Give employees the chance
Sometimes there is so much pride, so much energy and passion in a company’s facility that you can feel it when you walk in the door. And it just doesn’t happen on its own.
Berg believes that such a situation is an example of the motivational quotient just continuing to grow when you get the right people, and you give them a chance to be free.
“You give them a chance to be themselves, to be real,” she says. “Every one of us spends a high percentage of our waking hours at work, but if you add all that up, and if there’s a way to add the feeling like you’re making a difference and that you’re actually achieving what matters to you, then you’re fulfilled.”
Once people are engaged, you don’t have to guide them. You just align rather than control.
“You provide the direction and the guidelines of, ‘OK, where do we need to go? What’s important to us?'” Berg says.
Once guiding principles are established for a company, employees can embed them in their minds and use them as a filter through which they run a demanding task or challenge.
“For instance, one of our values is quality,” Berg says. “You’re empowered to make decisions, and I trust people to make good decisions because I know they care deeply.
“I know they want to make a difference and care about improving the vitality of people”s lives, so they’re going to make the right kind of difference.”
As a caveat, it’s crucial that employees understand the value of quality.
“Don’t ever compromise on quality,” Berg says. “You can make your own decisions as long as you don’t ever compromise on quality, and that gives you a lot of decisions to make.”
Low turnover
In spite of all your best efforts to search and find the best quality employees that fit in well with your company, wrinkles in their performance may occur from time to time. Then it is time to resort to your playbook ” your guiding principles.
“We”re all human, right” I love the fact that we’re human,” Berg says. “We’re all going to make mistakes because we make decisions all the time. So if we should recognize that not every day is going to be perfect.”
If there is a business meeting and two people have opinions that appear to be night and day opposites, the approach is to turn to your guiding principles.
“We pull out the card and say, ‘OK, let’s go back to what’s really important to us. What’s the actual question” Is this a question about caring and belonging to the Vitamix family? Is this question about our customers? Is this question about integrity and making the right decision? Tell me your perspective and your opinion. How does that translate to make sure we’re doing the right thing for the customer?'”
After some common ground is reached on the nature of the question, it’s a matter of deciding how best to take care of the customer.
“Then they realize that they’ve eliminated the personal opinion part, and they’ve brought it back to both of them contributing to the same goal, taking care of the customer or making sure as an organization we make a decision with integrity. That defuses a lot of frustration,” Berg says.
Should there still be disagreement and frustration, you bring somebody else into the party and reinforce the goal of taking care of the customer.
