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Home cookin’
How Anne Chambers uses her company’s kitchen to build a solid culture and solve problems at RED
By Brian Horn
Smart Business Cincinnati | December 2007
Anne Chambers knows it’s vital to stay
optimistic to lead on a daily basis,
especially with the ups and downs of the business world.
Chambers finds having someone to talk
to helps her stay focused at RED, her marketing communications company that
posted 2006 revenue of about $10 million.
“It’s important for leaders to have their
own sounding boards separate from the
company, either a traditional board or a
coach that you take time to talk with
or someone who knows you well and
knows what you are trying to
achieve,” says Chambers, RED’s
president and CEO. “That person
who is removed from your business
is able to be more objective so you
can hash things out and hear an
objective point of view.”
Smart Business spoke with
Chambers about how a kitchen
helps her build camaraderie.
Q: How do you get people to buy in
to your plans?
That requires what you call
speaking the vision. Saying it out
loud, really getting buy-in, trying to
paint the picture of where you are
going, often and in a setting that
allows people to ask questions.
Even though they might not want
to jump on board right away, they
are collecting enough information and seeing the enthusiasm
and seeing the train going that
way that they are going to want
to be a part of it.
If you are consistently building the
business, then people are more inclined to
want to jump on. If they see you either
made a good decision before, and it was
the right decision, and they want to be a
part of it, or you made a bad decision,
recovered well and there was good reason
for it. People are supportive and want to be
a part of that as long as they understand
this is a process.
Q: How important is face-to-face communication?
Face-to-face for us is important because,
at least for me, it lets me understand more about each of our employees — what their
interests are and what their passions are,
and then it allows us to create space for
their life to be full, within the context of the
company.
For example, I have a couple of people
who are genuine humanitarians. They love
to have time to give back and do the things
that they do. That’s important to us as a
company because I want to make sure people feel fulfilled completely.
It’s not our job to fulfill people completely, but it’s our job to recognize that they are
complete people that have different interests besides what we do day to day.
Q: Besides giving people time to volunteer, what else do you do to retain employees?
We eat a lot of cake here. We celebrate
everything with cake. We have a lot of silly
rituals in our company and a lot of them
are around food, which is just funny, but,
when you boil it down, it’s actually around
camaraderie. I would definitely say we have a quirky culture, and nonsense is definitely appreciated.
We just do silly things but it’s a very
happy culture.
Q: What do you do to create that happy
culture?
We have a pretty nice kitchen, and
everybody is welcome to use the kitchen
however they want to do it. Sometimes
people will come in and make a meal for
everybody. One of the new guys
came in and made a big pot of
soup. So, it’s like being in your
own home.
You know how people gather in
the kitchen? We try to have the
same feeling here. Not all the time
because sometimes we are just flat
out too busy for anything that nice.
But, whenever we can, we do that.
Q: Doesn’t letting people cook take
away from their productivity?
Well, you know how you can say a
great idea comes to you in the
shower? Everyone has had a great
idea in the shower.
I look at that and say, ‘Well, when
are you working and when are you
not?’ If you are getting a great idea in
the shower, is somebody paying you
for that idea? No, but you are coming
in the office and going, ‘I have a great
idea.’
I see the same thing happening at
any time in your life. You can be driving down the road, you could have a
great idea. You could be talking on the
phone, reading a newspaper, get a great
idea. Of course, you get a ton of ideas
from reading or listening to the radio.
The same thing happens in a conversation. When you take the time to sit, listen
and talk, great ideas come out or problems come out. You find out there is an
issue you never knew about because you
were having a quiet conversation with
somebody while chopping some onions.
I know it’s crazy, but that’s just the way it
is around here.
HOW TO REACH: RED, (513) 772-1020 or www.redbeyond.com
