located in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is ninety minutes northeast of
Boston. Liberty Mutual recently emphasized its location in
radio ads by mentioning easy access to numerous ski resorts and
outdoor attractions on the coast. Since it competes with Bos-
ton’s many high-tech companies for top talent, the company
emphasizes what offers that the applicant is likely to find appeal-
ing and can only get by working there.
Staffing Best Practice Three in Action: Image Is

Everything
Creating a strong, positive image in the marketplace is a defining

characteristic of aligned companies that successfully incorporate
the culture into staffing practices. Here are some good examples
of how various companies create and leverage the company’s
image to effectively find and hire great employees.
▼ Go Back to School.
Capital Holding, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is one of
the largest stockholder-owned life insurance companies in the
United States. It is a wonderful example of how an operationally
excellent culture can create a strong, positive image in the mar-
ketplace. Over a three-year period, Capital Holding committed
more than $3 million to learning-related programs. Former vice
president John Franco initially realized the need for a well-
educated workforce for the 1990s and beyond. The company,
the Jefferson County school system, and Pleasure Ridge Park
High School agreed to develop a curriculum that would begin to
meet the needs of the business, the community, and the students.
The result was Project Business. Today, it is one of the best
of the more than 140,000 school-business partnerships in the

United States. The program provides Capital Holding with a
direct link to intelligent, dedicated students who have business
skills and work experience. It gives high-achieving, bright stu-
dents from blue-collar neighborhoods an opportunity to de-
velop work skills and to consider attending college.
Twenty students are selected for the program. To be chosen,
students must have a good grade point average, analytical ability,
good attendance, and typing and communication skills. The pro-
gram also requires that instructors recommend students for the
program. Each year, one Pleasure Ridge Park High School stu-
dent is awarded a four-year scholarship to a local college of his
or her choice. The student must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA as a
full-time student, have teacher and employer recommendations,
and maintain employment part-time at Capital Holding.
▼ Take a Stand.
Ben & Jerry’s surfaces yet again as another example of how
a spirit-driven culture can create an image that communicates its
spirit to customers and potential employees alike. The first time
Ben & Jerry’s ever considered taking a public stand on a govern-
ment policy involved their Peace Pops program. Ben Cohen rec-
ommended that the company get involved in One Percent for
Peace, an organization that supported redirecting one percent of
the military budget to peace through activities intended to sup-
port peaceful efforts.
Initially, Ben faced serious opposition—especially when he
proposed renaming their ice cream bars as ‘‘Peace Pops’’ and
printing a message supporting One Percent for Peace on the
wrapper. Management felt that this action would turn off cus-
tomers, ultimately resulting in products being pulled from the
stores and putting their employees out of work. Some managers
felt that it was not right to take a stand against the government,
and they did not want the company to support such activity.
The board of directors decided to support the program. The
Peace Pops effort created Ben & Jerry’s reputation for ‘‘social
activism,’’ a reputation that continues to this day. Through their
efforts to effect social change, Ben & Jerry’s leverage their image
as a social change agent to attract applicants who share the values
of this unique and successful company.
▼ The Dodgers Way.
The Los Angeles Dodgers educates its employees regarding
the history of the organization and, by doing so, strengthens its
commitment and connection to customers. The Dodgers create
and sustain their winning image through various staffing-related
activities. For example, as soon as a player arrives at rookie camp
in Vero Beach, Florida, he begins to learn about the roots of the
organization. They show a film of history of the organization—
starting back in 1890. During spring training, three nights a
week, the players must report for discussions. The Dodgers
bring in guest speakers to talk about how to plan for life after
baseball and what it is to have pride in the Dodgers tradition.
The recruits learn, from day one, the ‘‘Dodgers Way’’ of
doing things. The Dodgers Way is not just about playing base-
ball. It’s about how people are treated, and that comes from the
top of the organization. This means the owners, the O’Malley
family, and what has been passed on all these years will continue
to be passed on.
Obviously, the Dodgers Way works. In a very competitive
and high-turnover business, the Dodgers have had tremendous
continuity and stability. Since 1954, the team has had only three
managers, four general managers, three farm directors, and three
scouting directors. People love working for an organization with
a winning image, and it shows.
▼Work and Learn.
Le Vieux Manoir au Lac, a hotel located in Murten-
Meyriez, Switzerland, prides itself on its customer-service cul-
ture. The hotel’s enthusiastic, friendly, and professional staff is
a key constituent of its culture. It is no accident that the hotel

directors, Erich and Elisabeth Thomas, have hired consistently
great employees. The Thomases are active in the community,
and they use community involvement to their advantage in find-
ing employees who share their commitment to customer service.
For example, they participate at local fairs in Murten, a
nearby town, where they and their staff write skits and perform
with accompanying music. The Thomases also developed an in-
tern study program for students from the hotel school in Lu-
cerne. They also encourage cross-training programs for their
staff at other restaurants and hotels; one of their young maı̂tre
d’s spent time at Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley.
▼ Hot Buttons and Beemers.
Walt McGhee, eastern regional director of Xerox Corpora-
tion’s new channels division, knows how to create an image.
The mission of his division is to challenge Hewlett-Packard’s
dominance of the network laser printer market. Organizations
with an operationally excellent culture could learn a lot from
him. He once met an applicant who was an avid motorcycle fan
and owner by driving to the interview on his own BMW motor-
cycle.
Another way that McGhee creates an attractive company
image is to capitalize on the weaknesses of a candidate’s current
company to get him to come to work for Xerox. For example, a
candidate sent him a resume that said he worked at ‘‘MicroAge
(a $4 billion master reseller organization).’’ McGhee flew the
candidate in from Boston and they met at McGhee’s country
club in Riverside, Connecticut. Over dinner on the back porch,
which overlooks Long Island Sound, McGhee asked, ‘‘Why
would you be interested in a long-term career with a company
that requires an explanation?’’ Although the applicant initially
turned down the employment offer, McGhee did not take no for
an answer, and he finally did hire him.4
Staffing Best Practice Four in Action: Get Real
Aligned companies get real with their applicants so that both the
company and the potential employee know what they are get-
ting into and can make an informed decision about employment.
Companies that present themselves to applicants honestly and
in a balanced way save time—both the applicant’s and the com-
pany’s. More important, getting real creates strong cultural con-
nections and maximizes the fit between the person, the job, and,
ultimately, the company. Here are some examples of how vari-
ous companies are up front with their applicants during the
staffing process.
▼ Seeing Is Believing.
Eckerd Corporation, a retail drugstore chain headquartered
in Largo, Florida, employs 76,000 people. To assist store manag-
ers in hiring hourly employees who will support the organiza-
tion’s customer-service core culture, the company provides a
hiring kit. Among other things, it includes a video for the store
manager to show to all hourly applicants prior to interviewing
them.
Often, applicants assume that the job is only what they see
employees doing when they visit the store. The video is intended
to better align applicants’ expectations in terms of what the job
really involves and requires. The Eckerd video stresses the im-
portance of employee attitude (‘‘We want people who like to
work with people, and people who are willing to go out of their
way to help people’’). It shows real-life situations with custom-
ers where the employee has to do more than just stand behind
the counter and ring up the sale. In the video, employees per-
form some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the job: unload-
ing trucks, stocking merchandise, helping customers find
merchandise, and cleaning bathrooms. It also presents an over-
view of all the departments in the store (cosmetics, express
photo, front-end, and pharmacy) where hourly employees

work.
Feedback on the video from store managers has been very
positive. According to John Kucmierz, HR staffing and systems
manager, applicants typically have more questions about the job
after watching the video. Also, he noted that in some cases the
video successfully helps applicants select themselves out of the
hiring process. As a result, store managers do not waste their
time interviewing applicants who are not seriously interested in
the job in such a customer-service culture.
▼ $100 to Ride.
Applewood Plumbing, a customer-service organization lo-
cated in Denver, pays its applicants for the privilege of getting
real. As part of the hiring process, the company pays $100 to
any applicant who expresses interest in a service technician posi-
tion with their company. There is only one catch: The applicant
must ride and go on service calls with a current service techni-
cian. The applicant benefits by getting a dose of reality about the
job. The service technician, who is specially trained on how to
evaluate applicants, provides valuable information to the com-
pany about how well the applicant relates to the job and to the
customers.
▼ You’ve Got to Have Friends.
The title of the classic Bette Midler song ‘‘You’ve Got to
Have Friends’’ is a fine description of an innovative and incredi-
bly successful activity that drives cultural connections at Cisco
Systems. To help would-be applicants better understand the
Cisco culture, they are matched with a ‘‘friend’’ inside the com-
pany, someone in the same area of work interest and with similar
career goals. This connection allows the current employee to
offer candid, straight answers to the applicant’s many questions
on the challenges, culture, opportunities, and frustrations of
working at Cisco. The friends program is designed to last well
into the applicant’s first few weeks of work, if hired. This uncon-
ventional mentoring approach builds strong connections
throughout the Cisco system and jump-starts new-hire produc-
tivity.
▼ Engineer Your Career.
Texas Instruments, the Dallas-based computer products
company, uses a tool that assesses candidates both profession-
ally and personally for cultural fit in an operationally excellent
culture. The tool was developed by Personnel Decisions, an in-
ternational HR consulting firm in Minneapolis, as a kit entitled
‘‘Engineer Your Career.’’ It contains a disk that opens up into a
brochure describing Texas Instruments—its products, history,
and values.
Following the introduction is a self-selection tool that asks
candidates to respond to thirty-two questions about work pref-
erences, such as work environment, working conditions, and re-
lationships. For instance, one question asks how the candidate
feels about smoking in the office; possible responses range from
strongly agree to strongly disagree. At the end of this section,
the computer displays a bar-like graph that indicates the candi-
date’s compatibility with the company. If a potential problem
exists, the tool so informs the candidate. In the case of smoking
in the office, if the applicant responded that he or she felt
strongly in favor of smoking, the computer would signal that the
company has a nonsmoking environment. The tool also high-
lights strong matches. This insider’s view allows applicants to
make an informed choice prior to considering an offer.
▼ Watch Them Work.
In a factory in Greer, South Carolina, BMW built a simu-
lated assembly line to assess candidates’ ability to perform jobs
within an operationally excellent culture. As part of the hiring
process, job candidates have ninety minutes to perform a variety
of work-related tasks. Charles Austin, a consultant with Devel-
opment Dimensions International of Pittsburgh, helped design

the facility. He suggests that people who do not have the mental
energy to meet BMW’s requirements do not get hired. This ex-
ample demonstrates effective use of job simulations, which are
probably the ultimate way for companies to get real with their
applicants.
Staffing Best Practice Five in Action: Job or No Job
Aligned companies know the value of finding culturally compat-

ible top talent. In fact, these companies often hire outstanding
job candidates even if they do not have a specific job for them at
the time they are hired. Here are some examples of how various
companies incorporate a ‘‘job or no job’’ philosophy into
staffing practices.
▼ Immune System.
Dave Bolles, director of the staffing resource center at 3M,
described a practice that clearly demonstrates 3M’s commitment
to hiring top talent in support of its innovation-driven culture.
The ‘‘designated requisition process’’ is a method by which 3M
approves hiring someone before the actual job is available.
Each year 3M projects its hiring needs, and the company
authorizes a percentage of those hires before actual jobs are
posted. This process allows 3M to make offers to their very best
candidates regardless of whether they have a specific opening or
not.
To further demonstrate 3M’s commitment to the job-or-no-
job philosophy, all designated requisitions are immune to can-
cellation. That is, the company guarantees that all designated-
requisition positions are funded. This action recognizes the need
to bring in new talent and keeps the company from cutting
funding for campus-level recruiting activities and programs.
This action also guarantees ties with college recruiting programs
even during times of slow or weak financial performance within

the company.
▼ Hire for Culture, Train the Job.
Raymond James Financial, a financial services company
headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, uses a staffing strategy
that any operationally excellent culture could use to find people
who support such a culture. Raymond James has lived the job-
or-no-job philosophy since the business began thirty-five years
ago. At that time, the company knew that the local talent pool
of people with financial service experience was limited, at best.
Management figured that if they hired bright people who fit the
culture, they could train them on their specific job.
According to Gena Cox, vice president of assessment and
employment, the philosophy continues to this day. According
to Cox, ‘‘If you hire bright people who fit the culture, you can
train just about anything else.’’ She says that finding bright peo-
ple who fit the culture is more difficult today because of the low
unemployment rate as well as increased competition for finan-
cial-service industry talent.
One recent example where Raymond James Financial dem-
onstrated its commitment to the philosophy involved someone
who applied for a compensation analyst position. In reviewing
her skills, managers found out that this person had significant
experience in compensation as well as experience in human re-
source information systems. Instead of hiring her for the analyst
position that was posted, the company created a new position,
vice president of compensation and HRIS, that would benefit
the company and maximize her skills once hired.
▼ When Opportunity Knocks.
To best support a spirit-driven culture, Ben Cohen and
Jerry Greenfield believe that a values-led company needs to take
advantage of the opportunity, whenever it arises, to hire highly
qualified people who are aligned with the company’s values.
Hiring people who have been schooled for ten or twenty years
in the traditional way of doing business, they say, can be a real
negative. They also claim that when they hire from the outside,
they are hiring an unknown quantity. Many times, people hired
from the outside do not work out. The pair found that when
the company promotes from within, they know what they are
getting. Cohen and Greenfield have tried it both ways. They
hired people for their expertise, being less concerned about their
values alignment. They hired people for their values alignment,
being less concerned about their expertise. Going forward, they
have decided to hire (at the top of the company) only people
who agree with their progressive social values.5
▼ The Staples Way.
Staples, the Westboro, Massachusetts–based office supply
store chain, has a great way of sustaining a strong customer-
service culture using the job-or-no-job philosophy. The com-
pany hires new M.B.A.s without having specific jobs for them at
the time they are hired. Instead, they hire the person and have
him work in different departments until he becomes familiar
with and acclimated to the company.
This practice benefits all. First, the company hires a poten-
tially great employee whose values support the company’s val-
ues. Second, while the M.B.A. holder is working in different
departments, the company obtains information about the per-
son’s strengths and weaknesses and then uses this to make the
best placement decision. Finally, the employee benefits by get-
ting experience in different departments and gaining a better un-
derstanding of various parts of the company.
▼ Be Prepared.
Lands’ End, the well-known mail-order clothing business
in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, offers an unusual benefit to job candi-
dates that clearly demonstrates commitment to the job-or-no-
job philosophy. The ‘‘job enrollment program’’ is available to all
Lands’ End employees; it allows an employee to train for a job

within the company regardless of whether an opening exists for
that job. The program is clearly a win-win for all. The employee
benefits by learning new skills, and the company benefits by
having a workforce that is cross-trained and people who are
ready to step into their positions when openings occur.
Staffing Best Practice Six in Action: Multiplicity
Aligned companies involve numerous people in the staffing

process and use several methods to screen candidates. This no-
tion of multiplicity represents another way organizations create
strong cultural connections and ensure maximum alignment be-
tween the company culture and the employee. Here are some
examples of how various companies use the best practice of mul-
tiplicity in their staffing process.
▼ Take a Vote.
Whole Foods Market, located in Austin, Texas, is the largest
natural-foods grocer in the United States. It uses decentralized
teamwork as a cornerstone of its customer-service culture. To
find employees who support that culture, the company links it
to hiring practices. Store teams—and only the teams—have the
power to approve new hires for full-time jobs. Store leaders
screen candidates and recommend them for a job on a specific
team. It then takes a two-thirds vote of the team, after what is
usually a thirty-day trial period, for the candidate to become a
full-time employee.
This hiring approach affects the behavior and attitudes of
those involved in the hiring process. Store leaders take great care
not to recommend people they do not think the team will ap-
prove. Applicants receive a strong message of the importance of
teamwork early on in the hiring process. The teams have a voice
about their group.
▼ Go Team.
To sustain its innovation-driven culture, 3M has a strong
commitment to promoting from within. Most of 3M’s staffing
practices, therefore, revolve around college recruiting efforts. To
most effectively support those efforts, 3M created ‘‘focus college
relations teams.’’ Again according to Dave Bolles, these teams
are currently in place at twenty-eight schools that represent the
company’s main recruiting sources. The goal of the teams is two-
fold: to engage as many people as possible at 3M in recruiting
efforts and to better focus the efforts on specific schools.
The teams consist of eight to twelve people representing
three functions within the company: engineering, technical, and
administrative. Each team organizes all of 3M’s recruiting activi-
ties at its particular school. The team performs many functions,
including:
1. Arranging for professors from the school to work at 3M

during the summer in one of their technical areas
2. Coordinating placement of all summer interns
3. Delivering checks for funding a particular project at the
school
4. Maintaining consistent and positive relations with the
school
These teams develop real pride in representing their univer-

sity at 3M headquarters. Because they know their school so well,
they are able to help the school better understand the benefits of
recommending its students to 3M. Because they know 3M so
well, they are able to help the company better understand the
merits of hiring someone from that particular school.
▼ Play Ball and Rope Cattle.

At spirit-driven Rosenbluth International, niceness counts.
The travel company uses several methods to tell who is nice and
who is not. One favorite strategy is to ask applicants to play a

trial game of softball with the company team. This hiring activ-
ity involves employees throughout the organization and gives
everyone a good idea of the applicant’s overall manner and ap-
proach to work.
Another way Rosenbluth incorporates multiplicity into its
staffing process is that hiring managers check with all the people
a candidate speaks to during a visit, not just the people who
interview the candidate. According to the company, one of the
best sources of information in this process is the receptionist!
▼ Informal Innovation.
W. L. Gore & Associates is in the innovation business. The
company develops fluoropolymers for use in filters, dental floss,
medical implants, and Gore-Tex fabric. To hire people who sup-
port such a culture, a team of interviewers must approve an ap-
plicant. The team’s questions focus on whether the applicant fits
Gore’s extremely informal and innovative culture, which lacks
organization charts, formal chains of command, titles, and even
bosses. Pay increases are based on ratings that employees receive
in their biannual peer review. Gore is fanatical about reference
checking, calling as many as ten peers, supervisors, and subordi-
nates to evaluate whether a candidate is right for them.
▼Share the Wealth.
Worthington Industries, a steel processor in Columbus,
Ohio, shows us how an operationally excellent culture uses the
strategy of multiplicity to hire employees who support its cul-
ture. All applicants interview with members of a team. If hired,
the employee serves a ninety-day probation period and is then
voted on by an employee council of ten or so coworkers.
A major reason for the company’s heavy emphasis on team
potential is that profit sharing accounts for roughly 40 percent
of employees’ pay at the company. According to Eric Smolenski,
a personnel manager at Worthington, ‘‘Peers need an opportu-
nity to weigh in on a candidate. They need a chance to ask

whether they want to split the pie with a particular individual.’’6
Staffing Best Practice Seven in Action: The Great-

Employee Profile
Aligned companies know that they cannot find what they are
not looking for. These companies actively and aggressively seek
information on their ideal employee. They define the ideal and
build their staffing practices to support finding it. Here are some
examples of how various companies use the great-employee-
profile best practice in their staffing process.
▼ ESP.
Several years ago, EMC, a manufacturer of enterprise stor-
age products, realized that it would need to significantly increase
staff over the next few years. Top management thought about
how the company could add thousands of new people without
losing its identity—the cultural attributes that had made it such
a success in the first place. A team of senior executives and HR
specialists began to ask, What characterizes a great EMC em-
ployee? The answer resulted in EMC’s ‘‘employee success pro-
file.’’ The ESP is a detailed definition of who succeeds at the
company. The profile is based on seven critical factors:
1. Technical competence
2. Goal orientation
3. A sense of urgency
4. Accountability
5. External and internal customer responsiveness
6. Cross-functional behavior
7. Integrity
By focusing on these seven attributes, EMC remains much

the same company that it was several years ago, even though it
has thousands of employees.
▼A Bunch of Yahoos.
Yahoo, the innovation-driven Internet search company in
Santa Clara, California, identified four core attributes of great
Yahoo employees:
1. People skills
2. Spheres of influence
3. Zoom in, zoom out
4. Passion for life
People skills, as the name implies, refers to a candidate’s

interpersonal skills.
Spheres of influence alludes to the candidate’s ‘‘little black
book’’ of top talent. Because of Yahoo’s tremendous growth and
because its people know that their current employees are one of
their best recruiting tools, they focus not only on the candidate’s
skills but also on the potential talent that the candidate can bring
to the organization.
Yahoo also needs people who can think tactically as well as
strategically; they refer to this skill as the ability to ‘‘zoom in,
zoom out.’’
Finally, Yahoo wants people who are passionate about their
subject area. The company has found that people who are pas-
sionate about something specific tend to be passionate about life
in general.
▼Preferred Stock.
Prudential Securities illustrates how a customer-service cul-
ture can use the great-employee profile to hire well-suited em-
ployees. Prudential examined the kinds of people who are likely
to succeed within the company and defined twelve criteria for

use in hiring new financial advisers. As part of the hiring pro-
cess, candidates take a written test for experience, complete a
battery of structured interviews, write a financial plan, and visit
Prudential offices up to four times. Approximately ten candi-
dates apply for every person hired.
Prudential estimates their investment per hire to be between
$60,000 and $100,000. These estimates include costs associated
with candidate evaluation, first-year training, and draws against
commission. On the other hand, the first round of advisers hired
using the twelve criteria exceeded Prudential’s expectations by
generating an average of $14.5 million of client assets each.
▼ Reservations, Please.
Ann Rhoades, executive vice president of human resources
at Doubletree Hotels Corporate in Phoenix, worked in conjunc-
tion with Development Dimensions International (the human
resource consulting firm we met in connection with BMW) to
identify the personal attributes of her star performers as well as
those employees whose stars were fading—or had already faded.
She used this information to create a database of ‘‘dimensions
for success’’ so she could search for people who were a good fit.
For example, the success factors identified for reservations
agents include practical learning, teamwork, tolerance for stress,
sales ability, attention to detail, adaptability/flexibility, and mo-
tivation. Doubletree saw these success factors as key in creating
superior customer service. Rhoades used the success dimensions
to design specific interview questions and exercises to probe for
these and other attributes prior to hiring a job candidate.
▼ The ‘‘Skins’’ Game.
Walt McGhee of Xerox (introduced earlier under best prac-
tice three, ‘‘Image Is Everything’’) built his new channels divi-
sion by first establishing very specific criteria for his sales
recruits. He described his ideal recruits this way: ‘‘They had to
be solid performers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 a

year. They should not be next in line for a promotion at their
current company. And they had to have a commitment of ‘skin’
in the game.’’ In others words, they had to have lots to gain, but
something to risk: losing a well-paying job by joining his team.
Although Xerox has not revealed specific figures, it appears
McGhee’s profile and his recruiting tactics work. Analysts note
that the channels division is off to a strong start, and Xerox is
expected to introduce some aggressive product lines to show its
commitment to the division.
Staffing Best Practice Eight in Action: Beyond

Benchmarking
Aligned companies go beyond looking to other companies for

the keys to successful staffing. Truly aligned companies know
the value of looking inward rather than to their competition for
great staffing ideas. By looking inward, they incorporate their
knowledge of the culture into staffing practices. Here are some
examples of how various companies have gone beyond bench-
marking in their staffing process.
▼ I Dare You.
The core culture at Cisco Systems is so amazingly innova-
tive that people openly share all their current staffing programs
with anyone who asks—including competitors. Why would
they be so willing to give away their staffing secrets? They sim-
ply follow their employment charter, which reads: ‘‘To challenge
and outperform all standard and accepted forms of staffing.’’
The consensus within the human resource department is that if
the company is turning over its products every six to twelve
months, Human Resources should follow this practice as well.
▼ Creative Abrasion.
Nissan Design International (NDI), based in LaJolla, Cali-
fornia, creates cars of the future. The auto design studio shows
us another great example of how innovation-driven culture uses
the beyond-benchmarking strategy to hire people who sustain
the company’s culture. According to Jerry Hirshberg, NDI’s
founder and president, ‘‘Sometimes the right person for the job
is two people.’’ Hirshberg hires people in pairs to create what he
calls ‘‘creative abrasion.’’ In hiring people to design new cars,
creativity is a critical success factor. When it comes to creativity,
Hirshberg believes that two people are better than one. More-
over, he’s looking for two people who see the world in entirely
different ways.
NDI now has more than twenty-five pairs of highly tal-
ented, creative, and strong-willed employees. Hiring in diver-
gent pairs has become a defining organizational principle for
NDI.
Hirshberg warns other companies considering this hiring
approach: ‘‘You need to have a pretty strong sense of self when
a person working on the same project as you has an entirely
different set of priorities. The folks we’re hiring share almost
nothing—except a deep belief in their own way and their own
passion.’’7
▼ One Question.
Rather than hiring store managers with previous restaurant
experience, the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A, headquartered in
Atlanta, focuses its assessment of the candidate on such things
as character, drive, and whether or not she has a natural liking
for people. Recruiters who hire store managers often ask them-
selves one key question when evaluating candidates: ‘‘Would I
like to have my son or daughter working for this person?’’
▼ Live What You Sell.
Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), the nation’s largest
consumer cooperative of outdoor products, goes far beyond tra-
ditional practices associated with hiring employees who can pro-
vide good customer service. REI’s employees do more than just

serve customers by greeting them as they enter the store, an-
swering their questions about various products, and ringing up
their purchases. Employees working for any retailer should be
able to perform those functions. REI has gone a step beyond by
hiring people who live the lifestyle that REI sells. Typical inter-
view questions for hiring store personnel include: ‘‘What’s your
favorite alpine lake? What fishing pole do you carry? What kind
of tent do you use?’’ Hiring people who ‘‘live what REI sells’’
results in a level of customer service unparalleled in most re-
tailers.
▼Hey, Pizza Man.
One more example of how the Cisco Systems culture of
innovation permeates potential applicant pools is its well-known
pizza campaign. Many great companies give away tons of hats,
T-shirts, and logo-laden stuff to potential recruits. Again, Cisco
rewrites recruiting by getting inside the heads of students,
knowing not only what they need and want but when they need
it and want it. Cisco sends pizzas to university residence halls
where students are studying for finals, with a note inside the
pizza box saying ‘‘good luck’’ and providing a reminder of the
Cisco Website (just in case someone wants to apply).
NOTES
1. Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, Nuts: Southwest Airlines’
Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success (Austin, Tex.: Bard
Press, 1996), pp. 64–73.
2. Tim Ouellette, ‘‘Corporate Strategies,’’ www2.computerworld.
com/home/print.nsf/All/9803303E56 (March 30, 1998).
3. Julia King, ‘‘Corporate Strategies,’’ www2.computerworld.com/
home/print9497.nsf/All/SL3bounty (January 20, 1997).
4. Caroline Bollinger, ‘‘Building a Sales Force From Scratch,’’ Sales
and Marketing Management, vol. 15, no. 2 (February 1998), pp. 26–28.
5. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Ben & Jerry’s Double-Dip: Lead
With Your Values and Make Money, Too (New York: Simon & Schuster,
1997), pp. 185–188.
6. Justin Martin, ‘‘So, You Want to Work for the Best,’’ Fortune (Jan-
uary 12, 1998), pp. 77–78.
7. Katherine Mieszkowski, ‘‘Opposites Attract,’’ Fast Company
(December–January 1998), pp. 42–44.
CHAPTER 9
ALIGNING STAFFING TO
CORE CULTURE
This chapter provides action ideas to help you begin to align

your staffing practices with your core culture. You might want
to start by going directly to the section of this chapter that per-
tains to the core culture of your organization:
▼ Customer Service
▼ Innovation
▼ Operational Excellence
▼ Spirit
As you review the action ideas for your culture, consider

three questions:
1. How can you implement the action item to improve

your ability to find great employees?
2. How does the action item complement existing staffing
practices?
141
3. What additional resources are needed to implement the

action idea?
To create additional ideas for aligning your staffing strate-

gies to your core culture, review the action ideas presented for
the other cultures. You’ll see that many of the same action ideas
work for different cultures. The gist of each action is the same
across the four categories, but the focus of the particular action
differs with the core culture.
CUSTOMER SERVICE CULTURE
The following actions will help you align your staffing practices
to your core culture of creating customer solutions.
▼ Rate your staffing process and materials on a scale from

1 to 10 on how well they communicate your customer-service
culture connections (reach out and touch, the customer is always
the customer, love and marriage, I own the problem, and real-
time reactions). Use this information to identify improvement
opportunities for your organization’s staffing function and ma-
terials.
▼Evaluate your staffing process using the same standards
you use to evaluate your external customer-service process (such
as positive image, courteousness, responsiveness, response time,
quality of interaction, etc.). Determine how well you integrate
your customer-service standards into your staffing process.
▼Examine how well your company responds to all appli-
cants. Ask staffing personnel to each suggest two ways to pro-
vide applicants with more immediate, direct, and frequent
feedback.
Aligning Staffing to Core Culture 143
▼ Develop your image of customer service by sponsoring

or making presentations at regional and national conferences
that focus on customer service.
▼ Profile your superlative customer-service employees in
company recruiting materials. Give examples from actual cus-
tomers about what make these employees great. Include those
employees in your staffing process through interviews and other
forms of contact with job candidates.
▼ Develop a video or scrapbook that contains employees’
descriptions of best, worst, and typical customer-service en-
counters. Promote real-world presentation of your company by
sharing this information with all applicants.
▼ Create a team of marketing, advertising, and human re-
source representatives to develop staffing materials that reflect a
customer-service focus. Treat applicants as customers by includ-
ing applicants in review and evaluation of these materials.
▼ Develop behaviorally based questions that focus on cus-
tomer service, and use these questions when interviewing for
all positions. Base questions on real-life internal and external
customer-service situations.
▼ Identify areas within your organization that need
stronger emphasis on customer service. Within the next six
months, hire at least one full-time employee in those areas re-
gardless of whether or not you have a specific job opening at the
time.
▼ Involve external customers in your staffing process. Ask
them to evaluate your staffing materials (classified ads, recruiting
brochures, interview questions, etc.) or interview your appli-
cants. For positions that do not directly serve the external cus-
tomer, have at least one internal customer of that position
interview applicants.
▼ Ask applicants what they like best about your company’s
staffing process and what they would change. To better serve
your staffing customers, change your process based on their

feedback.
▼ Form multidepartmental recruiting teams to plan, coor-
dinate, and participate in the staffing of a key customer-service
position within the company. Involve each team in at least one
recruiting event a year.
▼ Interview ten great customer-service employees to un-
cover what makes it easy to be a top employee, and what makes
it difficult. Strengthen and increase those things that make it
easy. Remove barriers that keep people from being great
customer-service employees.
▼ List three things that your current staffing process does
to find employees who connect with your customer-service cul-
ture—three things that are not based on actions of your major
competitors. Go beyond benchmarking and establish an annual
goal to create three to five new staffing processes or sets of mate-
rials that help you better identify applicants who connect with
your customer-service culture.
▼Annually survey your employees to obtain ideas on how
to improve the company’s ability to find employees who con-
nect with your customer-service culture.
INNOVATION CULTURE
to your core culture of creating and shaping the future.

1 to 10 on how well they communicate your innovation-culture
connections (need for speed, cannibalization and creative de-
struction, freedom to succeed, take it to the limit, have fun and
kill the enemy, and the thrill of adventure). Use this information
to identify improvement opportunities for your organization’s

staffing function and materials.
▼ In your staffing materials and process, communicate ex-
amples of your organization’s hot projects and how they canni-
balize, stretch, and create new projects. Describe specific hot
projects, and profile employees who played a key role in the
innovation required for those projects.
▼ Ask applicants for three ways to radically improve or in-
novate your staffing process. Incorporate their suggestions and
feedback into your staffing activities and materials wherever ap-
propriate.
▼ Assess your organization’s ‘‘new toys’’ factor. In your
staffing materials and processes, describe the vanguard technol-
ogy you use to gain a competitive advantage. Profile those of
your organization’s best toys that are available to employees.
▼ Strengthen your organization’s image of innovation by
sponsoring or making presentations at regional and national
conferences that focus on innovation.
▼ Profile your organization’s great innovators in your re-
cruiting materials. Describe specific examples about what makes
these employees special. Include your innovators in the staffing
process through interviews and other forms of contact with job
candidates.
▼ Use e-mail and other innovative communication methods
to connect with your applicants. Send a quarterly or biannual
communication to applicants, highlighting the company’s latest
innovations and describing current job opportunities with your
company.
▼ Assist elementary and secondary schools in developing
your organization’s innovators of tomorrow. Sponsor programs
and scholarships that support students who have an interest in
areas that support your innovation-driven culture.

stronger emphasis on innovation. Within the next six months,
hire at least one full-time employee in those areas, regardless of
whether or not you have a specific job at the time.
▼ Develop behaviorally based questions that focus on inno-
vation, and use these questions when interviewing for all posi-
tions. Base questions on real-life innovation situations at your
company.
▼ Use at least two methods (application, interview, test,
etc.) to assess applicants’ ability to connect with your innovation
culture. Make sure that each method assesses at least three of
the six cultural connections (need for speed, cannibalization and
creative destruction, freedom to succeed, take it to the limit, have
fun and kill the enemy, thrill of adventure).
▼ Designate a representative from the company to be a
liaison to contacts at local businesses that support innovation
(inventor associations, patent lawyers, etc.). Provide these
groups with company information for them to distribute to their
members or clients. Sponsor at least one of their meetings every
year.
▼ Interview ten great innovative employees to uncover
what makes it easy to be a top employee, and what makes it
difficult. Strengthen and increase those things that make it easy.
Remove barriers that keep people from being highly innovative
employees.
▼ List three things that your current staffing process does
to find employees who connect with your innovation culture—
three things that are not based on actions of your major compet-
itors. Go beyond benchmarking by establishing an annual goal
to create three to five new staffing processes or sets of materials
that help you better identify applicants who connect with your
innovation-driven culture.
▼ Annually survey your employees on how to improve the

company’s ability to find employees who connect with your in-
novation-driven culture.
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE CULTURE
to your core culture of creating processes that minimize costs
and maximize productivity.

1 to 10 on how well they communicate your operational-
excellence culture connections (standardize; get it right; measure
twice, cut once; stay within the lines that are our friends; and
waste not, want not). Use this information to identify improve-
ment opportunities for your organization’s staffing function and
materials.
▼ Evaluate your staffing process using the same quality
standards and metrics (such as reject rates, number of errors,
production rates, etc.) that you use to evaluate other functions
within the company. Make sure processes are consistent across
locations, and eliminate any waste in staffing process in terms of
time or money.
▼ Develop your image of operational excellence by pub-
lishing (in national business and trade publications) stories on
your latest advances in this area of work and the employees in-
volved.
▼ Profile your operationally excellent employees in com-
pany recruiting materials. Describe specific examples of what
makes these employees great. Include them in your staffing
process through interviews and other forms of contact with job
candidates.
▼When establishing annual staffing goals, strive to improve

the consistency and efficiency of your process. Treat applicants
as customers by asking them to identify parts of the process that
are redundant or overly time consuming.
▼ Get real with applicants by giving them a tour of the
facility or area where they will work. Use this time to discuss
the operationally excellent culture connections (standardize; get
it right; measure twice, cut once; stay within the lines; waste not,
want not).
▼Identify areas within your organization that need
stronger emphasis on operational excellence. Within the next six
months, hire at least one full-time employee in those areas re-
gardless of whether or not you have a specific job at that time.
▼ Develop behaviorally based questions that focus on oper-
ational excellence, and use these questions when interviewing
for all positions. Base questions on real-life situations involving
operational excellence that have occurred in your company.
▼ Create a team of your exceptional employees (from the
point of view of operational excellence). Involve various mem-
bers of the team in job fairs, interviewing, and other staffing
activities.
▼ In recruiting materials and interviews with all applicants,
highlight the significant ‘‘Herbies’’ that your organization has
recently overcome. Ask employees who were involved in those
efforts to briefly speak with or interview all applicants.
dinate, and participate in staffing a key operational-excellence
position within the company. Involve each team in at least one
recruiting event a year.
▼Profile ten great employees (in terms of operational ex-
cellence) to uncover what makes it easy to be a top employee,
and what makes it difficult. Strengthen or increase those things
that make it easy. Remove barriers that keep people from being
great.
▼ Ask long-term, high-performing employees about what
they feel are the strongest operational-excellence culture con-
nections to the company and to their jobs. Profile employees’
comments in your recruiting materials and during the interview
process.
▼ Ask applicants to attend company events where employ-
ees are recognized for their contributions to operational excel-
lence. Ask those employees being recognized to speak with and
spend time with applicants.
▼ Evaluate your selection process to determine the multiple
methods you use to identify applicants’ ability to connect with
your operationally excellent culture. Make sure you assess appli-
cants based on the five cultural connections (standardize; get it
right; measure twice, cut once; stay within the lines; waste not,
want not).
SPIRIT CULTURE
to your core culture of creating an environment that supports
employees.

1 to 10 on how well they communicate your innovation-culture
connections (servant leadership; work for a greater good; build
people first; faith, hope, and charity; beyond the bottom line;
and competitive yet humane). Use this information to identify
improvement opportunities for your organization’s staffing
function and materials.
▼Develop your image of spirit by sponsoring at least one

local or regional event that reflects your company’s religious-
based, socially based, or employee-based spirit.
▼ Invite applicants to attend one of your company’s spirit-
related activities (such as celebration of a company milestone, a
company-sponsored volunteer day, etc.).
▼Develop a ‘‘friends and family’’ employee referral pro-
gram, encouraging employees to refer friends and family mem-
bers for various job openings.
▼Create a video or book describing your company’s ‘‘his-
tory of spirit.’’ Describe past efforts related to sustaining your
culture of spirit. Share this information with all applicants.
stronger emphasis on spirit. Within the next six months, hire at
least one full-time employee in those areas regardless of whether
or not you have a specific job at the time.
▼ Develop behaviorally based questions that focus on your
organization’s spirit, and use these questions when interviewing
for all positions. Base questions on real-life situations involving
company spirit.
▼Profile company events in recruiting materials and inter-
views that best exemplify your organization’s spirit.
▼Partner with organizations (religious-based or socially
based) that complement your company’s culture of spirit. Pro-
vide the organization with information about the company to
share with its volunteers. Obtain information about the organi-
zation so as to encourage all applicants to volunteer or support
them.
dinate, and participate in staffing a key spirit position within the
company. Involve each team in at least one recruiting event a
year.
▼ Designate a spirit leader, preferably a long-term, high-

performing employee who embodies your organization’s spirit.
Ask him to speak with or interview all applicants focusing on
your company’s culture of spirit.
▼ Profile ten great employees of spirit to uncover what
makes it easy to be a top employee, and what makes it difficult.
Strengthen or increase those things that make it easy. Remove
barriers that keep people from being exceptional employees of
spirit.
▼ To send a message regarding your company’s commit-
ment to servant leadership, require employees involved in the
staffing process to serve the applicant in at least one way during
the process. The employee can offer applicants coffee or soda,
provide them with a coupon for a free lunch in the company
cafeteria, validate their parking permit, and so on.
▼ In your staffing materials and interviews, describe your
company’s efforts to build people first. Focus on the company’s
efforts to train, support, and nurture all employees.
▼ Survey your employees annually on how to improve the
company’s ability to find people who connect with your spirit-
driven culture.
▼ ▼ ▼
The action ideas in this chapter are general and are meant to
provide only a starting point for your own efforts at alignment.
Because you have a lot more information about your company
and its culture, we strongly encourage you to create unique ac-
tion ideas to best align your staffing materials and processes to
your company’s core culture.
PART FOUR
KEEPING GREAT
EMPLOYEES
CHAPTER 10: RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES
CHAPTER 11: RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES IN ACTION
CHAPTER 12: ALIGNING RETENTION
TO CORE CULTURE
CHAPTER 10
RETENTION BEST
PRACTICES
Here’s a little secret. Your best staffing plan is to create a great

retention plan! Today’s ‘‘best’’ companies understand that the
real key to maintaining a world-class workforce is not to just
hire the best, but to keep them once they are hired. They focus
the same effort on keeping great employees as they do on find-
ing great employees. With the same tenacity, attention to detail,
and ‘‘salesmanship’’ they use to attract great employees, these
companies consistently retain far greater numbers of key em-
ployees than their competitors do.
EIGHT BEST PRACTICES IN RETENTION
Regardless of the core culture, be it customer service, innova-

tion, operational excellence, or spirit, world-class organizations
integrate eight best-practice strategies into the fabric of the com-
pany.
155
156 Keeping Great Employees
Retention Best Practice One: Engage the Soul
As you walk into most organizations today, you sense an over-

powering absence of something. Although sometimes hard to
describe, the missing thing is nevertheless so palpable that inter-
nal employees have become hardened to it. Gleaned from the
lifeless eyes of employees, or the pin-dropping quietness in the
hallways, you have entered yet another organization that has lost
its heart, its life, its soul. Though the employees don’t sense it,
outside guests invariably respond—sadly—to the realization.
Soulless bureaucracies dominate the workplace. They come
in every size and shape imaginable, from small family-owned
businesses to multinational global enterprises. They are just as
common in the public sector as in the private sector, and they
do not discriminate by industry, geography, or service. Sadly
yet predictably, they are fertile breeding grounds for massive
disconnection.
Disconnections abound within soulless bureaucracies.
Management in the wasteland fervently clings to the hopelessly
outdated belief that business is no place for humanness, that
buying a person’s hands and head is more important than engag-
ing a person’s heart and soul. Employees trapped within such
systems perform to the bare minimum standards, rising only to
the level of management’s forced compliance. Such workplaces
deaden the spirits of workers everywhere. But they also offer
progressive, aligned companies a magnificent competitive op-
portunity!
Aligned companies enthusiastically find ways to engage the
very hearts and souls of their employees. They embrace the wis-
dom of the great prophet who said, ‘‘For what will a man profit
if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?’’ Great employees
naturally search out, join, and stay with organizations that give
them compelling reasons to commit their hearts and souls to
something beyond quarterly stock reports or annual plans.
Retention Best Practices 157
Powerful connections abound within organizations that en-

gage the souls of their workers. Such aligned companies clearly
understand that imagination, creativity, and a passion for excel-
lence all reside not in the mind but in the soul. They also realize
that to engage the souls of workers is not an esoteric experiment
or an attempt at crystal-ball futurism. Rather, it is a direct, cre-
ative, and results-based strategy that unleashes a powerful and
deep connection between the employee and the employer, a con-
nection that creates high retention rates among great employees.
These connections leapfrog many traditional, skin-deep at-
tempts to motivate workers through slogans and banners, in-
stead developing strategic actions that inspire long-term
employee excellence. In creative, interesting, and exciting ways,
aligned companies forge connections with employees that touch
their hearts and engage their souls.
Retention Best Practice Two: What Gets Rewarded

Gets Done
This ever-so-basic management principle easily gets lost within

our complicated, fast-paced business world. Many fine compa-
nies lose sight of the basic tenet that whatever they reward be-
comes the focal point for most employee behavior. Employees
quickly learn what is and is not important to the company by
how they are recognized and rewarded—and reprimanded.
Praise and congratulations for a certain behavior encourages that
behavior. Reprimands and punishment for other behaviors
quickly extinguish.
Top-performing companies align their rewards to the core
culture. They realize that the stronger the connection between
reward systems and core culture, the greater the productivity
of employees. Whether having at their core customer service,
innovation, operational excellence, or spirit, aligned companies
most often reward what is most important to the culture.
When rewards and culture do not align, employee discon-

nections result. A company that claims to be innovation-driven
but primarily rewards operational excellence sends mixed mes-
sages. Should employees focus on creating the future, or on stay-
ing within the lines? Should employees spend more time and
energy on elevating the core culture of innovation to a new level,
or on dealing with process control issues?
Aligned companies concentrate on how and what reward
systems best drive their culture to new levels and then weave
these reward systems into the very fabric of the culture. The
sometimes obvious (awards, bonuses, incentives) and sometimes
subtle (a thank-you from the boss) reward systems build strong
company-to-employee connections. They also build strong
employee-to-company connections through allowing employ-
ees to be recognized for helping sustain a robust corporate cul-
ture.
Retention Best Practice Three: More Than Money
Is money important to us? Of course, because without it, none

of us could survive. But is money the most important motivator
for doing what we do?
In our experience, for the vast majority of employees
money is not the primary motivator. Something deeper inspires
employee excellence, something that connects to the employee
in a personal way. Endless surveys conclude that money is sel-
dom ranked as the main reason for joining, leaving, or contribut-
ing one’s best to a company. Yet as soon as most nonaligned
companies realize a great employee is about to leave, their auto-
matic reflex is to throw dough at him in the hope that he will
stick around.
Nonaligned organizations with no retention strategy tied to
core culture disproportionately rely upon money and monetary
incentives in their attempts to retain top employees. These reac-

tive efforts to blackmail great employees into staying with the
company often backfire, resulting in demoralized and discon-
nected staff. Nonaligned companies fail to realize that by the
time a great employee decides to leave, she is already so discon-
nected that most attempts to bribe her to stay will fail. Even if
the bribe works and the employee stays, the company now has
a highly paid but disconnected employee who has the opportu-
nity to further disconnect other great employees from the core
culture.
Aligned companies embrace what Bill Silberman, a sea-
soned compensation and benefits executive and currently presi-
dent of Green Tree Consulting in Seminole, Florida, calls the
‘‘intangible benefits of membership.’’ According to Silberman,
in building world-class retention strategies it is far more impor-
tant today to focus on the intangible benefits of company mem-
bership (pride in organizational brand, pride in being part of
something important, career development, team spirit) than on
the tangible benefits (traditional pay and benefit plans). Further,
he says that a well-crafted strategy of intangible benefits ‘‘dem-
onstrates that the organization values the employee’s profes-
sional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being,’’ which is a
powerful and effective retention technique for great employees.
Aligned organizations recognize that great employees sus-
tain world-class performance more from their passionate con-
nection to the core culture than from a passionate need for
money. Their use of monetary incentives is part (though a rela-
tively small one) of their total retention equation. A primary
focus is to build an overall retention strategy that deeply con-
nects to something more than an employee’s bank account. Cre-
ative programs are developed to retain superior employees
through meaningful connections to core culture and purpose.
Retention Best Practice Four: Learning Drives Earning
Hanging over the entrance to the Du Pont Center for Human

Development in Wilmington, Delaware, is a plaque that reads,
‘‘The competitive advantage belongs to the organization that can
decrease the cycle time of learning and apply learning to work.’’
In today’s economy, everyone is a knowledge worker. Brain-
power has replaced brute power as the primary means of pro-
ductivity. Intellectual capital has replaced financial capital as the
key to competitive advantage. The learning organization has re-
placed reengineering as a key strategic initiative.
Employees understand all too well that their very livelihood
depends upon the ability to learn. They recognize that they must
exponentially grow their own intellectual capital to survive.
Within a world of massive change and lightning-fast technological
advances, employees embrace opportunities to aggressively flex
and develop their skills. Yet there are two significant roadblocks
facing most employees, over which they have little control.
The first roadblock faced by employees who desire to grow
their learning takes the form of an organization that refuses to
invest significant dollars in training. It pays lip service to em-
ployee training but claims that ‘‘training is too expensive,’’ ‘‘it’s
not in the budget,’’ ‘‘there’s no time,’’ or ‘‘if we train them,
they’ll just leave.’’ We suggest that if you don’t train them, the
best do leave, and in turn only mediocre talent remains. Such
organizations die a quick death in our knowledge-based global
economy.
The second obstacle faced by employees desiring to grow
their learning is the organization that does not align the learning
to core culture. Training and development programs are often de-
livered with no relationship to the core culture, no direct tie to the
core reason for corporate existence. Programs and seminars are
thrown at employees—sometimes improving skills and knowl-
edge, but having little impact on operational performance. Why?

Training has no clear, concrete connection to the core culture.
Aligned companies reap the benefits of a knowledge-rich
workforce. Companies filled with knowledge-rich employees
who clearly understand how and why their knowledge ties into
core culture always outperform nonaligned companies. Employ-
ees within aligned companies understand that culture-based
learning improves company performance, which in turn im-
proves chances for personal earning. Therefore, the greater the
employee’s potential earning capacity, the greater the retention.
Retention Best Practice Five: Get a Life
Not too many years ago, the good life was perceived as getting
on the fast track of business: Work hard, strike the deal, hit the
road, make the bonus, impress the boss, move up the ladder.
There was little time for anything beyond closing the big deal or
finishing the big project. Even though we were pushed to the
edge, we were told by friends (and the message was reinforced
through countless media advertisements) that yes, we could have
it all. But somewhere along the way, the fast track lost its gleam.
Its promises of fame, fortune, and happiness were replaced with
the startling realities of massive stress, relationship upheavals,
and career burnout.
The fast track has lost much of its luster in recent years.
Those who jumped on the bandwagon, as well as those who
merely stood by and observed, now realize that the fast track is
not the right track for everyone. In fact, for many great employ-
ees, the drive to get on the fast track has been replaced with a
drive to get on with a life, one that focuses just as much (and
maybe more) on what happens outside of work than on what
happens at work.
Balancing work and personal life is and will continue to be
a tremendous challenge for all employers. With the competitive
pressure to produce higher qualities and quantities of work

every day, with fewer and fewer workers, organizations walk a
tough path. On the one hand, they must demand an ever-
increasing amount of time, commitment, and energy from their
employees to remain competitive. On the other hand, they must
somehow balance their business needs with their employees’
yearning for better overall quality of life. Push too hard, and the
organization may win, but the employee may lose. Fail to push
hard enough, and the employee may win, but the organization
may lose.
Work-life integration remains a critically important element
of strategic retention. Progressive, aligned companies such as
Xerox, the SAS Institute, and Fel-Pro understand that retention
of great employees significantly hinges upon their ability to
allow employees to regain a sense of control over both their
work and personal lives.
Aligned companies help integrate the outside personal life
of the worker with his or her inside organizational life. They
see strategic retention as more than just making an employee’s
worklife more bearable, and more than just streamlining an em-
ployee’s work schedule. Through blending employees’ personal
lives into the very fabric of the culture, aligned organizations
further loyalty and retention of great employees. It is their burn-
ing desire that every employee, from the CEO to the frontline
clerk, get a life!
Retention Best Practice Six: In the Loop
Remember the last time you sensed you were out of the corpo-
rate loop? Remember how you felt uninformed, and unimpor-
tant? At one time or another, we have all believed we were
disconnected from our company. This disconnection tears at the
very heart of our allegiance to our colleagues, our department,
and the company at large. Disconnected employees feel out of
the loop of vital internal information flow so necessary for con-

tributing to world-class performance.
The fastest way to transform a top-performing staff into a
group of disgruntled, discouraged, job-seeking workers is to
shut them out of the loop of corporate information. Struggling
companies often learn this painful lesson too late. They fail to
understand that if information is power, then they must share it
at all organizational levels. Attempting to hoard information is a
losing proposition within our knowledge-rich world.
Aligned companies understand that in-the-loop employees
feel strong connections to the company. Connected employees
jump into major projects, freely contribute their ideas and en-
ergy, and recommit themselves to the company goals. They are
more willing to take on additional work and go the extra mile
for the company. In each case, a stronger connection to the com-
pany is made through feeling that one is in the loop.
A critical key to successful retention is to tie communica-
tion to the core culture. Company communications—whether
on financial performance, competitor analysis, internal an-
nouncements, or just general information—must reinforce the
core corporate culture to employees. Wonderful opportunities
exist to reinforce and drive the culture by way of internal com-
munications that in turn yield higher retention.
Retention Best Practice Seven: Lighten Up
Without question, one of the most disheartening aspects of busi-

ness today is that so many organizations continue to take them-
selves far too seriously. Their cold, stoic, and impersonal
style—‘‘the serious business of business is serious business’’—
forces employees to check their hearts and their laughter at the
door. Such organizations squelch any attempts by employees
to bring their naturally fun-loving, upbeat personalities into the
workplace. It’s as if a huge banner containing a slight revision to
Dante’s memorable proclamation hangs over the entrance to the

Inferno, reading: ‘‘Abandon all humor, ye who enter here.’’
One clear distinction generally exists between aligned and
nonaligned organizations. Aligned organizations take their
work—but not themselves—very seriously. This subtle distinc-
tion often separates the great organizations from the mediocre.
Make a short list of the companies that immediately come to
mind that are unafraid, even proud, to allow people to lighten
up. It is likely to include such powerhouses as Southwest Air-
lines, Ben & Jerry’s, Disney, and Sun Microsystems. Not sur-
prisingly, this list also represents companies with high retention
rates within their respective industries.
Aligned organizations understand that great employees are
sure to remain with a company that is not afraid to lighten up.
They passionately pursue creating an environment that rein-
forces to employees that it’s OK to be yourself, to share the
humor of your daily struggles, to be a little silly, to find the
lighter side of business, and to share your heart! Great employ-
ees are magnetically connected to organizations that lighten up
and have a little fun.
Retention Best Practice Eight: Free at Last
‘‘Free-agent nation’’ is what Fast Company magazine recently

heralded on its cover as the reality of corporate America. Their
claim: that every employee is a free agent and should approach
his or her career as an independent, solo artisan. If this is true
(and even if it is not), how can corporations build long-term
employee retention into their everyday operations?
Perhaps the greatest irony in world-class retention practices
is that the greater the employee freedom, the greater the reten-
tion. Traditional management thinking abhors the idea of allow-
ing employees freedom to control their work. Yet in today’s
market, anything less than allowing employees a wide range of
operational latitude significantly diminishes an organization’s

ability to be fast, flexible, and responsive where it really counts:
on the front line.
In far too many organizations, bureaucracy smothers com-
mon sense. Well-meaning rules and regulations often demotivate
rather than inspire employees. Further, seldom do such rules tie
into and promote the core culture. Rather, they impede and slow
down progress, and generally lead to stagnation.
Powerful connections occur when companies give employ-
ees the protection they need to excel—the power to control their
own destinies—and then get out of their way. Top employees
thrive within environments that allow maximum operational
freedom. Even within quality or operational-excellence cultures,
where regulations and process are king, world-class companies
allow employees great leeway in solving problems on the front
line without ‘‘kicking it upstairs.’’
CHAPTER 11
RETENTION
BEST PRACTICES
IN ACTION
There are no secrets to retaining great employees, except that it

is hard, focused work. Aligned companies willingly expend the
energy and commitment necessary to retain top employees be-
cause they realize that the best labor pool is often the one they
have already developed. Rather than going along with non-
aligned companies that generally look outside the organization
to locate top talent, aligned organizations look internally to re-
tain employees who are already performing at superior levels.
Aligned organizations therefore have a twofold competitive ad-
vantage: They find great employees when they need them and
they keep the ones they have.
PUTTING WHAT’S BEST INTO ACTION

Regardless of their core culture, aligned companies integrate
each of the eight best practices into their retention strategies.
167
Since one of the goals of this book is to help you create an action
plan to better align your retention strategies to core culture,
please heed the following advice. As you read the many exam-
ples within each best-practice category, ask yourself three ques-
tions:
1. How do you currently integrate the eight best practices

into your retention strategies?
2. How might the essence of each example be integrated
into your current retention plan?
3. What would you have to modify, expand, eliminate, or
create to integrate these examples into your existing pro-
grams?
Through answering these questions, you jump-start your

action plan preparation and are that much closer to aligning
your retention strategies to core culture.
Best Practice One in Action: Engage the Soul
Aligned organizations actively engage the hearts and souls of

the best employees. Through integrating specific soul-engaging
action ideas into the very fabric of their culture, aligned organi-
zations unleash the energy, enthusiasm, and creativity of great
employees. Here are some examples of how aligned companies
engage the soul of employees.
▼Just Imagine Drive.

Even as you approach the specialty building materials
maker in Westlake, Ohio, the intent to engage the soul is evi-
dent—to enter Manco’s facilities, you must drive your car down
Just Imagine Drive! CEO Jack Kahl understands that only
through a fully engaged workforce can Manco fulfill its compel-
Retention Best Practices in Action 169
ling mission to ‘‘compete against the giants.’’ And who might

the giants be? None other than the likes of Minnesota Mining
and Manufacturing, better known as 3M. Think of the effect of
driving each day into and out of a worksite that reminds you
to ‘‘just imagine.’’ Through appealing to the very souls of his
employees, Kahl reminds his midsize company to just imagine
beating 3M.
▼ Not Your Charlie Chaplin.
A movement is sweeping through the spirit-driven cultures
in American business, not of engaging the souls of employees by
showing them Charlie Chaplin movies, but through comforting
their souls with the influence of ‘‘workplace chaplains.’’ Hun-
dreds of fine organizations (whether embracing a spirit-driven
culture or not) are contracting with independent workplace
chaplain consulting services. Generally rolled into their normal
employee assistance programs, progressive organizations offer
a broad range of religious counselors, including priests, rabbis,
ministers, and monks. Such broad-based use of workplace chap-
lains allows these organizations to meet the growing spiritual
needs of their increasingly diverse workforce.
▼ Forty Hours a Year.
Timberland, the successful New Hampshire footwear man-
ufacturer, is a fine example of how a culture of operational excel-
lence engages the souls of workers with activities outside of
work itself. Timberland allows every employee to donate up to
forty hours a year to outside corporate or individual projects.
Deep connections to Timberland result through its willingness
to allow employees an opportunity to share their skills, knowl-
edge, and passion with groups that touch their souls. Many em-
ployees join in corporate-sponsored trips to Puerto Rico, for
example, to participate in various habitat and human service
projects throughout the island.
▼ Keys to the Soul.

Engaging the soul need not focus on saving the world—or
even saving a soul. Innovation-driven SAS, a computer software
company in Carey, North Carolina, engages a pianist to play
during lunch hours. By allowing the musician to softly stroke
the keys, SAS softly strokes the souls of its employees, building
a subtle yet soothing employee connection.
▼No Hidden Agendas.
When it comes to hidden agendas, spirit-driven Advanced
Technology Consultants does not believe in them. The Atlanta
provider of communications software proudly shares with ap-
plicants and employees that their mission is ‘‘serving God while
bringing people and technology together.’’ With such a refresh-
ingly candid and honest approach, Advanced Technology Con-
sultants both attracts and retains employees who believe in and
share a similar personal mission.
▼Passion Plaque.
Kingston Computers, a Fountain Valley, California, high-
tech manufacturer, ignites a passionate connection to employ-
ees’ souls via its ‘‘passion plaque.’’ Displayed in the lobby, the
magnificent plaque lists the four core goals to which all employ-
ees must aspire and are held accountable at Kingston: ‘‘courtesy,
compassion, modesty, and honesty.’’ Thus Kingston engages the
souls of employees through a constant reminder of what is most
important to its success—and what connects so deeply to the
soul for them.
Best Practice Two in Action: What Gets Rewarded

Gets Done
Aligned organizations know that what gets rewarded gets done.

They create innovative ways to retain top-flight employees
through connecting rewards to the core culture. Here are several

progressive organizations that further retention through cultur-
ally aligned reward systems.
▼ Equal Weighting.
Rick Valines, the vice president of human resources at
Griffen Industries of Cold Springs, Kentucky, recognized that
turnover was far too high notwithstanding the company’s cul-
ture of operational excellence in manufacturing. So Valines rede-
signed the performance review process that determines
managers’ raises and bonuses. The new review elevated the im-
portance of turnover, giving it equal weight with such other
areas as quality and safety. Not surprisingly, turnover quickly
went down. Managers are now concentrating on making long-
term connections with the best employees—and all it took at
Griffen was equal weighting.
▼ Ten Percent and 40 Percent.
Customer service and customer solutions are a significant
part of Metamor Technologies’ quarterly bonus system. Four
times a year within this Chicago-based customer-service con-
sulting company, supervisors call all forty clients and ask if they
are satisfied with Metamor’s communication, ability to solve
problems, and responsiveness to needs; they also ask about the
customer’s willingness to give a reference. With up to 10 percent
of salary and 40 percent of bonuses resting on the answers, Met-
amor extends its service philosophy into how employees get re-
warded. At last count, the average contract has increased tenfold
within the last five years, and 75 percent of current clients give
their friends unsolicited testimonials on the high level of Meta-
mor’s services.
▼Customer Goals.
Great customer-service companies base their rewards on
more than just service. GSD&M, an advertising agency in Aus-
tin, Texas, boasts a 90 percent client retention rate within an

industry known for fast and frequent client turnover. With such
large and demanding clients as Wal-Mart and Southwest Air-
lines, GSD&M connects employees’ desire to offer customer so-
lutions with its cutting-edge bonus structure. Rather than set
bonuses according to employees’ meeting internally driven com-
pany goals, GSD&M bases bonuses on how well they help client
companies meet their goals.
▼ ‘‘I’m Satisfied!’’
Even Hallmark Cards of Kansas City implements incentive
pay plans based on customer satisfaction. The innovation-driven
company’s cross-functional, team-based plan is based on cus-
tomer satisfaction, profitability as measured against budgeted
goals, and sales at the retail level—not sales to the retailer. Man-
agers and exempt employees put 10 percent of their pay at risk;
all others do so with 5 percent of their pay. The upside is the
chance to earn between 12.5 percent and 25 percent more than
under previous reward systems. The new system is based pri-
marily upon satisfying the customers and helping them meet
their goals.
▼ Get on the Train.
Omron Electronics of Chicago takes a simple, direct, and
high-impact approach to ensuring that all managers focus on
individual and team training. Sales managers know that 10 per-
cent of pay is tied to meeting ongoing training goals. It is pretty
straightforward: If you want to get people on the training train,
reward the activity.
Best Practice Three in Action: More Than Money
Aligned organizations recognize that long-term employee reten-

tion is built upon more than money. Through a concerted focus
beyond short-term monetary gain, aligned organizations engen-

der strong employee connection based upon creative ties to the
core culture. Here are some examples of how progressive organi-
zations foster retention through culturally aligned systems that
focus on more than money.
▼ Employee Exchange Program.

The spirit-driven management at Rhino Foods of Burling-
ton, Vermont, builds high retention through its employee ex-
change program. During slow times of the year, Rhino’s
employees (recognized by the community as some of the best in
their area) are ‘‘loaned’’ to other local companies for a maximum
of six weeks. This enables Rhino employees to continue earning
income during routinely off-peak business times. The power of
this example extends well beyond the money each employee
earns during the employee exchange program. It is a prime rea-
son for the track record of tremendous loyalty and retention at
Rhino Foods.
▼ Horsing Around.
Recognizing that great employees are motivated by more
than money, service-driven Computer System Development, a
consulting company in Albuquerque, offers unusual incentives
for employee success. Based upon what they call ‘‘challenge
sheets,’’ employees design annual personal and professional
goals. In keeping with their western heritage, founder Frank Bo-
hac’s employees are often awarded vacations, computers—and
even horses.
▼ The Ring’s the Thing.
Once a year, the top innovators at 3M are inducted into its
Circle of Technical Excellence. Without question, this is the
most prestigious honor bestowed upon 3M’s top performers. To
make the honor quite visible, each recipient is given a Super
Bowl–type ring large enough that others cannot help but notice.
Go ahead, try and convince the winners at 3M that the ring is

not the thing!
▼Everybody Wins.
At NetManage, a Cupertino, California, software manufac-
turer, when sales goals are reached everyone in the office wins.
Virtually all staff are invited to go on vacation trips to resorts.
Within such a spirit-driven culture, great company sales are con-
sidered an effort for the entire workforce team. Therefore, the
whole team is rewarded. More than 750 employees and guest
were included in the last trip.
▼ Bean Stock.
Starbucks is as well known for its wonderful benefits pack-
ages (for a largely part-time workforce) as for the spirit-driven
culture. The employee stock option plan is internally known as
their ‘‘bean stock’’ program, where a part-time partner earning
six or seven dollars an hour can—in as little as five years—earn
enough for a down payment on a house. Stock options and
health insurance including dental benefits are offered to all em-
ployees.
▼ Personal Time Donation.
Cray Research of Eagan, Minnesota, created a powerful
program that strengthened the sense of connection among em-
ployees. Called the emergency personal-time donation program,
it allows any regular full-time or part-time employee to donate
between eight and forty hours of accumulated personal time to
workers who have less than forty hours of personal time off
remaining. An employee-generated idea, it has resulted in dona-
tion so far of more than 1,000 hours. All donations of time re-
main anonymous.
Best Practice Four in Action: Learning Drives Earning
Aligned organizations know that employee learning leads to

long-term employee earning. They find progressive ways to re-
tain great employees through connecting employees’ lifelong

learning to the core culture. Here are several ways aligned orga-
nizations promote retention through culturally aligned learning.
▼ $400 a Year.
Applewood Plumbing, the progressive service-driven
plumbing, heating, and air conditioning services company in
Denver that we discussed in Chapter 8, takes an interesting ap-
proach to encouraging learning. Founder John Ward pays his
technicians up to $400 a year to having plumbing, heating, and
cooling repairs made to their own homes—by direct competi-
tors. Their $400 a year allowance gives Applewood’s technicians
a distinct competitive advantage, learning firsthand the tech-
niques of competitors—from telephone communication style to
dispute resolution—and more important, they uncover oppor-
tunities to serve their customers even better.
▼ Get Out of Here.
Many exemplary companies with service-driven cultures
understand that the best way (indeed, the only way) to learn
what customers experience in using their products or services is
to get out and use them. L. L. Bean pays its employees for out-
door wilderness days spent skiing, hiking, boating, or fishing.
The learning derived from seeing, feeling, and living how the
customer uses and abuses its products drives the earning poten-
tial of great employees. Transferring such hands-on knowledge
into their work, employees are far better equipped to offer well-
founded, reliable customer advice, which boosts customer loy-
alty and in turn improves employee earning potential.
▼ Blue Ribbon Tours.
In the majority of operational-excellence cultures, the two
most frightening words imaginable are ‘‘corporate audit.’’ At
PSS/World Medical, employees cheer, whoop, and holler when-
ever their branch is picked for the annual audit. Called the ‘‘blue
ribbon tours,’’ the audit finds CEO Pat Kelly and other senior
staff visiting each branch location and grading it on an extensive
yes-no checklist. It includes the top 100 things every branch
must do to be successful. The payoff for a high-scoring visit can
be considerable. Every employee at the top-scoring branch for
the year receives $3,000; employees at the second-highest–
scoring branch receive $2,000 each, and so forth, down as far as
the number-ten branch, where each employee receives $500.
What generates real learning is that all the nonwinning
branches must pay for the top ten branch winnings. This aver-
ages about $3,000 taken from the bottom line of every nonwin-
ning branch. Although not a significant amount, it’s enough for
every branch manager to notice and want to work hard so that
it won’t happen again next year. Learning how to effectively
implement all 100 items thus has an impact on the earning of
literally every employee at the Jacksonville, Florida–based PSS/
World Medical.
▼ Two-Minute Warnings.
At the Phelps Group, a Santa Monica, California, marketing
agency, employees are given a two-minute warning at exactly
9:28 A.M. every Monday. They have just enough time to make
the weekly staff meeting. Held in an open area, the first order of
business is to give away $100 to an employee (picked at random)
who can answer a question from the employee handbook. This
quick, easy, and fun example boosts earning for all those who
learn the employee handbook and motivates learning to the en-
tire Phelps team on critical issues.
▼ Impact Vote.
During her staff meetings, Susan Groenwald, president of
Barter Corporation in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, asks employ-
ees to share tales of exemplary customer-service acts performed
by other employees. After hearing and learning of the many
great service actions taken by colleagues, the fifty-some employ-

ees vote on the one customer service act having the greatest im-
pact on the company. The winner receives a cash reward. One
of the real payoffs is the enthusiastic connections made between
employees and the company; but perhaps the biggest payoff is
the many wonderful customer-service anecdotes her sales staff
can then share in wooing potential clients—a huge earnings op-
portunity for the entire staff.
▼ Twenty-Two Courses.
At Chaparral Steel, an internationally known specialty steel
manufacturer based in Midlothian, Texas, twenty-two classes are
offered and open to every employee. Employees within this op-
erational excellence culture are encouraged to learn all the other
jobs in their department and are given twenty dollars for each
four-hour training course they take on their own time. Em-
ployee pay increases as they complete more classes. By support-
ing employees’ long-term learning through both encouragement
and incentives, Chaparral has increased work coverage thanks to
extensive cross-training and has built a strong retention connec-
tion with all levels of staff.
▼ The Leesburg Experience.
New hires at Xerox Business Services (XBS, winner of the
Malcolm Baldrige award) quickly learn the importance the com-
pany places on quality and operational excellence. New account
associates, the men and women in charge of onsite customer ser-
vice, are flown to XBS’s international document university in
Leesburg, Virginia, for a four-day program on quality. These
seven-dollar-an-hour new hires are amazed that XBS cares
enough about them and their careers to send them to such a
weeklong session on a beautiful campus so soon after joining.
By sharing what insiders call ‘‘the Leesburg experience,’’ XBS
begins to build a long-term relationship with new employees
that is built upon a connection to operational excellence.
Best Practice Five in Action: Get a Life
Aligned companies understand that to retain great employees

they must focus on finding ways to integrate the demands of
work and life. Here are some innovative ways that aligned com-
panies encourage employee retention through helping employ-
ees get a life.
▼ Please Go Away.
Outstanding performers at investment banker Shulman As-
sociates of Boca Raton, Florida, are given an envelope marked
‘‘Please go away.’’ Enclosed in the envelope are airline tickets
for spending Christmas in the Bahamas. Shulman reinforces the
need for its employees to get a life through this fun and interest-
ing technique that any culture can successfully adopt.
▼ Take a Hike.
If you work for Hewlett-Packard (innovation-driven), or
Pacific Gas and Electric (customer-driven), you are apt to hear
someone tell you to take a hike. That is, take a hike at HP’s free
cabins or at one of PG&E’s seven camping sites. Regardless of
core culture type, it is important to occasionally suggest that
employees take a hike!
▼ ‘‘Cognoid’’ Perseverance.
Any ‘‘Cognoid’’—the affectionate term used to describe
employees at wildly successful, wildly fun Cognex (a Natick,
Massachusetts, manufacturer of machine vision systems)—is eli-
gible for a slew of magnificent get-aways if he’s the persevering
type. For five years of employment, Cognoids are rewarded with
a fully paid, three-day getaway to entertainment centers such as
Nashville, Orlando, or New Orleans. After ten years of perse-
verance, Cognoids receive an all-expenses paid vacation to places
on the order of London and Paris. After fifteen years, Cognoids
can choose a trip to a designated ‘‘wonder of the world,’’ includ-

ing the Pyramids or the Grand Canyon. Warning: Only those
who have a passion for fun will persevere (survive) within this
innovation-driven culture.
▼ It’s Your Schedule.
Recently at the Xerox customer service center in Dallas,
managers took what appeared to be a drastic gamble. They al-
lowed employees to arrange their work schedules almost entirely
according to their personal life schedules. The results were just
as dramatic as the risk. Absenteeism dropped 30 percent and
productivity increased.
▼ High Chairs.
Parents working at the Freddie Mac (FNMA) mortgage of-
fices in McLean, Virginia, can bring their children into the cafe-
teria at lunchtime. High chairs and booster seats are available.
▼ A Complex Arrangement.
Quad/Graphics, the operationally excellent Wisconsin
magazine publisher, recently built a $5 million apartment com-
plex outside its plant in Lomira. Initially designed as a recruit-
ment device—a way to provide affordable housing to younger
workers—it can also be considered a great retention device for
older Quad/Graphics workers. Here’s why: Many of the units
are held to provide housing for young employees whose parents
also work at Quad/Graphics! Imagine the connection to Quad/
Graphics among parents who have helped move their kids into a
job and an apartment. Such a complex arrangement continues
to generate high employee retention at this perennially well-
performing company.
▼ Picture This.
At Kendle, a Cincinnati-based clinical test designer, all 280-
some employees were photographed with symbols of their fa-
vorite outside-of-work activity. The photographs were then
posted all over offices. Kendle found that this was a great way to
remind current employees to get a life outside of work. But they
discovered an unexpected surprise from posting these photo-
graphs: It was also a great recruiting tool for prospective em-
ployees. The photographs demonstrate that there is and should
be life outside of work, and they allow prospective employees
an opportunity to make quick connections with current em-
ployees by way of shared interests outside of work.
▼Tell ’Em What They’ve Already Got.
A recent internal survey conducted by Hoechst Celanese
uncovered an amazing retention reality. They found that em-
ployees who were made aware of the company’s already estab-
lished work/life programs were almost 40 percent more likely to
remain with the company for the next three years than employ-
ees who were not aware of the programs. Any culture can imple-
ment this best practice to improve employee retention.
▼ Flex Fit.
In 1992, Peat Marwick, the global service-driven consul-
tancy, was facing a serious problem. It was about to lose many of
its best employees simply because the company was not flexible
regarding the employees’ desire for more balanced work/life in-
tegration. In response, Peat Marwick began a program that of-
fered part-time work, flex time, and flex hours to its employees,
especially professional women who wanted to cut back on work
hours to spend more time with family. Now, part-timers who
work 1,000 hours receive benefits, and full-timers can work at
home. Through helping their employees get a life, Peat Marwick
continues to be a recognized service leader.
▼I Forgive You.
Legacy Health System in Portland, Oregon, has a program
to help employees become first-time home buyers. They pro-
vide forgivable, small financial loans to employees who buy
homes in neighborhoods that need revival near Emanuel Hospi-

tal. Imagine the long-term connections generated to Legacy
Health System through helping employees purchase a home.
▼ The Eleven-of-Twenty-Four Plan.
One service-driven culture found a unique way to provide
additional service at little additional cost. Marquardt and Roche,
a marketing agency in Stamford, Connecticut, was bogged down
with employees asking for an additional paid holiday. Instead of
giving everyone another holiday, Marquardt and Roche created
a flexible holiday plan. At the beginning of the year, the com-
pany distributes a list of twenty-four holidays, from which em-
ployees can choose as many as eleven. As employees pick their
preferred holidays, management balances the need for coverage.
The result is that the employees now have a flexible holiday plan
and the office is open more days than it was before the Eleven-
of-Twenty-Four plan. This allows everyone to get a life while
simultaneously extending customer contact days.
Best Practice Six in Action: In the Loop
Aligned organizations recognize that the more great employees

feel in the loop of company information, the more likely they
are to remain long-term employees. Here are several progressive
ways aligned organizations improve retention through keeping
employees informed.
▼ Minutes Within Minutes.

In the lightning-fast world of finance, minutes count. No-
where is this truer than within the financial services environ-
ment of Raymond James Financial (first introduced in Chapter
8). Within minutes of completing an executive meeting, the min-
utes of that meeting are summarized and electronically posted
throughout the company’s intranet for all employees to see. Re-

gardless of the core culture, Raymond James’s minutes-within-
minutes approach is a magnificent way to keep employees in the
loop.
▼ GSD Call.
Every Tuesday morning at eleven, Larry Mercer, the execu-
tive vice president of operations for the Home Depot, conducts
his weekly ‘‘get stuff done’’ (GSD) conference call to his division
presidents and regional vice presidents. After a brief overview of
operations, he gives his teams two things to get done in their
stores today! The managers and VPs then relay the two items
mentioned in the GSD call to their store managers throughout
the Home Depot network. The GSD calls connect real-time is-
sues with real-time results, while keeping service-minded em-
ployees in the loop on key performance areas.
▼ Open Meetings.
At the headquarters of Rosenbluth International all meet-

ings are posted with an open invitation for anyone to attend.
Any employee from any department can attend any meeting.
Rosenbluth understands that often employees outside a particu-
lar department are just as emotional, passionate, and interested
in the topic at hand as those inside the department.
▼ ‘‘Urgents’’ Board.
Lucent Technologies, based in Murray Hill, New Jersey,
takes a creative yet simple approach to keeping employees in the
loop and connected. It has a special place for listing orders that
are behind schedule. Called the ‘‘urgents board,’’ it’s intended
for Lucent employees with a few free minutes to jump into an
urgent project and help their teammates get back on schedule.
▼ Passport, Please.
Interim Services, a temporary services company in Fort
Lauderdale, connects with new hires uniquely. To get into the
loop and connected fast at this service-driven company, all new
hires are given what looks like a large passport book with the
instructions to track down, meet, and talk to every senior man-

ager and have them all stamp the passport. After accumulating
all the stamps, new hires are invited to a special seminar, where
they meet all the executives at once, learn about company his-
tory and culture, and ask questions of the senior staff. Interim’s
passport strategy is a great illustration of how to quickly build
in-the-loop connections between new hires and the corporate
culture.
▼ V-Mail.
During the acquisition of another drug retailer, Rite-Aid’s
chairman, Martin Grass, used an outside voice-mail system to
receive anonymous feedback on issues important to employees
of the acquired company. The system worked extremely well,
with Grass being able to keep newly acquired employees in the
loop through quickly responding to key issues of real concern.
Any core culture can learn from Rite-Aid how to retain great
employees during mergers and acquisitions.
▼ Two-Minute Summaries.
Every Monday morning at the headquarters of Windam
Hill Records in Palo Alto, California, the company conducts a
one-hour meeting for all of its thirty employees. Everyone gives
a two-minute summary of what he or she plans to accomplish in
the upcoming week. Rather than filter such goals through man-
agers or written reports, a strong connection emerges between
employees when each is asked to share individual goals collec-
tively.
▼ Hall Ways.
Innovation-driven Adobe Systems, in San Jose, takes a sim-
ple approach to keeping people in the loop while avoiding long
meetings in stuffy rooms. Adobe insists that all employees walk
around and conduct meetings in the hallways. Believing that the
best way to keep the information flowing is to get people out of
their offices and mingling, Adobe finds many advantages to hall
meetings. First, it keeps the number of participants small so de-

cisions can be reached far more quickly. Second, it forces people
to get to the point because they tire of standing up in a hallway.
Third, it significantly decreases status barriers while consider-
ably increasing the personal connections among all levels of em-
ployees.
▼ tickedoff.com.
Many progressive companies are creating intranet Websites
for disgruntled employees to vent. Allowing employees to get
their feelings and thoughts out increases employee connections
to the company and to other employees who realize that some-
one else feels the same way. Additionally, it gives management a
real-time pulse of underlying employee concerns. From innova-
tion-driven cultures like Netscape and Silicon Graphics to such
service cultures as Sears and operational-excellence cultures like
Wal-Mart, many leading companies are allowing their valued
employees an opportunity to get ticked off without reprimand.
▼ Listening Posts.
Customer feedback is critical to any company but espe-
cially important to customer-driven cultures. To help keep its
best employees in the loop, Lands’ End sponsors internal meet-
ings between frontline phone sales representatives and behind-
the-scenes workers. To maintain exceptional service levels,
Lands’ End keeps a strong focus on the customer while building
stronger connections among all employees.
Best Practice Seven in Action: Lighten Up
Aligned organizations recognize that great employees are far

more likely to stay on for the long run if they can lighten up and
have a little fun. Here are several examples.
▼ Have Fun or Get Fired.

The unofficial mission at innovation-driven Paradigm
Communication, a St. Petersburg, Florida, software developer, is

to ‘‘have fun or get fired.’’ Realizing that high stress and long
hours leave a workforce primed for massive burnout, Paradigm’s
owner, Dan Furlong, also enforces a specific and well-thought-
out dress code and attendance policy. Here they both are in their
entirety: ‘‘Show up for work, and wear something.’’
▼ No-Class E-Mail.
It can be incredibly frustrating trying to weed through
mounds of e-mail, attempting to figure out which ones are im-
portant and which ones are not. Tandem Computers came up
with a lighthearted twist to its internal communication system.
Tandem now has three levels of internal e-mail. ‘‘First class’’
e-mail is all-business, and it should be read. Second-class e-mail
is for interesting ideas and suggestions, a good place to go for
hot topics and concepts. ‘‘No-class’’ e-mail is for humor and
classified ads, a great place to stop when you need a quick mental
break. This e-mail classification structure allows everyone at
Tandem to quickly sort what is important, what’s good to know,
and what’s just plain fun.
▼ Back to School.
The 1997 annual meeting for financial analysts at innova-
tion-driven Cognex was organized like any other such meeting
for that company: a day in elementary school! After being
picked up in a yellow school bus, the analysts were driven to
a meeting facility decked out with blackboards, carrying their
lunchboxes, and even having pop quizzes. Naturally, the annual
report was made to look like coloring books. What else would
you expect from a company that calls all its employees ‘‘Cog-
noids’’ and carefully trains staff to properly execute their official
company salute (modeled after—who else—the Three Stooges:
right hand brought sharply to the bridge of the nose)? With the
strength to lighten up, Cognex consistently attracts and retains
great employees from throughout the Northeast.
▼ Stump the CEO.

Many great organizations are finding fun ways to keep ex-
ecutives in contact with employees while simultaneously show-
ing the lighter side of business. One such company, AGI, a
cosmetics packaging company in Melrose Park, Illinois, awards
prizes during monthly employee meetings to the person who
asks the CEO the toughest question. By demonstrating willing-
ness to be held accountable for the tough issues and to do so
in a humorous way, such organizations with a core culture of
operational excellence create strong connections that help with
retention of great employees.
▼ Be Loose and Have Fun.
Aligned companies need not have fancy, page-long, elo-
quently developed mission statements to retain great employees.
Often, the simpler the better. One example comes from Great
Harvest Bread, a spirit-driven franchise natural bread retailer
based in Dillon, Montana, whose mission is to ‘‘be loose and
have fun.’’ Given only minimal operational guidelines, the fran-
chise agreement specifically reads ‘‘Anything not expressly for-
bidden by the language of this document is allowed!’’ No two
stores look alike. Franchisees are allowed to tinker with pricing
and recipes. There are no home office inspections. By living their
spirit-driven mission, Great Harvest builds powerful retention
connections with its diverse franchisees.
▼ Happiness Barometer Team.
Appearing here yet again, Rosenbluth International travel
group is known for its innovative, proactive employee-relations
strategies. Management understands that happy employees are
more productive and more likely to stay than are sad employees.
One technique to keep tabs on employee morale is the ‘‘happi-
ness barometer team,’’ a group of employees charged with con-
ducting a benchmark attitude and enjoyment-needs survey every
six months. With a team name like this, employees realize that
Rosenbluth is serious about their happiness, so why leave?
▼ Let ’Em Surf.

With facilities located near the Pacific Ocean in Ventura,
California, the management team at Patagonia extends employ-
ees a very special perk tailored to their unique location. Realiz-
ing that you never know when great waves will come in,
management allows employees to go surfing whenever they
wish. With the flexibility to hit the beach when the waves are
high, employee morale remains buoyant throughout the entire
Patagonia facility. Just imagine another organization attempting
to lure a Patagonia employee away when the employee asks
about their surfing policy!
Best Practice Eight in Action: Free at Last
Aligned organizations understand that great employees can only

remain that way within a culture that allows maximum freedom.
Strong, long-term employee connections are built into a core
culture that encourages initiative and freedom from bureau-
cracy. Here are several interesting examples of how organiza-
tions promote employee freedom.
▼ Abolitionists.
The executive team at SOL, a highly successful cleaning
company in Finland, so embraces the concept of free-at-last that
they have abolished every conceivable standard corporate perk.
Within SOL, there are no titles, no secretaries, no individual
offices, no set working hours, no status, and no special perks.
Employees are free from the constraints of traditional status and
the political fights that inevitably arise within conventional orga-
nizational systems, and they are therefore free to take whatever
initiative is necessary to perform their duties. Besides, who
would want to leave a service-driven company whose logo is a
yellow happy face?
▼First Memo of the Month.

Great employees thrive within environments that allow
maximum freedom and a minimum number of directives from
above. PSS/World Medical takes a fresh—and radical—approach
to allowing employees to be free at last. Every office is required
to read the first memo of the month sent from any officer. All
other memos sent out from that officer that month can be ig-
nored and summarily disposed. Within a service-driven culture,
emancipating the freedom of action of employees impels phe-
nomenal growth—and comparable retention.
▼ Scavenger Hunt.
Freedom is more than just a word at Southwest Airlines; it
is instilled in employees from day one. To drive home the com-
pany’s absolute, unrelenting passion for allowing employees the
freedom to do their jobs, new hires at the corporate office partic-
ipate in a scavenger hunt during orientation. Each person is given
a list of questions about the history of Southwest Airlines. They
are then told to roam the hallways, searching for the answers
among the hundreds of photographs that line the walls of their
three-story Dallas headquarters. They are also instructed to stop
any employee or enter any office without making an appoint-
ment (including Chairman Herb Kelleher’s office) in search of
the answers. The scavenger hunt brilliantly connects fun with
the Southwest Airlines operational-excellence culture, as well as
communicating the freedom all employees have to do their
work.
▼Seven Mistakes a Day.
Mistakes are expected, and even encouraged, at Empower
Trainers and Consulting, an Overland Park, Kansas, computer
training and applications company. Every employee is exhorted
to post his or her daily mistakes, preferably at least seven of
them, on the office walls. Why seven? Founder and CEO Mi-
chael May believes that ‘‘if you’re not making seven mistakes a
day, you’re just not trying hard enough.’’1 Considered part of

the corporate learning curve, mistakes are openly communicated
within this service-driven culture to reinforce the freedom that
employees have to experiment, test, and create new solutions for
all customers. Creating an environment with the freedom to fail
proactively promotes employee retention.
▼ Rolling Along.
At SEI Investments of Oaks Park, Pennsylvania, all office
furniture is on wheels. Employees are therefore free to create
their own workspace anywhere, and alongside anyone, to get the
job done. Such freedom does create one interesting problem:
How can you find a colleague when they do not have a fixed
office? Since employees move their offices so often, SEI has cre-
ated an electronic software map that helps employees within this
innovation-driven investment company determine where their
colleagues happen to be working that day.
▼ It’s the Java Man.
Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto,
California, learned a valuable lesson on employee freedom that
has become part of the legacy of its innovation-driven culture.
A few years ago, one of his top software engineers, Patrick
Naughton, told McNealy he thought it impossible to be creative
at Sun Microsystems and asked to be allowed to work on his
own projects. Although Naughton was considered something of
a critic and troublemaker, McNealy asked him to devise a plan
to make it easier to be more innovative at the company. While
working on the plan, the engineer began to design software that
ultimately became the Internet standard and Sun’s most success-
ful product ever, Java. Connecting to someone’s need for free-
dom, McNealy retained a great employee who eventually created
a hugely successful, profitable product.
▼ Volunteer Day.
Demonstrating that great employees are trusted is a power-
ful retention device. AT&T recently took a huge step toward

employee freedom. The company now gives all of the more than
100,000 employees an annual paid day off for volunteer work.
Although not revolutionary in and of itself, this is the largest
and most public corporate commitment toward community ser-
vice in recent years. What sets this volunteer day apart, however,
is the minimalist approach taken by AT&T management. Rather
than requiring specific paperwork or reports on their work, em-
ployees need only clear their volunteer day with their supervi-
sors—no other proof necessary. Simply and powerfully, AT&T
demonstrates trust that its top employees do what they say—a
powerful connection in building long-term employee retention.
NOTE
1. Nancy Austin, ‘‘The Culture Evolution,’’ Inc. 500 1997 Issue
(October 1997), pp. 72–80.
CHAPTER 12
ALIGNING RETENTION
TO CORE CULTURE
This offers action ideas to help you begin aligning your reten-
tion practices to your core culture. As in Chapter 9, which of-
fered ideas on staffing, here you might want to read first the
section that applies to your core culture.
As you review the action ideas for your culture, consider
the following:
▼ How can you implement the action item to improve your

ability to keep great employees?
▼ How does the action item complement existing retention
practices?
▼ What additional resources are needed to implement the
action idea?
To create additional ideas for aligning retention to core cul-

ture, review the action ideas presented for the three other cul-
tures. Remember that the same action idea may work for
191
different cultures because although the gist of the action is the

same in all four areas, the focus of the action is different for each
core culture.
CUSTOMER SERVICE CULTURE
Here are seventeen ideas to begin aligning your retention prac-

tices to your service culture.
▼Ask employees to list the top five roadblocks to creating

customer solutions. Take immediate steps to minimize or elimi-
nate each roadblock.
▼Assess the degree to which all employees are able to
reach out and touch the customer. Create cross-functional teams
to generate new ways to connect with customers.
▼ Survey your superlative service employees for their top
five examples of when a customer was wrong and how they re-
sponded. Summarize and circulate their responses to remind
staff that even if the customer is wrong, the customer is always
the customer.
Celebrate and reward employees who take ownership of
▼
customers’ problems without passing the buck.

▼Assess how your management’s internal feedback mech-
anisms connect to the real-time reaction needs of staff.
▼Ask employees to rank the top three aspects of their ser-
vice-focused job that most connect and engage their souls, and
the three that most disconnect their souls. Build action plans to
accentuate the connections and eliminate the disconnections.
▼Rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how every monetary and non-
monetary recognition program drives your core culture to create
customer solutions. Redesign those pay and rewards systems
that do not clearly reinforce the core culture.
Aligning Retention to Core Culture 193
▼ Rate all training activities on how well they clearly rein-

force your customer-solution processes. Redesign those that do
not align.
▼ Align compensation and reward programs to encourage
service-specific learning.
▼ Create opportunities for employees to experience the
service-delivery methods of competitors. Encourage employees
to share lessons learned at staff meetings, to include how com-
petitors connect with them, how competitors communicate their
expectations of customers, whether the competitor puts the cus-
tomer first, and whether the competitor empowers employees.
Integrate lessons learned into current and future customer-
service training initiatives.
▼Initiate a biannual ‘‘community service day.’’ Encourage
employees to volunteer one day of work each year to help teach
a community group how to create solutions for its customers.
▼ Begin a one-page weekly internal newsletter, or its e-mail
equivalent, on hot customer issues so as to keep staff in the loop.
Include customer praises, problems, missed opportunities, and
challenges to improve.
▼ Conduct information-sharing meetings between direct-
customer-contact and behind-the-scene employees. Allow time
to brainstorm solutions to improve delivery of customer solu-
tions.
▼ Begin a quarterly contest on the funniest customer com-
plaint, the weirdest customer expectation, and the silliest cus-
tomer reaction. Offer employees lighthearted rewards for their
willingness to create positive customer solutions even in unusual
situations.
▼ Separate your e-mail into two major categories: service
stuff (important customer issues) and other stuff (policy up-
dates, general announcements, items of fun and interest). En-
courage staff to read the service stuff first and save the other
stuff for when they need a quick mental break or an update.
▼ Begin a ‘‘service mistake of the month’’ program. En-
courage employees to recount service mistakes they made and

share with all how to avoid the same mistake in the future. Re-
ward the ‘‘winner’’ with $100 in cash.
▼Organize a customer-call team to contact your top
twenty customers. Ask each customer what three things they
wish your frontline employees were given the freedom to do.
Integrate their answers into your customer-service culture.
INNOVATION CULTURE
Here are fourteen ideas for increasing retention within your
innovation-focused culture.
▼Rank how well your internal communication programs

reinforce key employee connections (need for speed, cannibal-
ization, thrill of the adventure, etc.).
▼ Initiate a ‘‘serious fun’’ project rating system. Periodi-
cally ask employees to rate their level of fun on the company’s
serious projects.
▼ Create a cannibal committee. Direct the committee to
meet each month and unleash its members’ creative-destruction
skills on a designated product, process, or company program.
Recognize individual members who display a gift for canni-
balism.
▼ Ask employees to list the top five roadblocks to creating
the future. Take immediate steps to minimize or eliminate each

roadblock.
▼Survey employees for the five most time-consuming
company practices. Redesign each practice around the need for
speed.
▼ Ask employees to rank the top three aspects of their in-

novation-driven job that most connect and engage their souls,
and the three that most disconnect and drain their souls. Build
action plans to accentuate the connections and the positive; elim-
inate the disconnections and the negative.
▼ Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how every monetary and
nonmonetary recognition program drives your core culture to
create the future. Redesign those rewards that do not clearly re-
inforce the core culture.
▼ Rate all training activities on how well they clearly rein-
force your innovation-driven culture. Redesign those that do not
align.
▼ Direct employees to plan an offsite outdoor adventure.
Include fast, fun, and creative activities open to both employees
and their significant others.
innovation-specific learning.
▼Initiate a biannual ‘‘community innovation day.’’ En-
courage employees to volunteer one day of work to help teach a
community group how to create the future for its organization.
▼ Begin a ‘‘three F analysis.’’ Before initiating any new
project, have team members rate on a scale of 1 to 10 each of the
project’s potential three Fs: is it fast, focused, and fun? Any total
rating below 25 must be redesigned.
▼ Rotate among your staff the two-week position of ‘‘inno-
vation information initiator.’’ Instruct the initiator to produce a
biweekly one-page summary of hot industry trends, competitor
initiatives, and how each has an impact on the company’s busi-
ness.
▼ Develop an annual goal of cannibalizing a minimum of
30 percent of your existing products. Conduct formal funerals
for each cannibalized product—complete with toy airplane fly-
overs, flags at half-mast, and regal burials.
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE CULTURE
Use the following thirteen ideas to increase the retention of top

talent within your operational excellence culture.
▼ Begin an ‘‘F-Troop contest.’’ Based upon the idea of the

television comedy’s inept cavalry troop, pick your least efficient
process and challenge your team to make fast quality improve-
ments. Tell the team that when they reach the goals, you person-
ally will call each member’s spouse (mother, father, friend,
roommate, or whomever they wish) and brag about how great
you are until it hurts!
▼ Begin a ‘‘who’s who of process improvement’’ directory
for your company. Designate the champions of each process im-
provement by name and location. Highlight the big payoffs and
efficiencies for each process.
▼Commit to an annual ‘‘waste-away day.’’ Reward the in-
dividual or team with the most original idea for eliminating
waste by granting a day away from work.
▼Ask employees to rank the top three aspects of their
process-focused job that most connect and engage their souls.
Also ask for the three aspects that most disconnect and drain
their souls. Build action plans to accentuate the positive and
eliminate the negative.
▼Begin a weekly ‘‘process pipeline’’ voice-mail update fo-
cusing on the week’s most notable process improvements. Rec-
ognize improvements in standards, error rates, and waste
elimination.
▼ Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how every monetary and
nonmonetary recognition program drives your core culture to
create the process. Redesign those rewards that do not clearly
reinforce the core culture.
▼ Conduct a quarterly ‘‘Herbie heroes’’ party, celebrating

those employees who overcame another process delay.
▼ Ask for volunteers to form a ‘‘balancing act’’ committee.
Assign them to generate efficient, easy-to-implement guidelines
and an action plan to better integrate work and balance in per-
sonal life.
▼ Rate all employee training activities on how well they
clearly and directly reinforce your process-driven culture. Rede-
sign those that do not align.
▼ Minimize wasted time by selecting one action a month
that no longer requires your sign-off or approval.
process-specific learning.
▼ Initiate a biannual ‘‘community operational excellence
day.’’ Encourage employees to volunteer one day of work to
help teach a community group how to create processes of opera-
tional excellence within its organization.
▼ Designate a five-person team as the ‘‘line-up committee,’’
charged with ensuring that all measures of employee success
align with the company’s overall measures of success.
SPIRIT CULTURE
Use the fourteen ideas to better align your retention practices to

your spirit-driven culture.
▼ Distribute to all frontline employees a quarterly survey

that asks only one question: What can management do to better
serve you? Organize a cross-functional team to create and circu-
late an action plan that addresses the top issues.
▼ Form a ‘‘spirit committee,’’ comprising volunteers who
meet regularly to brainstorm ways to keep the spirit alive in your
company. Give them a small budget and a quick target date to

do something, and celebrate successes.
▼Ask employees to list the top five roadblocks to creating
an environment of spirit. Take immediate steps to minimize or
eliminate each roadblock.
▼Begin your next staff meeting with the question, ‘‘Why
do you work here?’’ Integrate spirit-oriented responses into the
discussion agenda, thereby demonstrating a strong connection
between the employee’s needs and the company’s.
▼Initiate a ‘‘special spirit FUN-raiser’’ campaign. Allow
employees to organize and conduct a fund-raising campaign for
a nonprofit organization. Let employees vote on organization to
designate as the recipient.
▼ Ask employees to rank the top three aspects of their ser-
vice-focused jobs that most connect and engage their souls. Also
ask for the three aspects that most disconnect and drain their
souls. Build action plans to accentuate the positive and eliminate
the negative.
▼Assess your entire work environment. Is servant leader-
ship obvious? Are people really inspired to work for a greater
good? Do you build people first, or things? Is your environment
both competitive and humane?
▼Rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how every pay and recogni-
tion program drives your core culture to create the environment.
Redesign those rewards that do not clearly reinforce the core
culture.
▼ Sponsor a ‘‘show-off day,’’ when family and friends are
invited into the workplace for employees to show off the special
spirit at work.
▼ Rate all employee training activities on how well they
clearly and directly reinforce your spirit-driven culture. Rede-
sign those that do not align.
▼ Align compensation and reward programs to service-

specific learning.
▼ Sponsor ‘‘gospel truth days’’ (that is, good-news days),
where only good business news can be shared. It may be very
quiet at first, but the momentum picks up considerably once the
special spirit of good news starts permeating the workplace.
▼ Initiate a biannual community spirit day. Encourage em-
ployees to volunteer one day of work to help teach a community
group how to create a spirit-driven environment in its organiza-
tion. Begin a company scrapbook on the success stories of the
community groups.
▼ Assign senior executives to one drudge job per week:
making coffee, cleaning break room dishes, making photocopies,
distributing mail, etc. Strive to have all executives demonstrate
the spirit of servant leadership while participating in their
drudge work.
PART FIVE
GETTING
STARTED
CHAPTER 13: LEADING THE CHARGE
CHAPTER 13
LEADING THE CHARGE
You have read this book, you believe in the ability of culture to
break the cycle of disconnection, and you understand the com-
petitive advantage gained by aligning your staffing and retention
strategies to your company’s core culture.
Many business books inspire people to take action in their
own organization. Frequently, though, no action follows—
because people do not know how to get started. They do not
have a plan to help them apply what’s in the book to their com-
pany.
In this chapter, we describe a six-step process to help your
company become more like the aligned companies described in
this book. By following this process, you too can find and keep
great employees.
STEP ONE: CLEARLY EMBRACE ONE CORE CULTURE
Before you can align your staffing and retention practices to

your organization’s culture, you must first know your culture.
203
204 Getting Started
To determine your company’s culture, look at which actions are

rewarded, which are punished, which decisions are supported
and implemented, and which are ignored or challenged. Focus
on the day-to-day organizational decisions and actions to better
understand the core purpose underlying them. Talk to employ-
ees at all levels in the organization to understand their percep-
tions of the culture and to identify the most prevalent
connections felt by your employees to the company and their
jobs.
This is the most important and difficult step in the align-
ment process. It’s the most important because it lays the founda-
tion for alignment and impels the changes you make in your
staffing and retention practices. It’s the most difficult because it
requires honesty. You must identify what your real culture actu-
ally is, not what sounds good or what you want it to be.
Culture is not typically found in the lofty statements of
your company’s mission or vision statement. It is also not based
on catchy slogans or phrases (‘‘Employees are our most impor-
tant asset’’; ‘‘Quality is number one’’; and so on). Those slogans
bear truth only if the organization supports actions and deci-
sions that are consistent with the words. If you are unsure of
your organization’s core culture, refer to the four culture chap-
ters (3 through 6) and review the cultural connection informa-
tion there. Think about which cultural connections apply most
to your organization.
After you identify your core culture, you may decide that
another one best fits your organization’s long-term, strategic
objectives. If that’s the case, then you should not attempt to align
your staffing and retention strategies to your company’s current
core culture at this time. However, assuming you are able to
identify your company’s core culture, you then need to priori-
tize your actions for moving toward alignment.
Leading the Charge 205
STEP TWO: PRIORITIZE YOUR ALIGNMENT EFFORTS
If your organization is like most, you have strengths and weak-

nesses when it comes to your ability to find and keep great em-
ployees. Ideally, you want to take those things you do well to
another level, and you want to improve your weaknesses. To do
this, you must focus your efforts. No company has unlimited
resources; therefore, no company can do everything when it
comes to alignment.
To most effectively align your staffing and retention prac-
tices to your organization’s core culture, you must prioritize
your efforts. To do that, briefly describe two or three examples
of the eight staffing best practices and the eight retention best
practices in your organization (the WOW factor, applicant as
customer, engage the soul, what gets rewarded gets done, etc.).
For staffing, you may have several strong examples of two or
three best practices and no examples for one or two of them.
The same is true for the retention best practices.
Based on your examples, identify staffing and retention best
practices that you currently do well, along with those that you
need to improve. Generate some initial ideas on how you can
better leverage those best practices that you currently do well.
Identify ways you can implement or improve those staffing and
retention best practices that you do not perform well.
STEP THREE: OBTAIN EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK

ON ALIGNMENT
Involve employees from all levels and locations in your organi-

zation’s move toward alignment. A cross-section of employees
needs to be involved in this process, for two reasons. First, the
company benefits from different people’s expertise and perspec-
206 Getting Started
tives on specific alignment priorities. The more perspectives that

are represented and the more knowledge that is included in this
process, the better and more effective your company’s alignment
efforts are. A second reason for involving employees early in the
alignment process is to ensure maximum buy-in on changes that
are to occur in staffing and retention programs and processes.
You need to obtain employee feedback in a number of
staffing and retention priority areas:
▼ Which staffing and retention materials and processes are

aligned with the company’s core culture? Which ones are
not?
▼ What is the best way to align those staffing and retention
materials and processes that are not aligned to the com-
pany’s core culture?
▼ Who needs to be involved at different points in the align-
ment process?
▼ How are the newly aligned activities and materials to be
monitored and evaluated?
▼ Which aspects of the organization make alignment easy,
and what organizational barriers exist to alignment?
You may not use everyone’s suggestions and feedback, but

different employee perspectives need to be heard for alignment
outcomes to be most effective. If you do not use a particular
suggestion or recommendation, explain to employees why that
idea cannot be used at this time.
STEP FOUR: CREATE ALIGNMENT INITIATIVES
Using the employee feedback obtained in step three, create new

staffing and retention alignment initiatives and revise current
staffing and retention programs. Employees need to be involved
Leading the Charge 207
in this process as well. Although the focus is on staffing and

retention programs, human resources should not be solely re-
sponsible for creating or revising these programs. The entire
company benefits from these programs, so representatives from
all areas should be involved in creating various alignment initia-
tives. To further ensure that the alignment process produces the
most effective results, employees involved in this process need
to work together and set time frames for implementing new
staffing and retention programs and revising current ones.
STEP FIVE: IMPLEMENT ALIGNMENT INITIATIVES
If steps one through four have been effectively executed, imple-

mentation of aligned staffing and retention programs should be
automatic. We recommend that you stagger implementation of
various alignment initiatives over time. We also recommend that
new initiatives be pilot-tested and refined. Staggered scheduling
and pilot testing ensures that new processes and programs can
be monitored and evaluated most effectively.
STEP SIX: MONITOR AND EVALUATE

ALIGNMENT INITIATIVES
Effective alignment is not a single event but rather an ongoing

process. New staffing and retention programs that are imple-
mented need to be monitored and evaluated periodically. Then
program changes have to be made based on that evaluation. Prior
to implementing new programs, evaluation measures must be
defined and developed. After the initial evaluation, a decision is
made about the feasibility of the program being implemented
companywide. Assuming a new staffing or retention program is
208 Getting Started
implemented, the program continues to be monitored for effec-

tiveness.
Any significant changes within the organization (such as
change in executive leadership, merger, or significant acquisi-
tion) may require reanalysis of your core culture. Based on that
reanalysis, staffing and retention programs might need to be
changed because the company’s core purpose has changed. In
this case, the alignment process starts all over again.
MOVING FORWARD
After reading this book (and in particular, this chapter), you

may feel that you do not have the time or resources to align
your organization’s staffing and retention functions to your core
culture. Yet you must move forward. You face, on a daily basis,
the great challenge of finding and keeping great employees. The
challenge is not going away; in fact, it is likely to become even
greater in the future.
The longer you do nothing, the worse the cycle of discon-
nection within your organization becomes. Hiring simply for
job fit is not sufficient to meet the challenge. In the short term,
throwing money at applicants and employees may help you hire
and retain; however, there is no long-term payoff to the organi-
zation in such a practice. There is only one option: alignment.
To gain long-term competitive advantage, companies must
provide deep, long-lasting, and purpose-driven focus so that ap-
plicants and employees can best connect to their company and
their jobs. You now have the information and tools to move for-
ward and create those powerful connections so that you can find
and keep great employees.
RECOMMENDED
READINGS
Aiming Higher: 25 Stories of How Companies Prosper by Com-

bining Sound Management and Social Vision, by David Bollier
(New York: AMACOM, 1996). Presents the stories of twenty-
five honorees of the Business Enterprise Trust, an organization
that honors companies and individuals who have demonstrated
bold, creative leadership by combining sound business manage-
ment with social conscience. Addresses the complicated, difficult
challenges met and overcome by businesspeople who hold them-
selves and their companies accountable for social change.
Ben & Jerry’s Double Dip: Lead With Your Values and Make
Money, Too, by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1997). Describes the unique and highly suc-
cessful management philosophy of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade.
Explains their ‘‘value-led business’’ approach; discusses why this
approach is the best model for business today; and tells how
anyone who owns, works for, invests in, or shops with a com-
pany can help make it a socially responsible business.
The Connected Corporation: How Leading Companies Win

Through Customer-Supplier Alliances by Jordan D. Lewis (New
York: Free Press, 1995). Presents real-world experience and
worldwide research in best-practice firms such as Chrysler, Du
209
210 Recommended Readings
Pont, Motorola, and Marks and Spencer. Describes how creating

and sustaining customer-supplier alliances enables companies to
lower costs, raise quality, decrease cycle times, and increase
value for customers without adding expense.
Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will, by Noel Tichy

and Stratford Sherman (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1993).
Offers an in-depth look at the leadership approach of CEO Jack
Welch through GE’s corporate transformation process. Includes
a valuable three-step ‘‘handbook for revolutionaries’’ to guide
your transformational journey.
Creating an ‘‘Open Book’’ Organization: . . . Where Employees

Think & Act Like Business Partners, by Thomas J. McCoy (New
York: AMACOM, 1996). Provides a practical, step-by-step ap-
proach to developing an effective partnership between manage-
ment and staff. Outlines ways to educate employees about the
business and their specific roles in the business, to understand
and appreciate the company’s best interests, and to encourage
employees in this management approach through incentive
plans.
The Culture of Success: Building a Sustained Competitive Ad-

vantage by Living Your Corporate Beliefs, by John Zimmerman
with Ben Tregoe (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997). Describes
how a company’s basic beliefs can affect long-term corporate
growth, excellence, and even survival. Provides real-world exam-
ples from in-depth research conducted at such companies as
Harley-Davidson, the American Automobile Association, J. M.
Smucker, and Barnett Banks. Provides the process, tools, and
inspiration to examine and energize corporate beliefs so that
they guide the decisions and behavior of every employee to pro-
duce sustained success.
Customer Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building

Competitive Advantage, by Richard Whiteley and Diane Hessan
(Portland, Ore.: Perseus Press, 1996). Describes how companies
have improved profits and grown—despite trends of cost cut-
ting, downsizing, and divesting—by keeping the customer as the
primary focus. Provides tools for self-assessment and strategic
planning.
The Customer Comes Second: And Other Secrets of Exceptional

Service, by Hal Rosenbluth and Diane McFerrin Peters (New
York: William Morrow, 1992). The story of how Rosenbluth
International became a multibillion-dollar global travel agency
by putting its people first. Easy to read, with dozens of examples
of how Rosenbluth International drives its spirit-driven culture.
Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, by Kristin Anderson

and Ron Zemke (New York: AMACOM, 1998). A classic in how
to build a service-driven company. Loaded with tips and advice,
and written in an enjoyable style.
The 8 Practices of Exceptional Companies: How Great Organi-

zations Make the Most of Their Human Assets, by Jack Fitz-enz
(New York: AMACOM, 1997). Documents the most enduring
best practices in human asset management, based on four years
of in-depth research at more than 1,000 companies. Describes
specific examples of these best practices and how companies that
excel in both profitability and employee retention handle change
management, cost reduction, employee turnover, productivity,
quality improvement, and the other challenges that all compa-
nies face.
Getting Employees to Fall in Love With Your Company, by Jim

Harris (New York: AMACOM, 1996). An easy, quick read of
more than 130 bite-sized best-people practices organized by five
easy-to-remember principles. Three in-depth case studies illus-

trate how to apply the five-part model across diverse industries.
Innovation: Breakthrough Thinking at 3M, Du Pont, GE, Pfizer,

and Rubbermaid, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Fred Wiersema,
John J. Kao, and Tom Peters (New York: HarperBusiness, 1997).
Examines how the five visionary companies in the title and oth-
ers improved their operations through flattened hierarchies,
open communication, and inventive thinking. Presents case
studies written by executives at 3M, Du Pont, GE, Pfizer, and
Rubbermaid that demonstrate the importance of innovation in
each company’s long-term success.
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Orga-

nization, by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1996). Describes what lean management is,
how it works, and how it can help anyone create a more profit-
able organization through effective streamlining of strategies and
techniques. Examines the successes at twenty-five U.S., Japanese,
and German companies that have effectively implemented the
‘‘lean principles’’ of value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfec-
tion.
The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits,

and Lasting Value, by Frederick F. Reichheld (Boston: Harvard
Business School Press, 1996). Demonstrates the power of loy-
alty-based management as a highly profitable alternative to the
economics of perpetual churn. Describes the principles that con-
nect value creation, loyalty, growth, and profits; and shows how
companies such as State Farm, Toyota/Lexus, MBNA Corpora-
tion, John Deere, and the Leo Burnett advertising agency have
used these principles to build unparalleled franchises and loyal
customers, loyal employees, and loyal owners.
Managing by Values, by Ken Blanchard and Michael O’Connor

(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1996). Describes how compa-
nies can manage with common vision by creating a plan that
clarifies, communicates, and aligns the organization’s practices
in all areas. Goes beyond the standard measures of success in the
corporate world—size and volume—to describe a way of assess-
ing a company’s success based on the quality of service available
to its customers and the quality of life afforded its employees.
Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal

Success, by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg (Austin, Texas:
Bard Press, 1996). Provides an insider’s perspective on the man-
agement philosophy and practices of Southwest Airlines. De-
scribes the influence of these management practices on
individual employees and organizational performance through
hundreds of examples from within the company.
Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration, by

Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman (Portland, Ore.:
Perseus Press, 1998). Describes how successful companies are
gaining ‘‘collaborative advantage’’ through assembling powerful
teams. Presents six case studies, from organizations such as
Xerox and Disney, that examine the characteristics of successful
collaboration and how talent can be pooled and managed for
greater results.
The Power of Alignment, by George Labovitz and Victor Rosan-

sky (New York: Wiley, 1997). Describes how linking the five
key elements of an organization—people, process, customers,
business strategies, and leadership—results in sustained growth
and profit, loyal customers, and a high-performing workforce.
Provides real-world examples of world-class companies achiev-
ing extraordinary business results through alignment.
Reclaiming Higher Ground: Creating Organizations That In-

spire the Soul, by Lance H. K. Secretan (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1997). Presents an innovative plan for organizational
change that encourages putting heart and soul into the work-
place as a way of building business values, productivity, and
profit. Offers solutions and personal checklists for readers to
assess their progress in reclaiming the higher ground by way of
a foundation built on trust and integrity.
The Soul of the Firm, by C. William Pollard (New York: Harper-

Business and Zondervan, divisions of HarperCollins, 1996). De-
scribes the amazing story of ServiceMaster, the leading service
company in the world, and how they achieved twenty-five con-
secutive years of growth in revenues and profits. Provides a revo-
lutionary plan for new leadership that considers the critical link
between people and profits in a company’s measure of success.
Staffing the New Workplace: Selecting and Promoting for Quality

Improvement, by Ronald B. Morgan and Jack E. Smith (Milwau-
kee: ASQC Press, 1996). Describes how to design and imple-
ment a staffing effort that supports a company’s quality
initiative. Presents specific techniques for recruiting, assessing,
selecting, and promoting employees for a workplace focused on
delivering quality goods and services.
Winning Through Innovation: A Practical Guide to Leading Or-

ganizational Change and Renewal, by Michael L. Tushman and
Charles A. O’Reilly III (Boston: Harvard Business School Press,
1997). Describes how short-term success can increase the likeli-
hood of long-term failure, using corporate examples from Disney,
3M, Compaq, and FedEx. Presents a framework for companies on
how to overcome the ‘‘success syndrome’’ and develop action
plans to ensure a constant supply of ‘‘innovation streams,’’ to con-
tinuously develop new and better products and services.
INDEX
Adobe Systems, 183–184 Blank, Arthur, on helping cus-

Advanced Technology Consul- tomers, 26
tants, 170 Bluestone Software, 119
advancement, 79 BMW, 126–127
adventure, thrill of, 51–52 Bohac, Frank, 173
Advisory Team, 102 Bolles, Dave, 127, 131
AES Corporation, 89 brainpower, 43, 45–46, 160
AGI, 186
alignment, 13 cannibalization, 47–48, 194, 195
benefits of, 16–19 Capital Holding, 120–121
creating initiatives for, 206–207 career advancement, 79
implementing initiatives for, Cathy, S. Truett, 81–82
207 Chambers, John, 54
monitoring/evaluating initia-
Chaparral Steel, 177
tives for, 207–208
Chick-fil-A, 81–82, 137
obtaining employee feedback
chief information officer (CIO),
on, 205–206
44
process of, 19
Cisco Systems, 42, 50, 52–60,
and staffing, 99–100
117–118, 125–126, 136, 138
steps for achieving, 203–208
Clark, Jim, on paranoia, 44
American Airlines, 29
Cognex, 178–179, 185
Apple, 51
Cohen, Ben, 83, 118, 121,
Applewood Plumbing, 125, 175
AT&T, 5, 190 128–129
Attig, D. Wendal, 102 Collins, James, on core ideology,
Austin, Charles, 126–127 12
Commercial Financial Services,
Barter Corporation, 176–177 69–70
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, 83, communications, company, 162–
118–119, 121–122, 128–129 163, 181–184
215
216 Index
community service days, 193, 197 retention in, 192–194

company disconnection, 5–6 staffing in, 142–144
competitiveness, 90
computer software, half-life of, Deal, Terrence, on corporate cul-
44–45 ture, 12
Computer System Development, DePolo, John, on job changes, 104
174 development, employee, 88, 160–
continuous improvement, 65–66 161, 176
core business purpose, 7–8 Dilbert, 50
core culture, xiii–xiv, 203–204, disconnectedness, employee,
see also customer service cul- 4–10, 162–163
ture; innovation culture; op- from company, 5–6
erational excellence culture; from job, 6–8
spirit culture on personal level, 8–10
core ideology, 12 disillusionment, employee, 80
Cox, Geena, on training, 128 Doubletree Hotels Corporate,
Crandall, Robert, 29 135
Cray Research, 175 downsizing, 78–79
creative destruction, 47–48 Dubuque (Iowa), 115–116
Cruise, Tom, 46 Du Pont Center for Human De-
The Customer Comes Second velopment, 160
(Hal Rosenbluth), 85
customer service culture, 13–14, Eckerd Corporation, 124–125
23–40 efficiency, 62–63
benefits of, 24–25 Eli Lilly, 90
and connection with customer, EMC, 133–134
28–29 employee exchange programs,
and ‘‘firing’’ customers, 29–30 173
future of, 27 employee-focused cultures,
at Home Depot, 25–27 84–86
at Midway Services, 35–40 empowerment, employee, 32–34,
at NEBS, 27–28 164–165, 187–190
and needs of customer, 23–24, Empower Trainers and Consult-
30–32 ing, 188–189
and ownership of customer evaluation
problem, 32–34 of alignment initiatives,
at PeopleSoft, 31–32 207–208
proactive approach to, 27 of core culture, 203–204
real-time reactions in, 34–35 of retention practices, 192–199
Index 217
of staffing practices, 142, 144– Hallmark Cards, 172

145, 147, 149 Hall-Mark Electronics, 82
Hays, Spencer, on building peo-
Federal Express, 116–117 ple, 88
feedback, employee, 205–206 ‘‘Herbies,’’ 65, 148, 197
financial performance, 15 Heskett, James, on corporate cul-
‘‘firing’’ customers, 29–30 ture, 12–13
Hewlett-Packard (HP), 49, 51,
First Tennessee Bank, 85–86
178
Fitzgerald, Jack, on reasons peo-
hiring, see staffing
ple leave companies, 12
Hirshberg, Jerry, on hiring, 137
FNMA (Freddie Mac), 179
Hoechst Celanese, 180
Franco, John, 120
Home Depot, 25–27, 182
Freddie Mac (FNMA), 179
Home Shopping Network
‘‘F-Troop contest,’’ 196 (HSN), 47
fun, having, 50–51, 163–164, HP, see Hewlett-Packard
184–187 HSN (Home Shopping Net-
Fuqua Report, 12 work), 47
Furlong, Dan, 185
ideal employee, defining the, 108–
Gates, Bill, on IQ, 45–46 109, 133–136
General Electric (GE), 61, 63–64 image, creating, 103–105, 120–123
get-it-right approach, 67–68 innovation culture, 14, 41–60
The Goal (Eli Goldratt), 64–65 and brainpower, 43, 45–46
Gogola, Michael, 115 at Cisco, 52–60
and creative destruction, 47–48
Goldratt, Eli, 64–65
and freedom to succeed, 48–49
W.L. Gore & Associates, 132
and fun, 50–51
Graham, John, on customer ser-
and paranoia, 44–45
vice, 27
purpose of, 41–42
Grass, Martin, 183
retention in, 194–195
Great Harvest Bread, 186 and speed, 46–47
Greenfield, Jerry, 118, 128–129 staffing in, 109–110, 136–138,
Green Tree Consulting, 159 144–147
Griffen Industries, 171 and ‘‘take it to the limit’’ ap-
Groenwald, Susan, 176–177 proach, 49–50
Grove, Andy and technology, 42–43
on chaos, 41 and thrill of adventure, 51–52
on paranoia, 44 intangible benefits, 158–159,
GSD&M, 171–172 172–174
218 Index
Interim Services, 182–183 Levin, Robert, 106

Interstate Battery, 82 Liberty Mutual Information Sys-
intranets, 184 tems, 120
Iverson, Ken, 63 Lockheed Martin, 116
Los Angeles Dodgers, 122
Java, 189 Lucent Technologies, 182
job applicants
as customers, 101–103, 117–120 Malcolm Baldrige award, 33, 177
honesty with, 105–106, Manco, 169
124–127 Marquardt and Roche, 181
job disconnection, 6–8 Martin, James, on external enemy,
job loss, fear of, 5–6 45
job security, 79 mavericks, 49–50
May, Michael, 188–189
Kahl, Jack, 168–169 McDonald’s, 64, 69
kaizen, 66 McGhee, Walt, 123, 135–136
keeping employees, see retention McNealy, Scott, xi, 189
Kelleher, Herb, 115, 188 Mercer, Larry, 182
Kelly, Pat, 176 mergers, 5–6
Kendle, 179–180 Metamor Technologies, 171
Kennedy, Allan, on corporate Microsoft, 45–46
culture, 12 Midway Services, 35–40
Kingston Computers, 170 mistakes, 68, 194
Kinko’s, 83–84 monetary incentives, 158–159
Kolind, Lars, on work environ-
ment, 51 Naples, Amy, 119
Kotten, John, on corporate cul- NASA, 49
ture, 12–13 Naughton, Patrick, 189
Kroc, Ray, 69 NDI, see Nissan Design Interna-
Kucmierz, Jack, 125 tional
NEBS, see New England Business
L. L. Bean, 64, 175 Services
labor shortage, 3–4 NetManage, 174
Lands’ End, 129–130, 184 New England Business Services
learning opportunities, 160–161, (NEBS), 27–28
175–176 ‘‘new toys’’ factor, 145
Legacy Health System, 180–181 Nilson, H. Spencer, 70
Leschly, Jan, 72 Nissan Design International
Le Vieux Manoir au Lac, 122–123 (NDI), 136–137
Index 219
Noel, John, 89 Peat Marwick, 180

Noel, Patty, 89 PeopleSoft, 31–32, 50
Noel Group, 89 performance measurement, 68–69
nonmonetary benefits, 158–159 Pernock, Dave, 72–73
Nordstrom, 33, 49 personal disconnection, 8–10
Nucor Steel, 63 Personnel Decisions, 126
PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric),
occupational half-life, 7 178
Odak, Perry, 83 Phelps Group, 176
Office Depot, 23 Platt, Lewis, on cannibalization,
Omron Electronics, 172 47
One Percent for Peace, 121 Pollard, William, on God and
operational excellence culture, 14, business, 81
61–75 Porras, Jerry, on core ideology, 12
avoidance of waste in, 70–71 pragmatic idealism, 82
benefits of, 64 process pipeline, 196
and continuous improvement, productivity, maximizing, see op-
65–66 erational excellence
and efficiency, 62–65 profiling employees, 143
examples of, 63–64 Project Business, 120–121
and getting it right, 67–68 Prudential Securities, 134–135
and performance measurement, PSS/World Medical, 175–176, 188
68–69
purpose of, 62
Quad/Graphics, 179
retention in, 196–197
Quantum, 51
at SmithKline Beecham, 71–75
staffing in, 147–149
and standardization, 66–67 Raymond James Financial, 128,
and uniformity, 69–70 181–182
Orfalea, Paul, 83 Recreational Equipment, Inc.
Oticon Holdings A/S, 51 (REI), 137–138
religion-focused cultures, 81–82
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), research and development, 50
178 retention, 155–165
Paradigm Communication, and ability to learn, 160–161,
184–185 174–177
paranoia, 44–45 and alignment, 16–18
Patagonia, 89, 187 and company communications,
pay discrepancies, 79 162–163, 181–184
220 Index
retention (continued) Schultz, Howard, 13

and customer service culture, Sears, 184
192–194 SEI Investments, 189
and employee freedom, 164– servant leadership, 86–87
165, 187–190 ServiceMaster, 81
and engaging the soul, 156–157, Shulman Associates, 178
168–170 Silberman, Bill, on intangible
examples of best practices in, benefits, 159
167–190 Silver Dollar City, 82
and fun in workplace, 163–164, slogans, 204
184–187 SmithKline Beecham (SB), 71–75
and innovation culture, Smolenski, Eric, 132–133
194–195 Snell, Norm, 12
and intangible benefits, 158– social community, workplace as,
159, 172–174 79–80
and operational excellence cul- socially focused cultures, 82–84
ture, 196–197 SOL, 187
and reward systems, 157–158, soul, engaging the, 156–157,
170–172 168–170
and spirit culture, 197–199 soulless bureaucracies, 156
and work-life integration, 161– Southwest Airlines, 90, 114–115,
162, 178–181 188
reward systems, 157–158, Southwestern/Great American
170–172
Company, 88
Rhino Foods, 173
speed, need for, 46–47
Rhoades, Ann, 135
spirit culture, 14–15, 77–94
Rite-Aid, 183
and competitiveness, 90
Ritz-Carlton, 33–34
emergence of, 78–80
Rosenbluth, Hal, 85
and employee development, 88
Rosenbluth International, 85,
in employee-focused cultures,
131–132, 182, 186
84–86
Rosse, Joseph, 106
and measures of success, 89–90
Ryder, 31
in religion-focused cultures,
Sanchez Computer Associates, 81–82
119 retention in, 197–199
Sanders, Betsy, on customer ser- and servant leadership, 86–87
vice, 32 in socially focused cultures,
SAS, 170 82–84
SB, see SmithKline Beecham staffing in, 149–151
Index 221
at VanCity, 91–94 ‘‘take it to the limit’’ approach,

and working for a greater good, 49–50
87 Tandem Computers, 185
St. John, Lauren, 94 Target, 33
staffing, 99–110 technology, and innovation,
and alignment, 16–18 42–43
and attraction of top talent, Texas Instruments, 126
106–107, 127–130 Thomas, Elisabeth, 123
components of, 99 Thomas, Erich, 123
and customer service culture, three F analysis, 195
142–144 3M, 127–128, 131, 169
and defining the ideal em- Timberland, 88, 169
ployee, 108–109, 133–136 top talent, attracting, 106–107,
127–130
examples of best practices in,
training
113–138
and customer service, 25–26
and honesty with candidates,
and staffing, 128
105–106, 124–127
and image creation, 103–105,
uniformity, 69–70
120–123
and innovation culture,
Valines, Rick, 171
144–147
value, creating, 24
innovation in, 109–110,
VanCity Credit Union, 91–94
136–138
voluntary simplicity, 8–9
multiplicity in, 107–108,
130–133
Wal-Mart, 70, 184
and operational excellence cul-
Ward, John, 175
ture, 147–149 waste, avoiding, 70–71
and spirit culture, 149–151 ‘‘waste-away day,’’ 196
and treatment of applicants, Welch, Jack, on employee com-
101–103, 117–120 mitment, 61
WOW factor in, 100–101, Whole Foods Market, 130
114–117 Wiggenhorn, Bill, 15
standardization, 66–67 Williford, J.B., 67
Staples, 129 Winchester Hospital, 115
Starbucks, 174 Windam Hill Records, 183
stock-ownership programs, 59 Wolf, Bill, 36
Sun Microsystems, 189 work-life integration, 161–162,
surveys, 144, 147, 151, 192, 197 178–181
222 Index
Worthington Industries, 132–133 Xerox Corporation, 123, 135–

WOW factor, 100–101, 114–117 136, 179
Xerox Business Services (XBS), Yahoo, 134

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What are the four core cultures discussed in the book?

What are the four core cultures discussed in the book?

What are some examples of companies that exemplify each of the core cultures?

What are some examples of companies that exemplify each of the core cultures?

F I N D I N G &

JIM HARRIS, PH.D.

American Management Association

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

1999 Jim Harris and Joan Brannick.

To my husband, Michael, for your love, support,

PART ONE: THE POWER OF FOCUS 1

Chapter 1. The Great Challenge 3

Chapter 2. The Culture Connection 11

PART TWO: THE FOUR CORE CULTURES 21

Chapter 3. A Culture of Customer Service 23

Chapter 4. A Culture of Innovation 41

Core Culture Connections

Chapter 5. A Culture of Operational Excellence 61

Chapter 6. A Culture of Spirit 77

PART THREE: FINDING GREAT EMPLOYEES 97

Chapter 7. Best Practices in Staffing 99

Chapter 8. Staffing Best Practices in Action 113

Chapter 9. Aligning Staffing to Core Culture 141

PART FOUR: KEEPING GREAT EMPLOYEES 153

Chapter 10. Retention Best Practices 155

Chapter 11. Retention Best Practices in Action 167

Chapter 12. Aligning Retention to Core Culture 191

PART FIVE: GETTING STARTED 201

Chapter 13. Leading the Charge 203

Recommended Readings 209

‘‘Hiring, retaining, and developing great people is

Few business leaders would disagree with McNealy. Many com-

world-class staffing and retention practices see their culture as

FROM OUR OWN EXPERIENCE

To be considered an expert in your field, we believe you must

was missing: a personal sense of feeling deeply connected to the

sponsibility to create and maintain that connection with their

THE MESSAGE OF THIS BOOK

This book reflects certain fundamental beliefs. First, we believe

We could name hundreds of people here, but we promise to limit

our wonderful spouses, Brenda Harris and Michael Brannick,

THE GREAT CHALLENGE

‘‘The danger for Corporate America is that the [em-

—BusinessWeek, June 22, 1998

Everywhere we turn, we hear it.

endless number of potential employees has become a narrow

THE CYCLE OF DISCONNECTION

one company or career is rare. Today’s career turmoil has left

Employees disconnect on three levels: company, job,

Statistics clearly support the conclusion that employees feel a

Mergers and Acquisitions

Without question, one of the major reasons today’s em-

Changing Corporate Focus

Another force that disconnects employees from their com-

The primary reason employees disconnect from their jobs,

lessly. Competition has forced companies to quickly change

Every so many years, literally one-half of your current job

The Job and the Core Business