Culture Shock: 5 Leadership Engagement Themes You See With Great Companies

I have spent a lot of time in the last month presenting and speaking to people about why culture always trumps strategy. Execution doesn't happen because you have a well thought out plan. Execution happens because you are first able to connect people to a common purpose.  A purpose that allows people to understand how their individual contribution impacts the greater goal.  Only then can we start talking to people about the plan and what is needed from them to make it happen.  I think the great Peter Drucker had it right with his famous quote, "culture eats strategy for breakfast".  If you look at some of the most successful companies over the last 20 years in America they all have one commonality that by its very nature makes their organization uncommon in the way employees and customers gravitate to their vision.  They all invest heavily in their greatest asset which can be found nowhere on the balance sheet, but is the catalyst behind any metric a great company sets out to achieve.  That common investment is called PEOPLE.

I read a great memo that was sent out by Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos the evening before the company publically announced their acquisition of the great grocery retailer Whole Foods.  What I loved about the memo was of the 6-7 points he was communicating to his employees, not one of those points mentioned why financial return was the reason for the company purchasing the retailer.  Not one of those points mentioned valuation, stock price, or financial synergies around the deal.  For anyone who follows business or is fascinated by the disruption we are seeing in retail and the overall online market place, you realize that all of those financial wins that Bezos left out in his memo are blatantly obvious which is why they didn't need to be said.  What did need to be said as a reminder to the tens of thousands of employees who read that memo was the reason Amazon existed in the first place.  Bezos emphasized 3 point among several others:

• Why the cultures were 'perfectly aligned'.  The reason employees at both companies get up in the morning to go to work is the same.  Both companies have changed the game in disrupting the retail platform.  People want to be a part of that.
• How together they improved 'Echo functionality'.  Bezos referenced the explosive opportunity in organic consumption and the demand for products that promote sustainability.
• He spoke about 'senior leadership' and synergy.  Culture always starts at the top.  Creating a vision people are connected to comes first.  Only then can we invite people to do their part operationalizing it in the business.

I don't work for Amazon, but the memo made me want to!  And there are thousands of people who spend significantly more money to shop at Whole Foods every week than they would at the hundreds of other grocers I would classify as "the middle" of retail.  They are the hundreds of chains owned by the big companies like Kroger, Safeway, and Super Value.  I'm not saying they don't provide a great offering, but they all look the same, feel the same, and the reason why people work and shop there are the same.  I'm also not saying their not 'good' to work for.  I worked with Safeway for 5 years.  It was 'good', but certainly not great and I no longer work there.  Whole Foods is different!  Which is why they ranked #58 on the Fortune 2017 Best Companies To Work For.  A list they have made every year for over a decade.  What their people say from the survey that is used to help produce that list:

• 91% say great challenges. (who doesn't want to make a difference in the world?!)
• 91% say great atmosphere. (funny how our environments can inspire.)
• 90% say great rewards. (we all want to be compensated properly for our work.  Praise your best people because recognition does MATTER!)
• 89% say great bosses. (Leadership matters!  A great leader can transform attitudes, transform thinking, and transform both individual and team commitment to company goals.)

Amazon has made the Fortune 100 list before itself.  And there is clearly no doubt the company may have been the most influential of this century thus far in transforming the marketplace.  They are just getting started and I am as curious about how they will continue to use their authentic strategy with people to further grow their domination in business.  Here is my list of 5 "Culture Shock" strategies to think about that are engaging the workforces at Amazon, Whole Foods, and dozens of other industry leaders who demonstrate a best of breed in their financial performance, by first being a best of breed in their people performance:

1. Senior Leadership lives the values system-It starts at the top!  Great cultures are formed by great leaders.  And great leaders are not only able to communicate a very authentic vision for the organization, but they are able to personally model that vision out by staying consistent and aligned in behaviors that match what they are asking other people in the organization to be.  Get the leadership right at the top and special things happen over the long-term.
2. Shared Purpose is #1 on the strategy agenda-Before leadership ever begins sharing the business plan and asking for people to execute to it, they invest heavily in getting people to understand why the organization exists to begin with.  Leadership establishes a strong value system to support 'the why' and is relentless in creating a communication system and overall team atmosphere where everyone understands the greater mission the organization will pursue.  Leadership ensures people truly understand how their individual contribution is so critical to that.
3. People are rewarded for living the values first, not because they get results-There is nothing more frustrating for great leaders in the organization than watching people deliver good results, but getting them by violating the value system.  Respect for people, safety, leadership integrity, sustainability, financial compliance.  You know all of the values I am referring to and while they are different at all companies, the basic purpose of having them serves as bedrock to building anything on top of them.  If people get the results, but cannot model the values then they need to go.  Nothing is more cancerous to culture than people who deviate from the 'the why'.  Senior leadership needs to model that and relentlessly invest in, reward, and grow the people who live out the values and who at the same time deliver results.
4. Frontline leadership is front and center-I love the famous quote by Danny Wegman, former CEO of this year's Fortune #2 Best Company To Work For:  Wegman's supermarkets.  "Employee's First, Customers Second."  The highly successful North East retailer continues to dominate the game.  I spent 10 years managing in the grocery sector early in my career and would tell you the average grocery store in the United States does about $500,000 in gross sales on a weekly basis.  Being a grocery veteran you gain an instinct for walking in a store and being able to fairly closely project customer counts and sales volume with your eyes.  I went to the Wegman's grand opening in East Hanover, NJ last Sunday and would tell you from the customer counts I saw the store was probably on pace to gross over $1.5 million in sales its first week.  It's not enough to have a great product.  Front line employees need to be inspired, empowered, trained, and led to create a great service experience for customers.  Great companies focus on attracting and hiring the best leaders to manage the front line work force.  And they expect those leaders to be relentless in applying the same hiring and development strategies that focus on finding and keeping the best employees.  Get the employee part right and the customer service takes care of itself.  It doesn't work the other way around!
5. Leadership Development is part of the strategic plan and is as important to senior management as delivering on the financial plan-Many companies like to think they have a great development strategy for their people.  They have assessments, on-line training, high potential initiatives, even University coursework available for their best and brightest.  But the best companies are taking their development efforts to new heights.  Leadership is at the core of successful execution.  Finding the right people who model the values, but at the same time can engage the workforce and drive results is not a strategy, but an outright non-negotiable like complying with Sarbanes Oxley.  Great companies are getting intentional about building a systematic approach to hiring and developing the best leaders.  The system is experiential and grows leaders is a multi-faceted way that exposes them to challenges outside their comfort zone.  These companies are connecting this system to the strategic plan of the organization and targeting efforts for specific individuals as part of a 10 year succession plan, not a 1 year succession plan.  They are being transparent with their best people about the investment that is being made to the extent that employees in return feel a high level of responsibility to provide a return on that investment to the organization on a daily basis that goes beyond their regular job duties.  These companies are doing so by making the huge investment in 'development dollars', but also in compensating the best people with the right financial incentives that keep them focused on staying long-term.

Have an intentional development week!  I challenge you to think hard and long about the culture you are creating at work with your team.  How can your leadership elevate performance by elevating the way people feel about their work?  I don't have the answer to that question for you, but I will be asking it myself and putting the work in.  Let leadership be the tool you use to connect your people to a higher level of performance.

Lead On!