Change Agent - Issue 40

I once ran a project with 90 new employees, all of whom started on the same day. We all wore painter's caps with our names on them. And we wore them until every single person knew everyone else's name. It took two weeks.

At Apple, everyone knows Steve Jobs. He doesn't need a name tag. But everyone else at the company does, because there's no way that Jobs knows everyone else! So he should wear one too. It's only fair.

"Hello! My name is ..."

If you're serious about growing, put on a name tag today.

Seth Godin (sgodin@fastcompany.com) is the author of Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, and Friends Into Customers (Simon & Schuster, 1999) and the founder of Yoyodyne Entertainment.