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For most people in business, 2009 can’t end soon enough. Although there are few who’ll come out of this year unscathed, some organizations are actually stronger now than they were a year ago. We can dismiss those exceptions as being in the right business at the right time, but I believe it has a lot more to do with leadership than luck.

I’m reminded of three very profound interactions with leaders who have taught me a lot about leading people when times are tough. 

Revelation 1: Give Them the Shirt Off Your Back

Jim Sinegal, the founder and CEO of the 70 billion-dollar-per-year retailing giant Costco can afford to wear just about any shirt on the planet.  But as we were preparing to go on as the keynoters for the Western Association of Food Chains convention last spring in Las Vegas, I was privileged to spend a few moments alone with him and found him to be as warm and kind as a next door neighbor. As we chatted, I noticed that he was wearing the same $12 Kirkland (Costco’s store brand) shirt that I had in my closet at home.  He had on Kirkland slacks, too. Instead of trying to impress his peers (a thousand C-level executives from major supermarket chains and multi-national food product manufacturers), Mr. Sinegal chose to make an impression.

Sinegal does more than wear his company’s clothing; he bleeds Costco colors in every word he speaks and every thing he does.  His remarkable success and meteoric rise to the very top of the retailing world is no accident; but Sinegal is quick to deflect all the credit to his 105,000 employees. He proudly extols that ninety cents of every operational dollar of revenue that flows into Costo is paid out to employees, making them the best-paid — and, not surprisingly — the most loyal in the industry.

I have been a Costco member/customer for several years and I’ve always been impressed by the friendliness, service ethic, and dedication to excellence from Costco employees. It’s almost as if they’re going out of there way to please a leader who they feel is walking amongst them—not over them.

Revelation 2: Put Yourself Out There

You’ve probably heard the jingle, “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.”  But when you consider that this famed jelly-maker beat Wall Street forecasts during every quarter this past year by as much as 15% (and that they are frequently listed among FORTUNE’s Top 100 Companies to Work For),  ‘good’ doesn’t do the name justice. And with other household brands like Folgers, Pillsbury, Jif, and Crisco under their umbrella, Smucker’s is a name—and an organization—to be reckoned with. 

In April I had the privilege of presenting for 250 senior executives at a Smucker’s leadership retreat. With ‘family’ being a key word in both external marketing efforts and within internal employee culture, it was more than the buzzword of the retreat; it was a call to arms. Wanting his senior team to drop their collective guard, be pushed to their limits of thought and action, and feel safe in the presence of one another, CEO Tim Smucker led his team in song.

This would be nothing out of the ordinary if Tim were a gifted singer, but he’s not. In fact, he can barely carry a tune—and he knows it. Nonetheless, he sang loud and proud. And because he chose to “put himself out there,” everyone—every single exec—joined in. Tim’s bold move not only started the meeting on a high note, it left his team feeling safe to think, create, and “put themselves out there” in the presence of their peers.

Great leaders aren’t afraid to take risks to stimulate action and infuse energy. And if that means taking a little ribbing in order to turn an ordinary retreat into an extraordinary idea storm, they don’t even blink.

Revelation 3: It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who You Know Well

If you’ve never been to a Wegmans, it’s worth a trip to the northeast just to see what you’re missing. Calling Wegmans a typical supermarket is like calling Disneyworld a typical amusement park. But what’s more impressive than the grandeur of their stores is the unparalleled level of service you’ll receive from their people. The culture of Wegmans is amazing, as evidenced by their appearance on FORTUNE’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, where they’ve been a fixture for twelve consecutive years and have been among the top 5 for five years in a row. 

Before I presented at a Wegmans leadership meeting in September, Gerry Pierce, EVP of Human Resources, toured me through one of their stores where I conducted one-on-one interviews with over a dozen Gen Why employees.  These teens and young adults were given total ‘amnesty’ by management to speak candidly and openly about their experiences at Wegmans. I probed each kid in an attempt to expose areas where management needed to improve.  Surely some of these kids had some disparaging things to say about their job, their training, their manager, or their compensation, right?

Wrong. Nary a discouraging word. No matter which kid I pulled off the floor to interview, each was a smiling, positive, enthusiastic advocate for Wegmans.  Many of those I talked to had found a career path and were planning to come back to pursue careers in management with the chain after they had received college degrees.  Astounding.

As staggering as this was, the real revelation came as I toured the store a second time with Bob Farr, the General Manager who oversees the store’s 1,000 employees. Bob not only knew the name of every single employee we passed, he knew what their interests and hobbies were outside of work. No wonder the young employees felt so connected to their company. To them, Bob Farr is Wegmans, and Wegmans cares about them as individuals, not just as stockers and baggers.

No matter how cool your company, product, store, or service is, and no matter how much you pay your people, the only way to win them over is to care about them enough to know who they are when they are not on the clock. 

And Finally, a Confession – I love cool gadgetry and technology. Lately, it seems, I always have my face buried in my laptop or the screen of a handheld device. This tends to annoy people and alienate those you love most. My wife made a comment about my ‘screen addiction’ recently, a comment I took to heart. As a creative apology, I wrote a short poem about the valuable lesson I learned. Then, (irony of ironies) I created a YouTube video around it.  If you have 90 seconds, it may amuse you and even be a wake-up call for you or someone in your life.

I hope that at least one of these lessons can serve as a Holiday gift from me to you.

Article by:

Eric Chester
Generation WHY
WhysNews 12/09 Issue 95
www.GenerationWhy.com