Employees Are People Too

B efore there was empathy at the company, going to work felt like, well, work. On any given morning, the factory employees would stand at their machines waiting to start at the sound of the bell. And when it rang, on cue they would flip the switches and power up the machines in front of them. Within a few seconds, the whir of the machinery drowned out the sound of their voices. The workday had begun.

About two hours into the day, another bell would ring, announcing the time the workers could take a break. The machines would stop and nearly every worker would leave their post. Some went to the bathroom. Some went to grab another cup of coffee. And some just sat by their machines, resting until the bell told them to start work again. A few hours later, the bell would sound again, this time to let them know they were now allowed to leave the building for lunch. This was the way it had always been done.

“I didn’t know any better,” said Mike Merck, an assembly team leader with a thick Southern drawl who had been with HayssenSandiacre for fourteen years. “I think anyone in the building would have told you the same thing.”

But things would change after Bob Chapman took over the South Carolina company. Chapman is CEO of the equally cumbersomely named Barry-Wehmiller, a collection of predominantly manufacturing companies that Chapman had been steadily buying over the years. Most of the companies that Chapman bought were in distress. Their financials were weak and, in some cases, their cultures were worse. HayssenSandiacre was his latest acquisition. Other CEOs may have brought with them a team of consultants and a new strategy, ready to tell everyone what they had to do to “return the company to profitability.” What Chapman brought, in stark contrast, was a willingness to listen. As he did with every company he acquired, he started by sitting down to hear what employees had to say.

Ron Campbell, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the company, had just returned from three months in Puerto Rico, where he had been responsible for installing HayssenSandiacre’s manufacturing equipment in a customer’s plant. Sitting in the room with Chapman, Campbell was hesitant to talk about what life was like at the company. “First of all,” Campbell asked, “if I tell the truth, will I still have a job tomorrow?” Chapman smiled. “If you have any trouble tomorrow about what you say today,” he assured him, “you give me a call.”

And with that, Campbell started to open up. “Well, Mr. Chapman,” he started, “it seems like you trust me a lot more when you can’t see me than when I’m right here. I had more freedom while I was away at a customer site than I do here,” he said, referring to his time away in Puerto Rico. “As soon as I stepped in the plant, it’s like all my freedom just slipped away. It feels like someone has their thumb on me. I had to punch a time clock when I walked in and again when I left for lunch, came back and when I was done for the day. I didn’t have to do that in Puerto Rico.” This was nothing Chapman hadn’t heard before at other factories.

“I walk in the same door with engineers, accountants and other people who work in the office,” Campbell went on. “They turn left to go to the office and I go straight into the plant and we are treated completely differently. You trust them to decide when to get a soda or a cup of coffee or take a break; you make me wait for a bell.”

Others felt the same. It was like there were two different companies. No matter how much effort they put in, those who stood by the machines didn’t feel like the company trusted them simply because they stood on a factory floor instead of sitting at desks. If an office employee needed to call home to let their kids know they would be late, they would simply pick up the phone and call them. On the factory floor, however, if a worker needed to do the same thing, they had to ask permission to use the pay phone.

When Campbell finished, Chapman turned to the personnel leader and told him they needed to take down the time clocks. The bells were to go too. Without making any grand proclamations and without asking for anything in return from the employees, Chapman decided that things were going to be different from now on. And that was just the start.

Empathy would be injected into the company and trust would be the new standard. Preferring to see everyone as human instead of as a factory worker or office employee, Chapman made other changes so that everyone would be treated the same way.

Spare machine parts had always been kept inside a locked cage. If a worker needed a part, they would have to stand in line outside the cage and ask a parts employee to get what they needed. Workers were not allowed to go into the cage themselves. This was management’s way of protecting against theft. It may have prevented theft, but it was also a powerful reminder that management didn’t trust people. Chapman ordered all the locks removed and all the fences taken down and allowed any employee to go into the area to check out any part or tool they felt they needed.

Chapman took out all the pay phones and made company phones available that any employee could use at any time. No coins needed, no permission required. Any employee would be allowed to go through any door and visit any part of the company whenever they wanted. Every employee would be treated the same way regardless of whether they worked in the administrative offices or on the factory floor. This was going to be the new normal.

Chapman understood that to earn the trust of people, the leaders of an organization must first treat them like people. To earn trust, he must extend trust. He didn’t believe that simply because someone went to college or was good at accounting they were more trustworthy than someone who had a GED and was good with their hands. Chapman believed in the fundamental goodness of people and he was going to treat them as such.

In a short period of time, the company started to feel more like a family. Simply by changing the environment in which people worked, the same people started acting differently toward each other. They felt like they belonged and that enabled them to relax and feel valued. People started to care for others as they felt cared for. This caring environment allowed people to fully engage “their heads and hearts,” as Chapman likes to say, and the organization began to thrive.

An employee in the paint department faced a personal crisis. His wife, a diabetic, was going to lose her leg. He needed time to help her, but as an hourly worker, he could not afford to lose any pay. He couldn’t afford not to work. But this was a different company now. Without being asked, his fellow employees quickly came up with a plan: to transfer their own paid vacation days so he could have more days off. Nothing like this had ever been done before at the company. What’s more, it was in clear violation of official company policy. But that didn’t matter. “We’re thinking about other people more,” Merck said. And so with the help of those in the administrative office, that is exactly what they did.

“I never thought you could enjoy a job,” said Campbell. “When you have people who trust you, they’re going to do a better job for you to earn or keep that trust.” In the more than ten years since the chain-link fence came down, there has been almost no theft. And if an employee has a personal problem, they know the leaders of the company—and their fellow employees—will be there for them.

Employees didn’t just become more willing to help each other solve problems, however. They also looked after their machines better. This meant fewer breakdowns and fewer work stoppages (which also meant expenses were kept in check). The changes were not only good for the people, they were good for the company too. In the period since Chapman took over, HayssenSandiacre saw revenue increase from $55 million to $95 million, which reflected organic and acquisition growth. They grew without any debt and without the help of a management consultant–driven reorganization. The company grew because of the people who already worked there. They had a renewed commitment to the organization, and it didn’t come as a result of any promises of bonuses or threats. They were more committed because they wanted to be. A new culture of caring allowed the people and strategies to flourish.

This is what happens when the leaders of an organization listen to the people who work there. Without coercion, pressure or force, the people naturally work together to help each other and advance the company. Working with a sense of obligation is replaced by working with a sense of pride. And coming to work for the company is replaced by coming to work for each other. Work is no longer a place to dread. It is a place to feel valued.

We See What We Want to See

CHAPMAN LIKES TO tell the story about the first time he visited HayssenSandiacre, which was five years before the transition that Mike Merck and Ron Campbell talk about. It was shortly after Chapman had acquired the company. As the new CEO, no one knew who he was or paid any attention to him as he sipped a cup of coffee before his first meeting. They just went about their business as usual, waiting for the day to start. And it was what Chapman saw while sitting in the cafeteria that March morning in 1997 that started his experiment with the company. He saw something he had never seen before in all of his years in business. It was a scene powerful enough to force him to reexamine nearly every lesson he had ever learned about how to run a company. What he did at HayssenSandiacre would become the basis for how Chapman would run his entire operation. More important, it would transform how he managed the people who worked for him.

As he sat there, Chapman watched a group of employees having their morning coffee together before work . . . and they were having fun. Joking, laughing like they were old friends. They were placing bets for the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament airing that night. They were getting along and seemed to really enjoy each other’s company. But as soon as they stood up to start their day, Chapman noticed a dramatic change in their demeanor. As if on cue, their smiles were replaced with sullenness. The laughing stopped. The camaraderie evaporated. “The energy seemed to drain from them,” said Chapman.

Chapman was overcome with a feeling of despair. He had bought distressed companies like this before. He had been around their employees before. But, for some reason, he had never been able to see what he saw that day. He couldn’t help but feel touched by what he just witnessed, which spurred a thought: Why can’t we enjoy ourselves at work like we do when we’re not at work?

Up until that day, Chapman had been exactly the kind of executive we teach our MBAs to be. He was good with numbers and he loved the game of business. He made decisions based on data, market conditions and financial opportunities. He was tough when he needed to be and could charm the pants off someone, if that’s what was required. He thought business was something that was measured on spreadsheets, and he saw people as one of the many assets he had to manage to help him achieve his financial goals. And as that kind of executive, he was very effective.

Before that moment in the cafeteria, Chapman was able to make hard decisions far too easily. The St. Louis–based company with the hard-to-spell name was saddled with debt and close to bankruptcy when Chapman took over after his father died in 1975. And given the dire situation, he did what any responsible CEO would do in his position. He laid off employees when he felt it was needed to achieve the desired financial goal, renegotiated his debt obligations, was dependent on banks to support growth and took big risks that would create growth that any high-flying executive would have understood. And as a result the company slowly built back up to profitability.

Chapman left the cafeteria and headed to his first meeting. It was supposed to be a meet-and-greet, a simple formality. He, the new CEO, was to introduce himself to the customer service team, and they were to bring the new CEO up to speed. But based on what Chapman saw that morning, he realized that he and his team had the power to make the company a place people wanted to go every day. So he set out to create an environment in which people felt they could express themselves honestly and be recognized and celebrated for their progress. This is the basis of what Chapman calls truly human leadership.

Truly human leadership protects an organization from the internal rivalries that can shatter a culture. When we have to protect ourselves from each other, the whole organization suffers. But when trust and cooperation thrive internally, we pull together and the organization grows stronger as a result.

Nearly every system in the human body exists to help us survive and thrive. Thousands of years ago, other hominid species died off while we lived on . . . and on and on. And even though we have been on the planet for a relatively short period of time compared to other species, we have fast become the most successful and the only unrivaled animal on earth. So successful, in fact, that the decisions we make affect the ability of other animals—even other human beings—to survive or thrive.

The systems inside us that protect us from danger and encourage us to repeat behavior in our best interest respond to the environments in which we live and work. If we sense danger our defenses go up. If we feel safe among our own people, in our own tribes or organizations, we relax and are more open to trust and cooperation.

A close study of high-performing organizations, the ones in which the people feel safe when they come to work, reveals something astounding. Their cultures have an eerie resemblance to the conditions under which the human animal was designed to operate. Operating in a hostile, competitive world in which each group was in pursuit of finite resources, the systems that helped us survive and thrive as a species also work to help organizations achieve the same. There are no fancy management theories and it is not about hiring dream teams. It is just a matter of biology and anthropology. If certain conditions are met and the people inside an organization feel safe among each other, they will work together to achieve things none of them could have ever achieved alone. The result is that their organization towers over their competitors.

This is what Chapman did at Barry-Wehmiller. Quite by accident, he created a work environment and company culture that, biologically, gets the best out of people. Chapman and others like him didn’t set out to change their employees—they set out to change the conditions in which their employees operate. To create cultures that inspire people to give all they have to give simply because they love where they work.

This book attempts to help us understand why we do what we do. Almost all of the systems in our bodies have evolved to help us find food, stay alive and advance the species. However, for a lot of the world, and certainly throughout the developed world, finding food and avoiding danger no longer preoccupy our days. We no longer hunt and gather, at least not in the caveman sense. In our modern world, advancing our careers and trying to find happiness and fulfillment are the definition of success. But the systems inside us that guide our behavior and decisions still function as they did tens of thousands of years ago. Our primitive minds still perceive the world around us in terms of threats to our well-being or opportunities to find safety. If we understand how these systems work, we are better equipped to reach our goals. At the same time, the groups in which we work are better able to succeed and thrive as well.

Yet sadly in our modern world, given the systems we’ve developed to manage our companies, the number of organizations that inspire employees to truly commit themselves is a slim minority. The cultural norms of the majority of companies and organizations today actually work against our natural biological inclinations. This means that happy, inspired and fulfilled employees are the exception rather than the rule. According to the Deloitte Shift Index, 80 percent of people are dissatisfied with their jobs. When people don’t even want to be at work, progress comes at much greater cost and effort . . . and often doesn’t last. We don’t even bother measuring a company’s success in decades, instead we focus on successive quarters.

A business environment with an unbalanced focus on short-term results and money before people affects society at large. When we struggle to find happiness or a sense of belonging at work, we take that struggle home. Those who have an opportunity to work in organizations that treat them like human beings to be protected rather than a resource to be exploited come home at the end of the day with an intense feeling of fulfillment and gratitude. This should be the rule for all of us, not the exception. Returning from work feeling inspired, safe, fulfilled and grateful is a natural human right to which we are all entitled and not a modern luxury that only a few lucky ones are able to find.

There was no “one thing” that Chapman did to transform his organization. It was a series of little things that, over time, dramatically affected how his company operates. Lots and lots of little things, some successful, some less so, but all focused on what he understood in his gut needed to happen. It wasn’t until years later, while attending a wedding, that Chapman was able to articulate in much clearer and more human terms what was driving his decisions. Given his love and tenacity for business, how Bob Chapman explains why he made the course change he did may surprise you.

The Awesome Responsibility

SITTING IN THE pews of a church, Chapman and his wife watched a wedding ceremony unfold. The groom stood, staring at his approaching bride. The feeling of love the two had for each other was palpable. Everyone there could feel it. And then, as tradition dictated, the father handed his daughter, his baby girl, to her future husband.

“That’s it!” Chapman realized. A father who would do anything to protect his daughter now ceremonially hands the responsibility of that care to another. After he gives her hand away, he will take his place in the pews and trust that her new husband will protect her as he did. “It’s exactly the same for a company,” Chapman realized.

Every single employee is someone’s son or someone’s daughter. Parents work to offer their children a good life and a good education and to teach them the lessons that will help them grow up to be happy, confident and able to use all the talents they were blessed with. Those parents then hand their children over to a company with the hope the leaders of that company will exercise the same love and care as they have. “It is we, the companies, who are now responsible for these precious lives,” says Chapman, as he balls his hands into fists with the conviction of a devoted preacher.

This is what it means to be a leader. This is what it means to build a strong company. Being a leader is like being a parent, and the company is like a new family to join. One that will care for us like we are their own . . . in sickness and in health. And if we are successful, our people will take on our company’s name as a sign of the family to which they are loyal. Those who work at Barry-Wehmiller talk of their “love” for the company and each other. They proudly wear the logo or the company’s name as if it were their own name. They will defend the company and their colleagues like they were their own flesh and blood. And in the case of nearly every one of these kinds of organizations, the people use the company’s name as a very symbol of their own identity.

The great irony of all this is that capitalism actually does better when we work as we were designed—when we have a chance to fulfill our very human obligations. To ask our employees not simply for their hands to do our labor, but to inspire their cooperation, their trust and their loyalty so that they will commit to our cause. To treat people like family and not as mere employees. To sacrifice the numbers to save the people and not sacrifice the people to save the numbers.

Leaders of organizations who create a working environment better suited for how we are designed do not sacrifice excellence or performance simply because they put people first. Quite the contrary. These organizations are among the most stable, innovative and high-performing companies in their industries. Sadly, it is more common for leaders of companies to see the people as the means to drive the numbers. The leaders of great organizations do not see people as a commodity to be managed to help grow the money. They see the money as the commodity to be managed to help grow their people. This is why performance really matters. The better the organization performs, the more fuel there is to build an even bigger, more robust organization that feeds the hearts and souls of those who work there. In return, their people give everything they’ve got to see the organization grow . . . and grow . . . and grow.

To see money as subordinate to people and not the other way around is fundamental to creating a culture in which the people naturally pull together to advance the business. And it is the ability to grow one’s people to do what needs to be done that creates stable, lasting success. It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius.

I cannot be accused of being a crazy idealist, of imagining a world in which people love going to work. I can’t be accused of being out of touch with reality to believe in the possibility of a world in which the majority of company leaders trust their people and the majority of people trust their leaders. I can’t be an idealist if these organizations exist in reality.

From manufacturing to high tech, from the United States Marine Corps to the halls of government, there are shining examples of the positive results an organization will enjoy when the people inside are willing to treat each other not as adversaries, competitors or opposition but rather as trusted allies. We face enough danger from the outside. There is no value in building organizations that compound that danger by adding more threats from the inside.

Only 20 percent of Americans “love” their jobs. Chapman and those like him have called upon us to join them to make that metric grow. The question is, do we have the courage?

We need to build more organizations that prioritize the care of human beings. As leaders, it is our sole responsibility to protect our people and, in turn, our people will protect each other and advance the organization together. As employees or members of the group, we need the courage to take care of each other when our leaders don’t. And in doing so, we become the leaders we wish we had. q5MofJwhwoPZHjdRQYLtd0w7mtRAL5xguqUA4HZNGAQx/VfhZycI2fVa113k3PEC