Cultivating an engaged workplace culture: My conversation with Clif Bar & Co. CEO Kevin Cleary

On my latest episode of Never Stand Still (available on Facebook Watch and Apple Podcasts), I sat down with Kevin Cleary, CEO of the organic food company CLIF Bar & Co.

Kevin first joined CLIF Bar in 2004 and has served as CEO for the past five years. Throughout that time, Kevin has made a name for himself as a values-driven leader who is committed to cultivating a connected and engaged workplace culture. He’s also a dedicated father, little league coach and IRONMAN triathlete.

Though our industries are different, Kevin and I agree on quite a lot. Here are four takeaways from our conversation:

1. Drive shareholder value by living your mission. I always say that a company’s values can’t just be words that hang on a wall, they have to be clear drivers of everyday action. It used to be that doing good in the world and delivering value to shareholders were separate and often contradictory endeavors. Not anymore. Not in today’s climate. Businesses can no longer stand on the sidelines. I’m passionate about this topic and found a kindred spirt in Kevin. He told me that CLIF measures their shareholder value through five “bottom lines” – not just a financial bottom line. Their Five Aspirations are to sustain their business, brands, people, community and the planet. This business model was first established at CLIF in 2001 when co-owners Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford chose to keep CLIF family-owned and walked away from a $120-million offer to sell the company. That was a turning point for their business, one that solidified a focus on the greater good and which Kevin now applies to CLIF’s day-to-day operations. “As CEO, it's my job to really work towards making sure we're delivering against all five of those,” Kevin explained. “We incent ourselves on making sure we're delivering against those things.”
2. Keep employees engaged in your mission. Kevin puts an incredible emphasis on creating a connected workplace culture that celebrates hard work yet puts time back in people’s lives for what matters most to them. He explained, “My job is to make sure that we're keeping [employees] engaged, both in the mission of our company, and the work that they do, but also in helping them figure out the things that make their lives easier.” For Kevin, that means giving employees 20 hours a year to volunteer and 2.5 hours a week to exercise on company time. Come springtime, he regularly leaves the office at 3:30 p.m. to go coach his sons’ little league games. The battle for talent is not slowing down, but I find the best way to attract and retain teams is to keep employees engaged in your mission and purpose. It’s also important for teams to see their leaders acting on that mission so that it’s not an empty promise.
3. Partner with likeminded organizations to expand your impact. In 2008, CLIF created In Good Company?, an alliance of likeminded, values-driven businesses who come together to tackle projects focused on food, housing and environmental restoration. “There's an opportunity for us to really try to collect likeminded businesses, whether they're competitors or not…and go out and do more, and be able to have a greater impact,” Kevin explained. We take a similar approach at PayPal in order to advance our mission to democratize financial services. Over the last two years, we’ve signed more than 25 strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest financial and technology companies. We believe that partnering across the full ecosystem – not only within fintech, technology and financial services, but also with government, academia and non-profit – is critical to advancing our bold mission of creating economic opportunity for all. We saw, just as Clif Bar did, that ultimately we are stronger together, and by pooling our unique assets we can create new and stronger value propositions for our mutual customers.
4. Stay closely connected to your customers. When I joined PayPal three years ago, I instilled a focus on customer-centricity because I believe a company’s capacity to grow is rooted in empathy and the ability to see through the eyes of its customers. Similarly, Kevin attributes much of CLIF’s success over the years to the fact that they have a deep understanding of their customers. He even gave me a recent example: “One of the things we noticed was that a lot of our athletes were scraping peanut butter onto their CLIF Bars,” Kevin said. “So now, [we’ve launched] this product called Nut Butter Filled, which is a filling of butter inside a CLIF Bar. It's been a really cool product launch, but that came from staying close and connected to people in our community.”

I’ve included my full discussion with Kevin below. What stands out to you? Leave a comment to let me know what pieces of advice resonated the most and thanks for watching.