Year: 2017

Servicing from the inside out

Last November, I attended the Fast Company Innovation Festival at NYU. The one speaker I wanted to see was Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and CEO of Chobani. He didn’t disappoint. Fast Company followed up that event with an April 2017 cover piece featuring Ulukaya and his full story of creating the world’s leading yogurt brand from an SBA loan and a small group of former Kraft employees who used to work at the yogurt plant he purchased in upstate NY.

Fast Company Innovation Festival, NYU, 2016

One of the most famous stories Ulukaya tells is that when he was just getting started and knew nothing about how to make yogurt or how to run a company, he got the employees together to paint the outside of the plant. He started with his people. He focused inside first. He would continue to focus inside as he built the business.

Fast Company magazine cover, April 2017

Ulukaya’s philosophy of making the employee experience a priority, and trusting that such care will then translate to the product and the customer experience, really resonates with me. It’s about taking care of those around you and trusting they will convert that positive energy externally. From the Fast Company cover story by Rob Brunner:

“He [Ulukaya] has begun to forge a new kind of business leadership, one that fuses competitiveness with an unusually strong sense of compassion.”

The second aspect of Ulukaya’s approach that I admire is his desire to be close to his business. He wants to know how things work, to be in the weeds, to get his hands dirty. He wants to understand his employees, their joys and their challenges. He is not above them; rather, he stands beside them. From the event last year:

“I am a factory worker first…  If I ask my employees to do something, I do it with them.”

And from the Fast Company piece:

“Ulukaya has always had trouble sitting still, and rather than spend his time at a desk, he prefers to roam the floors of his factories, chatting with workers or even sometimes standing off by himself, watching cup after cup skitter down the line to get filled, sealed, boxed, and sent in its way.”

In just 10 years since the brand launched, Ulukaya and his team have grown Chobani to 2,000+ employees and the number one Greek-style yogurt brand in the U.S. With his inside-out approach, he also:

  • Reopened a Kraft yogurt factory in South Edmeston, NY, saving a core team of employees then creating hundreds of jobs
  • Opened the world’s largest yogurt factory in Twin Falls, Idaho, adding 300+ jobs
  • Hired immigrants as 30 percent of his workforce, from more than 15 countries, including more than 400+ refugees. Some employees are provided transportation to the plants and translators on-site.
  • Gave 10 percent of the company to his employees, making some of them millionaires
  • Launched fully paid parental leave

In a hairy time for growing companies where we seem to hear more about culture challenges and misses by CEOs than about the nurturing and care of employees, I optimistically turn to Ulukaya and the Chobani story for guidance.

Service is grit

I recently sat in a restaurant with my family and carefully watched the table next to me. The couple had ordered wine before their meal and looked upset. When the employee taking care of them came back to the table, one of the customers said, “This doesn’t taste good, can we have something else?”

The employee worked with them on a choice, and a few minutes later, brought over a different wine option, then walked away. Upon tasting this latest choice, one of the customers said, fairly loudly, “This tastes terrible.” At that point, my 8-year-old child noted their behavior and asked me about it. She was surprised that they would send wine back at all, much less twice.  She described their reaction as “not nice.”  I agreed.

I began wondering how the employee would react when she came back to the table. Would she get defensive? Upset? Or just battle her way through it?

When she arrived again, the couple reiterated that the wine was “terrible,” and it was decided that beer would be a better choice. At no point did the employee get visibly upset or flustered, although I’m sure some things were stirring inside her. I bet her heartbeat was elevated and she had chosen some words that she would like to say to the couple. Even the greatest customer service employee reacts to a tough customer or tough situation. It’s how you battle through it and recover that matters most.

In this case, the employee gritted through the situation.  She accepted the feedback, brought the beer, and graciously kept servicing the table at a high level.  She could have reacted poorly, had an outburst or done something that would have upset the customer or even put her employment in jeopardy.  Instead, she showed grit in the face of adversity.

I see this every day in my teams.  An employee will have a tough call, and tell me about it with a smile.  That’s grit.  Or she’ll talk about how she could have done better to prevent it from getting escalated to her manager.  Pure grit.

I’ve also seen new employees cry their way off the floor because a call was too tough or too personal.  That doesn’t mean they don’t have grit.  What happens next does – if they come back to the floor with a smile and determination, you’ll know they have grit.  It’s not always the reaction to adversity you need to look for, but the recovery.  Some of my best employees have to walk away after a tough call.  Even I do.  But we come back, do it again, and keep delivering at a high level.  That’s grit.