Communicate expectations
Mechler’s 123 employees didn’t all grow up together as neighbors, classmates or frat brothers. They come from different backgrounds and values. To keep the company’s culture consistent, the first step is setting the expectations and bringing differences into a single framework.
“First of all, to make up a really good culture, you have to have different temperaments, talents and convictions,” he says, remembering the various characters it took to make a coherent fraternity in college. “You’ve got to help nurture that, and you also have to set expectations: ‘Here’s how we expect you to behave when you’re a SpawMaxwell employee.’”
One way of communicating the values you expect employees to exhibit is by ingraining them into the organization’s core. SpawMaxwell’s mission statement concludes with the line, “People first … success will follow.”
Out of that notion, the company developed a list of values to guide its actions. Those traits — authentic, right thing, respect, invest in people, build relationships that last, applaud each other and do it with enthusiasm — are organized into a memorable acronym, ARRIBA!
Mechler posts those values around the office to keep them constantly visible. But to really make your list resonate with employees, you need to do more than just point at a poster. Make values relevant by demonstrating that they’re pivotal to what happens at the company.
Use values as reference points to explain decisions you’ve made, projects you’re undertaking and other developments in the company. Bid day, for example, is an opportunity for Mechler to offer reminders about the importance of building long-term relationships.
“On bid day, (our vendors) give us better prices than they give our competition because we treat them fairly,” he says. “So all of those ARRIBA! values that we have play into that hugely in how we execute business. We’re here for the long run, not the short term.”
But even beyond that, the value acronym at SpawMaxwell has entered the corporate vocabulary as a catchphrase in itself.
“It’s gotten to the point where it’s such a part of our culture when somebody gets a project or something happens good in their life, instead of saying great job or awesome or fabulous, we’ll say ARRIBA!,” Mechler says. “What it means is, ‘Fabulous job. You did the right thing.’”
