Fast Pack 2000

Phil Terry

You raise an important issue for every company: Why do some people stay and contribute to a company, while others choose to leave? When you look at studies on why people leave, you'll notice that money isn't the most important reason. In fact, it's way down on the list, around number five or six. It turns out that being treated as though your ideas matter, working in a climate where your recommendations have a chance of being implemented, and having an opportunity to make a difference in an organization are all more important than money. But senior management at most companies is convinced that money matters most. Some companies are even proud to have a high turnover rate. They don't understand that in many cases, it can cost from $100,000 to more than $1 million to replace an employee, when you consider all the expenses associated with finding and training someone new and with losing an employee who has helped you compete in the marketplace.

So I made the determination when I started my company to do things differently. I made the culture and the way that we all work together the number-one priority. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest issue in the 21st century is learning new ways to do things that go beyond the old, outmoded command-and-control setup.

Mark Albion

I remember reading somewhere that someone once asked Albert Einstein a question: "If you could ask God one question, what would that question be?" The first time that he was asked, Einstein supposedly said that he would ask God how the universe began, because after that, the rest is all math. But after some reflection, he said that he would ask God why the universe began, because then he'd know the meaning of his own life.

That's the question that really lies behind people's commitment to certain companies and not to others. Why are we here? Why are we here as a company? Why are we here as an organization? Why are we spending our life's energy at this place? A leader provides the answer in three parts: logos, pathos, and ethos. Logos is the easiest. It's the argument, the case for being here: why your company is important, how it can make a difference through its products and services. The second part is pathos--compassion: the feelings that you create by showing interest in your employees. And the third part is ethos: you, the leader. What is your story? Why is the company important to you?

Bubba Levy

My business is manufacturing corrugated boxes. We have 10 plants--7 in Texas, 3 in Mexico. We have a great level of retention in the company and very high morale. In the past couple of years, we've taken that morale to the next level. One way that we've found to make things even better is to implement a wellness program. But it's about more than just disease and wellness; it's about showing our people that we care about them and their families more than just in terms of what they can do for us. In most of our locations, we have two wellness fairs a year. At those fairs, there are 12 different stations that employees and their families can go to get various health checks, such as hearing, heart rate, cholesterol, and blood pressure. In order to get the whole family to come, we give away big door prizes--tvs, trips, and more. At every one of these fairs, at least two critical medical issues are uncovered among our employees and their family members--something that without immediate attention could have turned into a life-threatening condition.

Margaret Heffernan

You know, it's all well and good to say that money is fifth on the list of reasons why people decide to join or leave a company. But it's impossible to ignore the environment that's been created in the past five years--the enormous amount of wealth that's been created, and the desire for even more wealth. We have an economy that's basically saying to people, "Come and join my company and become a millionaire!" The result is an intrinsic clash between a company's goals and its employees' goals.

When I listen to the way that Mike ran his ship or to Bubba describing the program that he set up for his employees, what comes to my mind is that if I tried some of those ideas in my company, my investors would kill me! And if my investors didn't kill me, my employees would. All I'd hear would be "What the hell are you doing? You're wasting our time and our money! Faster, faster, cheaper, cheaper! We want more millionaires by the end of the month! Here are the numbers! You haven't hit them!" That's the reality of the environment we're working in--and people who think otherwise get terribly, terribly shocked when they actually encounter it.

Laurie Coots