An Interview with 2773

I don’t know if you’ve heard the rumour but a friend of a friend of a friend heard that one of the staff at Glenbrook’s 2773 café has a tattoo of the cafes logo. LET ME REPEAT THAT: one of the staff had a fork and spoon and the numbers 2773 permanently and painfully needled ONTO THEIR BODY. Clearly, the owner of 2773 was the person I needed to interview about the elements of culture that I’ve just covered in Culture 101.

Introducing Shane Simpson. Café 2773 is actually his fourth café venture and whether you’re a local hardcore Jazz Apple fan or a new convert to 2773, there’s no denying the café has been permanently busy since opening a year ago. So, in his own words;

“I’d describe our culture as positive. We try to empower our people in two ways. Firstly, we allow them to exercise their personality. Customers buy that; they connect with our staff when they are allowed to be themselves. We don’t want to make everyone the same and we want to see what they can bring to the table. It also means our staff aren’t confected when they’re serving. Secondly, we try to encourage them to make their own decisions; we have strict guidelines but we try to give people ability to make decisions.

“I think what builds a culture is people have to like you, their boss. They have to care, so you need to care about and know about their lives too.

“Hospitality is notorious for being a crap place to work with cranky pricks in the kitchen kicking breadbaskets about. It’s a hard job. If we all won Lotto tomorrow I think the last place you'd find us is at work but until that happens I think it important to make the workplace fun to be around, or at the very least, pleasant.

“In terms of processes that we have in place to keep the positive culture, I think doing little things for your staff that they aren’t expecting goes a long way. Say, if they like a certain cuisine buy them some vouchers for a meal out there. If you build your key players and look after them then they become your ambassadors.

“Also, this could come across as ruthless but hire carefully and fire quickly. If we think a staff member is precarious or seems likely to misrepresent us or let us or the team down, we’ve learnt from experience and we don’t wait for that to happen. When I get complimented on our staff, you feel like saying, its no coincidence. When you open, 60% of the ones you start with might not be right but you’ll get there.”

Oh, and the rumour about a staff member with a tattoo of the logo?

“We’ve got two! They got them together. One of them has left, Amanda; but she’ll be back, she’s pretty flighty and moves around a bit.  Any staff who leave and want to come back we welcome back with open arms. We’ve had some staff with us for seven years, and others who have left two or three times for other work and come back to us.”*

There was something Shane didn’t say that only occurred to me after our chat. He might not even be aware of it. As far as I can tell, he is living the culture he wants 2773 to have. Notice how his personality is front and centre? I’d never met Shane before but he was honest, authentic and a little rough around the edge, and exactly as he said, “customers buy that”. I did.

*And folks, I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in hospitality, but seven years is im-press-ive. Hey, it’s impressive for most employers nowadays. 

Cultivating Culture, Part 5: Maintaining the change

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Some of the examples of processes I mentioned last week are what can be called external energy. They are great as reminders for how you want your business to run and I know they will help your staff understand the direction you want your business or team to head in.

For the long run, be aware that consistency is the tough part. The trick is to use both internal and external energy to keep moving in the right direction. This is why the questions at the start of this mini-series were so key: knowing who you are and what makes you tick, the internal energy, is so much more driving over time. Motivation can’t be relied upon forever, but owning something as part of your identity will stay with you. 

So for the internal energy, after the first few months of moving towards your new culture, you need to revisit some of the sort of questions you and your team asked at the start:

• What makes us stand out?
• What environment are we trying to create?
• How do we want your customers to feel when they leave?
• What are you committed to? What would you defend?
• How does your personal role at work relate to all that?
  

I'm not saying you jump your staff with revisiting these all at once but getting round to one of these questions in a casual way at the tea station or in one-to-ones gives your staff the opportunity to own the culture and add to it. If the idea is making you uncomfortable, just think of it like this: they want to be happy at work and be a part of something, so by asking a sincere question and genuinely listening to them, you are helping both the culture and your employee grow. If you go in with the right attitude of really wanting to hear what they have to say, it’ll come across and not set any BS detectors off. Plus, going in with the intention of being helpful will most likely also create some new ideas for processes to help the team continue the cycle.

You’ll obviously also need to have conversations like this with yourself too. Mentors are fantastic, as are journals. External prompts can be of use here - remember the trick is to use both in tandem. So think post-its on your mirror, pod-casts, TED talks, diary reminders, new workplace processes, a creative brainstorming session with your team. Whatever works for you. If you can set up external processes to prompt you into being grateful for what you have and proud of where you are going then you’ll maintain your internal energy.

One of the best processes I’ve heard a business owner put in place was this: every day before he got out of his car and entered his business, he turned off the engine, closed his eyes, and envisioned how he wanted that business to feel. His opinion was that even if he was running late, if he walked in with the exact attitude and presence that he wanted his employees to emulate then that was far more valuable than saving two minutes. It really struck me with its simplicity because who we are when we get out of the car is so rarely who we want to be when we walk in to work. And yet it’s such a perfect, private space to switch off for a minute and visualize how we want our day to go.  

Try it next time you turn the car off.

Who are you? Where are you going?

*Available to buy here.

Cultivating Culture, Part 4: The Processes

Now to put that business mission statement into practice. What you need to do is work out some processes for each aspect that you want to achieve. Write out two columns: one for the goal, one for some ideas to help your team achieve that culture.

A really straight forward one for example is if you want your business to have a certain ‘look’, say, a stylish, super fashionable vibe, then write an appropriate policy on appearance. I’m not talking just ‘polish your shoes’, I’m talking ‘if Olivia Palermo wouldn’t approve, don't do it’. Give the policy the same character as you vision for your culture and people will get the picture.

That's a fairly obvious one. The ones that are going to help you on a daily basis might have to be more creative. Do you want a playful atmosphere? Then maybe every month a different employee is the Play Police and they are responsible for injecting a bit of spontaneity and humour into their colleagues’ days.

Maybe you want your employees to have the best technical information around. I suggest that you need to sit down with them on a quarterly basis and plan their upcoming training. Get them to research the courses they want to do; see if you can get any of the sales reps in to teach a course on a difficult aspect of a product; schedule in some time when one employee can coach another.

Perhaps you envision your business having great teamwork. Then start a recognition program. Again, I’m not talking tacky primary-school style certificates but something more in line with your culture. Look at giving everyone an object, say a silk flower or a pin badge or a little toy that has something to do with your industry, and ask him or her to give it to a colleague when that colleague does something to help them. Or even an anonymous teamwork star chart that anyone can add to for anyone. Adults aren’t usually great at saying ‘I really appreciate what you just did, it made me feel important and made my work much more rewarding’*; we find it much easier to just leave a token on someone’s desk.

For one business I consulted with, we ambushed the blackboard outside their shop and would find a quote every month or so that summed up their culture. That way clients mentioned it when they walked in, reminding the staff of what they were a part of and starting a conversation.

If you want your business to be known for it’s calming and competent atmosphere, whether you are an accountant or a beautician, why not ensure everyone schedules a 10-minute me-break into their day? Do you have space to make a comfy corner in the staff room specifically for this? Or even just a novelty set of headphones that staff can borrow and then everyone else knows they are spending ten minutes looking after themselves? If ten minutes sounds like a lot, just think of the time, energy and money you could waste trying to attract new business when all it could take is your staff having an infectiously reassuring attitude worth talking about.

As with the other weeks, I recommend asking others for input and taking your time. Ideas will come to you at odd times if you let it ruminate and they can take on a whole new level if you allow your employees or colleagues to join in.  If you want some help, I’d love to be involved: write in the comments section below or just share what processes you’ve heard of that you enjoyed. 

*Try it though, you’ll be amazed how far it goes.

Cultivating Culture, Part 3: Personal and Business Mission Statement

Part 2 of this series on culture covered working out who you are and what you stand for. Whether or not you got some answers out of that will entirely dependent on how much effort you put in. I'd love to put it differently, in a way that doesn't sound like my mum, but that's the way it is.

Once you've done all your brainstorming, bring it together into one or two coherent sentences to form a personal mission statement. As Stephen Covey says, it can help to start with the end in mind: you have an idea now of who you are, where you want to end up, who you want to be, so what few sentences will help focus you on that goal?

If you're about to gloss over this and can't really see the value because you feel you roughly-sort-of know, here's a reason to actually write one down: it will stop you wasting time on distractions. I was offered a job about 8 months ago and on paper it was pretty great: flexible hours, working for a sport I used to compete in, a role I had experience in. Lovely. But whilst it was a fantastic and much needed compliment at the time, it didn't take me long to see that it wasn't in line with what I really wanted to achieve. As much as I wanted the mental stimulation and the conversation of adults, I said no and continued learning how to be a mum.*

And for the daunted of you out there (as you all should be: this whole shebang has been a big task), please remember that nothing you write has to be set in stone. We all grown and change and learn new things, so our mission statements should evolve as well.

They can be as simple as...

"To have fun in my journey through life and learn from my mistakes" - Richard Branson

Or as irritatingly pious as...

"To use my gifts of intelligence, charisma, and serial optimism to cultivate the self-worth and net-worth of women around the world." - Amanda Steinberg

Or as brilliantly intelligent and beautiful as...

"Use my creativity, bluntness and curiosity to build authentic relationships" - Me

Right: moving on.

You can guess the next bit... you now need to do something similar to this with your business/team/family. Except it's more fun with others. I highly recommend getting everyone involved into the kind of brain storming session you did last week, but obviously bent towards the team you want to be.

If you like (and if you run the show), maybe come up with a list of values first and ask your team to rank them. That way you have some control over the outcome but your team will also be able to take ownership of the culture and help you build it. Again, there's no right or wrong answers to these values; if you and your team value fun and creativity over punctuality and appearance, that's a-ok because when you all agree on it and believe in it, you will attract customers who also prefer a wacky sense of humour to keeping time. But you do need to vocalize these things with your team to make your business stand out. 

Then the next step is communicating these values to your customers.

*aka, learning how to be patient and empathise with a small person despite having cauliflower cheese in my hair.

Cultivating culture, Part 2: Developing a personal mission statement

Last week I wrote about whether your business/team have a strong culture and whether its in line with what you envisioned.

I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark that for many, it wasn’t quite peaches and cream.

The next step is interesting. Don't put it in the too-hard-basket.

You are what is going to drive your culture.

Not in the sense that you are going to oversee that your team are in line with your dream culture, but that you are going to have to live by example. Every day. And in order to do that, you need to be authentic. One thing leads to another, trust me, and when you start being ‘true to yourself’ (such a crappy American phrase but let’s roll with it), you start leading those who work with you.

Slowly you and your team will attract the clients that suit you best. Similarly, you will suit the clients best, and so it will be a beautiful, self-fulfilling relationship filled with rose petals and rainbows. Vom. But you get the picture.

In order to get to know yourself a little better, put the kettle on, find a large blank sheet of paper and sketch out some answers to the following.

- What have you done this week to make yourself stand out? How are you different?
- What can you unashamedly brag about?
- What are you most proud of?
- What would you defend? (This always makes me think of being in a lion pit)
- If you were given a million dollars today, and you had to donate it to an issue or cause, what would that cause be?
- What is the legacy you want to leave? Ouch, I know.
- What do people say you’re good at? Even if you’ve always thought it’s irrelevant to where you are at.
- What do you want more of? Less of?

OK YOU LOT. If you have just scanned through that list and thought, yeah, I’ve read all that before, nothing new, nothing life changing, then LISTEN UP: That just means you haven’t put enough time into answering those questions before. If they don’t get your juices going, then you haven’t thought about them hard enough. YOU HEAR ME? Now go back, read them again, get some pens and paper and try again.

A few recommendations:

1. Get other people’s input. Your mum in particular will be particularly insightful, even if it’s not quite whatchawanna hear. Sometimes the stuff we are best at is so natural to us that we don’t think of it ourselves. Irritatingly ironic.

2. Include what you see as negatives. Your strengths aren’t necessarily traditional ‘strengths’. I didn’t include ‘being incurably nosey’ on my list of strengths at first but when I did, I saw it in a whole new light.

3. Spend time on this. Ask yourself these questions in the car, before you go to bed, when you’re boiling the kettle. It takes a full week at least to ruminate on this stuff. It took me at least that to remember that I am emotional and it needed to be included in my list.

Cultivating Culture, Part 1: What is it? And how strong is yours?

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Imagine a girlfriend tells you she’s been to New York for a weeks holiday and didn’t enjoy it. She found it tedious and uninspiring: the food was crap, the people were dull, and she prefers the Riff Westfield to Madison Avenue.

You’re thinking, ‘Are we talking about the same New York?’

Or even, ‘Why am I friends with this moose if she can’t even have fun in NYC?’

Because even if you have never been to New York, it has such a strong culture that you already believe it’s a vibrant, dynamic and interesting place. To the extent that you would question someone’s opinion if they said otherwise. That’s impressive. Wouldn’t you love it if your business had such a strong, positive culture that people who weren’t even customers thought a bad review of you was probably more of a reflection on that person than your enterprise?

And yet it’s such a hard thing to pin down.

Culture tends to be one of those gut feel things. It can be described as a set of values that people use to govern their interactions, but if you’ve ever been part of a strong culture, you know it feels deeper than that: it can incorporate a sense of humour, a dress style, mannerisms, standards, you name it.

If you are thinking that your business or workplace doesn’t have a culture, I can tell you unequivocally without even visiting, that you are wrong. It may not be strong, it may not be inspiring or engaging, but it does exist.  

So there’re two things to work out from here: firstly, do you have a strong culture and secondly, is it the culture you want?

In order to answer these questions you need to come up with a few scenarios that might occur in your business, but aren’t either very common or very rare. For example, 

• You own a printing business and a customer received half of their leaflets with some copy chopped off, 

• You own a café and one of your casual Saturday wait staff has her birthday,

• You manage a small team and there’s a staff member who comes into work thirty minutes late at least twice a week,

• You own a small gift store and a local charity asks you to donate products to their raffle.

Try to make them varied to include scenarios involving a variety of clients, staff, suppliers, etc and a variety of positive and negative issues.

Now take that handful of examples to your team and ask them to answer how they would handle the situation. Make it clear that there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s just to gauge whether your work place has an existing strong culture.

And when you get those answers back, you’ll have a pretty good idea whether you do or not, and whether it’s the culture you envisaged your business/team to have.

Surprise, surprise, next weeks’ post is going to be the first step in building the culture you want. 

* For more of these posters, click here to download the free zip folder.