What Gets These Workers in Gear?

Customer-service representative J.C. Hammond recalls seeing 300 email messages within three days. Flagg won that round; Quality Bicycle now buys ground coffee instead of beans. But it wasn't the first time that he took flack for a top-down decision, and to his credit, Flagg has made an effort to solicit his employees' opinions more deliberately. "You have to swallow your pride and ego sometimes," he says. "It's a small price to pay for honest feedback." Even part-time employees are invited to the annual company retreat, where they get a chance to participate in "Steve's Fun Topics," designed to be a forum for controversy.

It was there that employees convinced Flagg to hire a bicycle-industry advocate in 1997. Later, of course, the email chain clattered about whether the expense would affect the thrice-yearly profit-sharing bonus. Flagg says, without apology, that it has. "It's hard to do a cost-benefit analysis for a bicycling advocate," he says. "But the bottom line is, it's a good thing to do."