Value uniqueness
Of course, if a company has a happy culture, but isn’t making
money, the business likely won’t be around too long. And Clark
says it would be a mistake, even for Build-A-Bear, to look exclusively for type A, shiny, happy personalities in each and every one
of their employees.
“Everybody isn’t the same,” Clark says. “You don’t want it to be
so homogeneous that nobody challenges each other. You don’t
want it to be just like a lollipop cult where everybody is so happy.
We value people’s challenges to our business. We want everybody to contribute. You have to accept people for who they are
and help them be who they want to be — not who you want them
to be, but who they want to be.”
One of the best ways to get an employee working at their full
potential is to lay out a path to get ahead in the organization.
“People should see that they can grow in the company,” Clark
says. “When you do have internal promotions, make sure that
everyone knows about it. They can see, ‘Hey, Don got promoted. I can get promoted.’”
Employees, whether they are new to the organization or have
been there for some time, also have to know specifically what it
is that they are expected to do at the company.
“I do believe that people come to work for a career, but they
have to know from time to time what that career is,” Clark says.
“If you don’t share that with them, they will leave. The people will
go where they can grow. They’ll stay if they can see you’re trying
to help them.”
A culture in which employees are encouraged to improve and are
given updates as to how much they are improving also helps weed
out troublesome workers.
“If a store manager has not had a lot of turnover, that’s a good
thing,” Clark says. “It could be a bad thing, too. If they are not
letting bad people go, then they are hurting their company. Good
people don’t stay when bad people stay. Over time, if you have
20 people on your staff, and five of them are terrible, you’re
going to lose five people because of it. That’s just the way it
works. Good people do not want to work around people who
are not making a contribution.
“The best thing you can do for somebody who is not making the
kind of contribution that they need to make is to help them find
another job. I’ve said to people, ‘If you’re not happy here, come
to me. Tell me. I know a lot of people. I’ll help you find another
job.’ If they are a good person and they didn’t steal and they
showed up on time and this just isn’t the place for them, there are
a lot of other places that would be for them. Every company has
its own little personality.”
Sorting out the good from the bad to come up with a cohesive
team of employees is a constantly evolving process. The leader
who ignores the importance of culture in building their business
will likely find problems.
“It takes so many people to make a good company,” Clark says.
“The competitive landscape is such that you’re going to be competing with people who are going to figure out that it takes people to make a successful business. … As a leader, I think you can
take people at least a few notches past where they ever thought
they were going to go and maybe even farther. That’s the fun of
it. It’s helping people grow to be all they can be.”
HOW TO REACH: Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc., www.buildabear.com