Like many in the restoration space, I am fortunate enough to work for a rapidly expanding company. On my hiring date, the employees at Violand could all fit comfortably around a standard breakfast table, elbow room wealthy. Today, we need to make reservations in the big private room of a restaurant if we want to break bread together. That’s great, right? Bigger’s better … except when it’s not. When breakneck expansion overtakes culture, companies often surrender what made them special.
While business buzzwords like synergy, holistic, and touchpoint often get eye rolls because they’ve lost their meaningful impact, the term “culture” is still respected and holds significance. A strong culture attracts and retains strong people.
Competition for top talent continues to deepen. While $2 an hour more may help recruit employees short-term at certain levels, it doesn’t attract game changers and it’s not the reason an all-star abandons you. If paying a little more than the next guy is your strategy, you will lose.
Culture is king, or as Peter Druker famously wrote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” When you add a profusion of new employees to an already tight culture, it clouds cohesion. For someone new, it can be tough to break through. When this happens, newbies tend to quietly quit their way out the door and go somewhere they feel more a part of the organization. And the culture you worked so hard to build erodes.
If you are a company veteran, what can you do to help new people understand what makes your workplace so special and welcome them in as team members? Tell stories.
Stories describe the tale of how it is we came to be as we are. They reinforce the what and who behind our current where. Above all, stories provide comfort when we face uncertain futures. They carry a truth that resonates deep within us, creating the warmth we share in our common purpose.
According to Edward Miller, Founder of Edward Elementary, “Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of lore and legends. They bring order to our confusing world. Think about how many times a day you use stories to pass along data, insights, memories, or common-sense advice.”
The employees at Violand are located across the country, so on rare occasions when we are together in person and break that bread, what do we do? We tell stories.
I look forward to hearing about the time three well-known thought leaders from Violand laughed it up for hours in a hot tub in Kansas, eating cheese puffs and indulging in adult beverages, because a blizzard shut down the airport and they couldn’t get a flight back—all while the new office manager frantically searched for non-existent flights, thinking they were all miserable. I wasn’t there, but I know the story because I have heard it a dozen times and can’t wait to hear it again.
Then there was the time during an RIA reception at a rooftop bar in Las Vegas that the bouncer tried to kick out one of our business advisors for wearing the wrong kind of shoes. One of our 40-something-year-old clients came over and convinced the bouncer our advisor was his elderly grandfather with a severe heart condition. He reminded him of the giant flight of stairs involved to get to said rooftop and said if the bouncer made him climb back down the stairs so soon after climbing up, he might have a heart attack. It worked and he got to stay, although he was called grandpa by everyone the rest of the night. That same night our now GM ended up wearing the designer high-heeled shoes of a certain well-respected now president of a large industry association, because open-toed heels were allowed, while open-toed sandals were not. That time I was there, and I now tell the story to new employees every chance I get.
I can tell you about the time one of our business advisors came to me with tears in his eyes because something unforeseen was tearing apart a client that he sincerely cared for. There’s another of this same coach beaming ear to ear as he announced the client’s personal hailstorm had passed and they were now stronger from having gone through it, describing in detail the pride he had for the strength his client had shown.
Stories describe our culture. They authenticate the intangible. They provide a firm grasp on something that otherwise can’t be held. Stories about risk taking and process improvements enlighten a culture where people are empowered and expected to search for growth and innovation. Stories hold a culture together. They demonstrate your core values and commitment. If they don’t, they are not stories, they are gossip. And gossip is a culture killer.
When veteran employees share stories with newbies, it’s a reason to celebrate. The stories that bring joy and laughter also bring hope. They reinforce the achievable prosperity of tomorrow because we have done it before. The stories that remind us of times gone wrong demonstrate the likelihood that more threats lie ahead, but that together we’ll persevere. They even bring departments closer, humanizing the challenges and miscommunications between operations, sales, HR, finance, and administration; between frontline workers and those in management; between those who work remotely and those in the office.
My story goes back to my third week on the job. The owner invited everyone over to his house for a company cookout and families were included. I brought my then four-year-old son with me. Halfway through the evening, he urgently informed me of his need to use the bathroom, and someone let us know the one upstairs was unoccupied. After several long minutes of waiting for him to reappear, he does—completely naked and running down the steps, announcing that “there’s poop everywhere!” I snuck upstairs as fast as I could and opened the bathroom door to discover, to my dismay, that he wasn’t embellishing the poop situation. Floor, rug, baseboards, wall—all were a different color than they should have been. The toilet had clogged and overflowed. I can’t say I was equipped to clean up a “CAT 3” then any more than I am now, but I can say I am the only person I am aware of in VMA history that scrubbed clean my boss’s toilet. I feel like we should tell this story as part of our company’s onboarding process, but HR has poo-pooed it. (Sidenote: if Chuck Violand is reading this article, it may be the first time he has heard about this. But I have told it to other employees, as it’s important for newbies to know that sometimes the proverbial poop hits the floor. At our company, you clean it up and move on.)
Although I say that story is mine, it really isn’t. I’m just in the cast of characters. And it’s not intended to be about me or my son, who hopefully never reads this article. It’s about all of us at the company. For the story to mean anything, it must be. Stories let you explore different worlds through another’s perspective. Good stories are fun to hear. Great stories are remembered and repeated. We build each other up with the telling of our stories.
The downside of stories is when the “good old boys” network of long-time employees never grants the space for newbies to share their own stories and have them accepted with as much delight as the old ones.
Stories are like campfires. They need new energy to burn. All employees should feel and exhibit the freedom to engage in storytelling to keep the spark going. When done right, new stories are built on the burning embers of the stories from days past. While there is beauty in the telling of the story, perfecting the transfer of the tale lies in the active listening done by all.
When you tell a story, though, be sure to tell it right. “I finally got around to clearing space in the freezer” is much different than “I just polished off a gallon of ice cream by myself.” Great stories provide a unique introspective into imperfection. A quasi behind-the-scenes view of challenges and what it takes to overcome them. If all you portray is perfection all the time, where is the interesting part? There is nothing of importance to share. And if the stories you have now are not the stories you want told moving forward, then it’s your responsibility to create new ones.
Safeguarding a healthy culture is the responsibility of those who have been before and should be passed down freely to those who will be. Share your stories willingly, with meaning, and inspire others to find within themselves a drive to create their own stories, discovering the possibilities of what’s next.
Wherever you go, take with you a pocketful of stories, and release them when you can, letting them blow in the wind. When they return to you, you will find a culture that is more than just a plaque on the wall.
Published in C&R Magazine
