Share the love
Before you can get employees aligned to a mission or vision,
they need to be aligned with each other. Often, the best way to
do this is to get them together outside the workplace in a setting that allows people to temporarily set aside the roles they
play on the job.
In December, Parker gathered many of his employees at a
local sports bar.
They wore red and green, in large part because of the upcoming Christmas holiday. But there was another more official
motive that Parker had in mind for getting employees dressed
in the traditional holiday colors.
“As hokey as it may sound, we made everybody wear name
tags,” Parker says. “Those of us who had red were new and
green was old. The idea was to get people to understand who
had been around for a while, who can help you and who is a
good resource.”
If you want a successful company, you need a culture in
which everybody feels like they are on the same team and
working toward the same goal.
“Take personal responsibility for each other’s success,”
Parker says. “I believe if you are personally attached to the
people you work with, you’ll take responsibility for their success. Logically, you’re more concerned about your friend’s success than somebody you don’t know.”
When trying to drive change in your culture to reach these
goals, you must be the agent of change and lead the way to
transformation by engaging your leaders throughout the organization in this effort.
“Define it, implement it and then reinforce the culture,”
Parker says. “Be good coaches and good trainers. Be good at
providing feedback and rewarding success. The leadership
group should develop and communicate the vision and then
make sure that everybody is aligned.”
While it is up to the CEO to get things started, it won’t mean
a thing without support from those other leaders in the company.
“If their boss doesn’t make them feel like they are a valuable
person, it doesn’t make any difference what I do,” Parker says.
“If I don’t make sure that the six folks that report to me feel
that way, then they won’t have the six folks that work for them
feel that way. It has to come from your boss first. It can be an
empty promise when it comes from me and the layers in
between don’t support it. You completely lose all credibility.”
Obviously, it takes more than just a manager telling an
employee that he or she is valued for it to be worthwhile. The
positive attitude must be ingrained in the culture and part of
what the company’s mission and vision is all about.
It also must be reinforced with action. Show your employees
that you have more than just words and catchphrases to offer
them and to show them that you value their role in the company.
Parker went to work updating Village Pantry’s employee
compensation plan by putting together more competitive pay
packages that included bonus and incentive plans and scheduling regular performance evaluations.
He also sought to create better training programs to help
employees grow within the company.
“I want an organization where people can grow and they can
make contributions,” Parker says. “We believe in breadth, not
necessarily depth.”