Trust your people
One day Stefanski had an idea to weed out smoking on the Third Federal campus. Unlike some companies, he wasn’t trying to fire people who smoked, but he wanted to work to discourage it. Instead of creating a plan himself, he had others figure it out.
“I said, ‘We should be able to do this,’” he says. “That was my input, and what they came up with, I thought it was brilliant.”
His employees came up with an incentive program where if one succeeded in quitting, he or she would receive $1,000. Additionally, employees have also helped develop wellness and green initiatives across the organization.
“The bottom line is we accomplish a lot because we get people involved, and we get people involved in the early stages, not just in execution,” Stefanski says. “We want people to be part of the creative part and come up with a meaningful program.”
He says it’s important that as a leader, you keep your opinions to yourself when employees are developing ideas.
“It’s certainly a team effort, and my input is minimal,” he says. “My job is to basically create the vision and be the keeper of the values and grease the skids along the way if someone runs into a stone wall and make sure they can be successful on the job and the program can be successful but not that I should get credit or I should be the leader and get in every picture. I love to have the associates a part of it.”
He says that if accomplishing huge results is important to you, then you need to have a team working on things instead of yourself.
“If you run a race and if you race one person four times around the track or you race four people as a team, the team will win 100percent of the time,” Stefanski says. “More synergy can be created if you put a team together to brainstorm the how to implement these kinds of things around the organization.”
While some may not see the benefit of a values-based leadership style and culture, there are clear reasons for Third Federal.
“If you keep doing this stuff, it can be very beneficial, and it can work,” Stefanski says. “We treat our associates well, and we have fun at work, but the expectations are that they’re going to treat the customer well. I think that if people feel good about themselves, and they have a career, and they feel good about their family … that pays dividends 10 times over. People are much nicer to customers, and they’re more engaged with the customer, and people appreciate that. There is method to the madness. We’re not just giving the bank away. We want people to be happy on the job so they’re happy treating customer the way they want to be treated.”
And so far, Stefanski feels like he and his people are doing a good job it.
“We’re creating a foundation for the next generation of Stefanskis with the hope that they’re smart enough to realize this isn’t too bad and to look back and realize that what was created was a good thing,” Stefanski says. “I hope, and I think, my parents and all the founding people are looking down on us now and saying, ‘I think you did a good job.’”
HOW TO REACH: TFS Financial Corp., (800) 844-7333 or www.thirdfederal.com