Rabkin
David Rabkin, Contributor
IN A recent taste test, consumers were asked to choose between three brands of bottled water. Brand A was preferred by the older crowd, Brand B found favor with 18-24 year olds and Brand C was considered the bargain alternative. Inexplicably, seven per cent of respondents chose Diet Coke.
Sounds silly? Maybe not. Well, OK, the Diet Coke part is silly. Bottled water, however, is big business. In fact, it is not only among the largest beverage categories, it is also among the fastest growing. I have a friend right here in Jamaica who sells Catherine's Peak water and she'll swear you can taste the difference. Whether she is right or just an incredibly effective salesperson, I won't drink another kind of water. (I do drink a lot of Diet Coke, though.) My friend's passion is essential to the success of her product.
DIFFERENCES
This past weekend I opted for something a bit stronger than water. Over a cold bottle of Real Rock beer, I reflected on some of the differences between those businesses that succeed and those that do not. Forgoing scientific method (after all, I was drinking) I made an informal list of some of the Jamaican firms whose commitment to their product seems to make all the difference. Allow me to discuss several of the firms with whom I have had the opportunity to work closely.
At the top of my list is Round Hill. From the gatekeeper to the Managing Director, a reverence for the place simply permeates the air. The property is gorgeous, but what impresses most is the attention paid by staff members to every detail. Over breakfast, prepared in your own private villa, the cooks are delighted to tell you of the famous guests who frequent the property. The bellman that shuttles you to the main house is proud to have been a part of the resort's family for decades. In the evening, the maitre d' describes each menu item in a tone that makes your mouth water. They care and, soon, you do too.
Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) also made my list. The first time I met with the company's managers they closed the meeting by admonishing us to "remember, at the heart of this business is love". I admit, at first I found this a little confusing. Yet as I began to inventory the many customer care initiatives they had in place, I understood that this vision of love inspires the troops and has tangible effects with customers.
Caring deeply about one's business is not nearly as rare as one might imagine. I recently spent an hour at a party listening to an impassioned description of rolling steel. Go ahead and laugh, but it was fascinating. I do recognise, however, that there may be some employees who do not have an innate passion for driving your forklift around your warehouse. In those cases, here are three principles for building an organization that cares - and whose caring adds up to profits:
SENSE OF PURPOSE
Find your company's essence and make it the reason you and your employees come to work each day. Whether you are healing the sick or selling soap, make it a moral crusade. I have rarely seen commitment that exceeds that of Wal-Mart's distribution center workers. They are part of the finest logistics operation ever constructed by humankind and that fills them with pride on a daily basis. Ask yourself this: if each Wal-Mart worker cared just 10 per cent less and worked only 95 per cent as hard, how long would it take for them to lose their low cost edge?
I have found that this principle is at least as effective at Grace, Kennedy & Co. (whose motto, by the way, is "We Care"). Grace is actually able to attract overseas Jamaicans back to the island with the promise of building a better Jamaica by helping to build a better company. This intangible purpose translates into a higher quality management team with a climbing stock price.
TRANSPARENCY
Too often senior managers hide the details of their operations from their employees. They neither solicit feedback nor share detailed company information. Some managers believe sharing information (particularly negative information) diminishes their authority; other managers believe that employees might share vital company secrets. (Still others are trying to evade the tax net, but I am confident that none of The Gleaner's readers fall into that category.) Time and again I have found that sharing information builds trust, particularly when it is tough news.
Your employees are your partners and they can only truly care about a business they understand, and in which they feel they are being given a straight deal. As for secrets: you don't have any. Oh, you think you do, but you don't. At least not any that are valuable to anybody else. If your "secret" is about a key business process, then either it deserves the protection of a patent (which I'll bet you don't have) or your competitors will figure it out soon enough. On the other hand, if that "secret" is so easy to copy that your competitors could hurt you simply by knowing it, you have not built a real market advantage. Focus instead on developing products that are difficult to imitate. That is not to say that others wouldn't love to know the intimate details of your operation; it is simply to say that, as excited as they might be, there's probably not much they can do with your information. (A key exception here is the planning of mergers and acquisitions. In this case, secrecy is often necessary but typically understood by employees.)
MAKE IT FUN
Set goals and milestones to go along with your company's purpose. Have targets to encourage the things you want your employees to get excited about. Financial incentives are an obvious example, but human beings are motivated by more than just cash. A day off for achieving a low level of production errors, or tickets to the movies for a report submitted early, can go a long way. I once watched a dozen highly paid consultants strive for two months to win a second-hand surfboard.
This weekend Walkerswood broke ground on the future site of a brand new production facility. It will be a cornerstone of their community and a source of pride for many Jamaicans. When you visit this company or read the words on one of their bottles, it is obvious that there is a lot more at work than just making sauce. They care about their products, their employees, their community, and their customers. I think their passion is evident in the delicious taste of their sauces and who wouldn't care about that?
David Rabkin is Project Director of the Jamaica Cluster Competitiveness Project, sponsored by the Jamaica Exporters Association. Mr. Rabkin is a vice-president in the Boston-based advisory firm, ontheFRONTIER. He can be reached at: drabkin@onthefrontier.com
