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The world's marketplace is both impatient and brimming with opportunity.
There has never been a better time for business, nor a more challenging
one. The answer lies in the ability to blend seeming contradictions.
Companies must care as fiercely as they compete, and be able to
change swiftly while holding fast to core values and meaningful
traditions. It's not a clear-cut world, and because of that, the
possibilities are endless.
The place to start is with a new perspective. Consider Picasso's
response to his biographer, who noticed that a Renoir hanging over
the fireplace in the painter's apartment was crooked. Picasso said,
"It's better like that. If you want to kill a picture, all you have
to do is hang it beautifully on a nail and soon you will see nothing
of it but the frame. When it's out of place, you see it better."
Fifteen world-class companies serve as a braintrust for creative
solutions to today's burning issues, in the book, Care to Compete
(Perseus Books, 1999). Though they span all sizes and industries,
clear trends emerged among issues and answers. The following are
some highlights of four key areas: organizational design, recruiting,
maximizing assets, and corporate culture.
Organizational
Design: Design for Speed
Recruiting: Human Resources Drought
Maximizing Assets: Maximizing Brainpower
Corporate Culture: Culture Defines a Company
1. Design for speed
In 1992, Rosenbluth International (a $4.5 billion travel firm,
headquartered in Philadelphia, PA) was redesigned around the unlikely
model of the family farm. The company's ranch in rural North Dakota
and its surrounding farms provided lessons businesses need. Here
are a few examples.
- On the family farm, team members are able to fill in for each
other on a moment's notice -- it's a necessity. All team members
are well-rounded, and can do whatever it takes to get the job
done. They accomplish this through early and participative learning
(as soon as they can walk, children often accompany their parents
during farm work.)
- Most family farmers elect to do as much themselves as possible
because resources like plumbers, mechanics and veterinarians are
often distant and costly. (Lesson: the emphasis should be on self-sufficiency
in the field and on the front lines, as opposed to headquarters
and functional domains.)
- There's a strong spirit of cooperation between neighboring
farms. When it comes to farming, there are no vacations, holidays
or sick days. The work has be done 365 days a year, so it becomes
critical for neighbors to help each other. (Business units and
departments take note.)
- Rural cooperatives are a mainstay of farm life, and provide
a good model for sharing resources and information.
2. Human Resources
Drought
The competition to find the right people is heating up. Here are
a few creative solutions:
- Fel-Pro (a $500 million sealing products manufacturer in Skokie,
Illinois) is putting together an employers council with other
manufacturing firms in their geographic area to help high schools,
technical schools and community colleges shape their curricula
toward what companies need.
- Lands' End (the $1 billion direct merchant of clothing, out
of Dodgeville, Wisconsin) provides busing for students from a
nearby university town. They also sponsor drawings for those who
refer employees, with cash prizes, tickets to events, and group
excursions. Even though they are located in a community of only
3,800 they are able to maintain an employee base of over 4,500
and recruit an additional 2,600 during peak periods.
- For their toughest-to-fill positions, Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center (a $600 million healthcare provider in Boston,
Massachusetts) provides skills training to create the qualified
workforce they need. Training is open to both current employees
and members of surrounding communities.
3. Maximizing Brainpower
It's estimated that anywhere from 50 to 90% of a company's value
is in its intangibles -- employees, ideas and customers. Yet how
many companies have a true read on what those assets are, or a plan
to protect and maximize them? The budding field of human capital
management has emerged to fill that role. For example:
Rosenbluth International's human capital management initiative
includes four major components:
- (1) tracking brainpower through an associate skill database,
including tangibles like technology or foreign language skills,
and intangibles like creativity and advocacy skills;
- (2) a prioritization process, including "time budgets" which
show where people are really spending their time and effort;
- (3) a business planning process with clients to align the organization's
focus with its clients' strategic objectives;
- (4) a process to forecast the effects trends will have on the
business.
At Alagasco (a $362 million natural gas company in Birmingham,
Alabama) instead of employees climbing up the ladder in their particular
area, they do more "scaffold climbing," where employees move laterally
throughout the organization. People learn about every aspect, and
are placed where they will be the most productive.
4. Culture Defines
a Company
A company's culture affects everything else -- relationships with
employees, customers, even its bottom line. For that reason, leading
companies work hard to ensure they have the right culture. Here
are some examples.
- For over 45 years, Fel-Pro has had an employees' Forum made
up of delegates elected by their peers. The group meets every
six weeks, but they often solve issues in advance of the Forum
meeting. Results are published in a special newsletter. For their
service, they are given a gift and extra vacation days.
- At SAS Institute (a $750 million software development company
out of Cary, North Carolina) unique employee benefits contribute
to the company's unprecedented employee retention rate. Some highlights
include free, on-site health care for employees and their families;
on-site child care with teacher-child ratios of 1:3; a wellness
center complete with massages and an ergonomics lab where employees
can try a variety furniture and equipment; free fruit, candy and
breakfast delivered to breakrooms on a regular basis.
- At Hewitt Associates (a $709 million management consulting firm
in Lincolnshire, Illinois) to drive the point home that everyone's
input is valued, there are only round tables, so no one can sit
at the head of the table and dictate discussions. Nobody has a
corner office, and there are no titles.
- For over 40 years, Hallmark Cards (the $3.6 billion greeting
card company headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri) has had a
daily employee newsletter. Employees are invited once a year to
the executive offices to meet the Hall family. And through a series
of CEO Forums and Town Hall Meetings, over 5,000 employees each
year engage in face-to-face discussion with Hallmark's CEO.
- A unique benefit at Fel-Pro is Triple R, the company's 220-acre
nature and recreation center, available to employees and their
families. At Triple R, employees are provided 20' x 20' tracts
of pre-plowed land and gardening tools, to create their own "mini-farms."
- Alagasco's "Hey Mike" program provides a direct link to CEO,
Mike Warren. Cards are posted prominently throughout the company,
encouraging employees to jot down any suggestions, questions,
complaints or ideas. The cards do not need to be signed.
- At Rosenbluth International, the culture is championed by the
company's Director of Cultural Diversity, who oversees a wide
variety of initiatives, such as Associate Appreciation Month,
with different activities each day to thank employees for their
contributions; the Salmon Spirit guide (the salmon is the company's
mascot because it bucks the tide) -- a manual filled with ideas
for easy-to-implement culture programs for the field; the company's
Crayola mailings, where employees draw their opinions of the company;
internal open houses, where departments (and sometimes employees'
families) can learn more about what everyone does; the company's
open meeting policy, where everyone is free to attend any meeting
they like.
The leading organizations of the future will live comfortably
with contradictions, and thrive on increasingly fuzzy rules. They
will dominate their industries by caring passionately about their
people, who will return that caring to company and customer alike.
They'll be able to change direction like a flock of birds in flight,
but will never waver from their core values or traditions in which
their employees and clients take comfort. As Alagasco's Mike Warren
puts it, "The truly successful companies will be in an ongoing 'virtual
reality' experience."
This document was
reproduced with permission of Diane
McFerrin Peters. Ms. Peters is a frequent lecturer and consultant
on management issues, and co-author of two best-selling business
books, The Customer Comes Second (And Other Secrets of Exceptional
Service) and Care to Compete, a New York Times
and USA Today best seller. Read more about
the author...
All editorial material
is protected under U.S. and international copyright law.
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