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Has SAS’s Jim Goodnight Cracked the Code On Corporate Culture?

On Friday, I was granted a private interview with Dr. Jim Goodnight, co-founder and CEO of SAS.  We met in Atlanta during the Chick-fil-A Leadercast where 50,000 individuals participated live or via simulcast from locations around the world.

Goodnight, who has a Ph.D in statistics, founded SAS more than 30 years ago with colleagues from North Carolina State University.  Today, SAS is on a roll having achieved an enviable long-term record of revenue and profit growth. The firm was named number 1 on Fortune’s “Best Places to Work” list for 2010.  Harvard Business School named Goodnight as one of the “20th Century’s Great American Business Leaders.”  He was also recently named one of “America’s 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs” by Inc magazine.

During the Leadercast program and prior to my meeting with Goodnight, author Jim Collins interviewed him on stage. Collins has written about the Level 5 leaders who experienced a catalyst in their lives —  death of a loved one, near death experience, religious conversion — that developed humility in their character and made them better leaders.  Collins seemed to be looking for something similar in Goodnight  to explain SAS’s benevolent corporate culture where the average work week is 35 hours and the bucolic SAS campus has nearly every employee perk imaginable.  Despite Collins’ attempts to draw out Goodnight, he hit a dead end. Typical of Goodnight, he answered several of Collins’ questions with a “yes” or “no.”   When Collins asked Goodnight why most SAS employees were given offices rather than the standard cubicles that the typical software company employee has, Goodnight replied tongue in cheek that if an employee were watching porn from the privacy of his office it would not be the problem that it would be if he were in a cubicle out in the open.  The audience responded with tentative laughter.  They weren’t quite sure what to make of Goodnight.

Like Collins, I have known and written about many great leaders who experienced adversity that made them better leaders. Goodnight is a different breed, a leader who by all accounts has not gone through a Level 5-type transformation and yet has at least in some respects cracked the code on corporate culture.  For every job opening, SAS receives 100 or more resumes. Over a business cycle, SAS’s employee turnover in the low single digits is a fraction of the software industry’s that at times reaches into the mid-20 percent plus range.

My interview with Goodnight and some additional research led me to believe that Jim Goodnight is among the most important role models for leaders to emulate today.  This week I’m working on an article that explains why.  If you have thoughts about Jim Goodnight or SAS’s corporate culture that you would like to share, please post them here or email me at mstallard [at] epluribuspartners [dot] com.

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What Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and A.G. Lafley have in common

Jobs, Catmull and Lafley connect with employees of their respective organizations, although they do so in distinctly unique ways. This is the topic of a webinar Jason Pankau and I will be doing for Communitelligence. You can learn more about it at this link. This topic is relevant today because Corporate Executive Board research shows that 90 percent of employees are either not engaged and giving their best efforts or they are not aligned with their organization’s goals. Research by both The Conference Board and the Corporate Executive Board shows that the solution to this problem to develop the emotional and rational connections that employee have with their organization’s mission and values, supervisor, colleagues and day-to-day work tasks. In the webinar, Michael and Jason show how great leaders do this.

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John Maxwell on Connection

I’m in Atlanta to write about the Chick-fil-A leadercast. Presently I’m listening to John Maxwell who recently wrote Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Here are a few of John’s comments about connection:

– Leadership is influence.
– Connecting is the ability to identify with and relate to people that it increases our influence with them.
– Connecting is all about others, not about us.
– Connecting is intentional, it is all about other, and it requires hard work and energy to connect.
– As soon as you get married, you have a power outage.
– Who do you need to spend energy on connecting with?
– Connectors find common ground…connection is based on similarities, not differences.
– When you connect it takes you to a higher plain of communication.
– Connections happen when you open up your life rather than keeping people at a distance.

As always, John connected with the audience. His warmth, humor, humility and wisdom are truly exceptional.

I’m thrilled to see John write and speak about the importance of connection. John is an fellow author whose books have been published by Thomas Nelson, the publisher who published our book on Connection Cultures entitled Fired Up or Burned Out: How to reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.

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Relationship Excellence: Chick-fil-A’s Competitive Edge

IMG_0924I just met and heard Chick-fil-A’s President Dan Cathy speak to a group at the Chick-fil-A Leadercast about values, faith, serving others and the competitive advantage of relationships.  It was an inspiring message and he is genuine and clearly passionate about the organization, its people, customers and what it represents.  Dan told the audience that he recently committed to his father, Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, to keep the company private which will help preserve the values of this great organization.

Observing Dan speak, it’s clear that he connects with the employees of Chick-fil-A.  He spends more than half of his time on the road visiting stores and connecting with employees and customers.  He tells stories that move him and in so doing move the hearts of others.  He often uses objects that help people remember his points.  A large pepper grinder represents adding pepper to the customer’s experience by going the second mile to be friendly.  Chick-fil-A has won numerous awards for its exceptionally high level of customer service.

Sometimes when I hear corporate leaders talk I wonder if they walk the talk.  I’ve done some due diligence and feel highly confident that Chick-fil-A is the real deal.  Even my own mother who lives in Bristol, Virginia sings the praises of the local Chick-fil-A for their good people and positive influence on the local community.

In the coming weeks I’ll be interviewing Dan Cathy to learn more about his journey as a leader and his work at Chick-fil-A so stay tuned.

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Leaders Shape Stories

Mark Sanborn just said people should slow down, reflect and be shapers of stories.  How true! It made me think of a scene in the movie Apollo 13 when Mission Director Gene Kranz changed the story of the Apollo 13 mission failure from being about a potential disaster to being one of NASA’s greatest moments by bringing the astronauts safely home despite the odds against them.  For those who don’t know, NASA performed heroically and saved the three astronauts lives.

Last week I spoke to a leader at NASA’s Johnson Space Center who told me that Gene Kranz’s famous line “failure is not an option” that he stated in the movie still influences NASA’s culture today.  On June 17, Jason Pankau and I will be speaking to leaders at the NASA Johnson Space Center where Gene Kranz uttered those famous words that reshaped NASA’s story.  We feel a sense of awe and humilty to have an opportunity to speak at NASA.  We hope to inspire NASA’s leaders about how important it is to create a Connection Culture so that they will thrive, individually and collectively.

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Your Leaders, Hubris or Humility?

At the Chick-fil-A Leadercast, Jim Collins just pointed out that great leaders in his research had the character strength of humility and those who fall could be described as having hubris. Collins is right.  The Greek historian Heroditus who is referred to as the “father of history” warned his fellow Athenians of developing hubris in his great work The Persian Wars. Heroditus described how king Darius the Great of Persia showed hubris in attacking the small Greek City-State of Athens.  Although the Athenians were overwhelmingly outnumbered,  they routed the Persians. And years later when Darius’ son Xerxes tried to avenge his father’s humiliation, the Athenian’s defeated the Persians again.

Collins also pointed out that so often a crucible in life — cancer, economic depression, emotional depression, death of a loved one, etc. — shape people’s character so that hubris is replaced by humility.  Collins wife’s battles with breast cancer helped him understand this.  I know from my own experience how fear of losing the love of your life from something that’s out of your control develops a sense of humility.  My wife Katie’s battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer taught me this (I wrote about the experience in essay for Amazon Shorts entitled “Alone No Longer” that is widely circulated in healthcare communities.)

There are some great books that touch on how struggles in life affect the character of leaders.  One of my favorites is Lincoln’s Melancholy by my friend Joshua Wolf Shenk.  I also highly recommend the enthralling and inspiring Bonhoeffer: Pastor,  Martyr, Prophet, Spy — A Righteous Gentile Versus the Third Reich by Eric Metaxas.

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Writing From the Chick-fil-A Leadercast

Today I’m writing about connection and community from the Chick-fil-A Leadercast in Atlanta.  It’s nice to see a conference sponsor that has a reputation for virtuous leadership and values!

This morning I learned Chick-fil-A is an organization that is motivated to build community.  Every organization needs an inspiring identity that motivates its members.  Vision, mission, values and reputation are the elements of an inspiring identity story.  Building community and connection motivated people at Starbucks.  CEO Howard Schultz adopted this mission when on a business trip to Milan, Italy he observed that espresso bars were public spaces that brought people together (note: I’m presently writing an article about connection with Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International).

For many people, building community and connections is extremely motivating, something I wrote about for changethis.com in The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage.  I’m glad to see Chick-fil-A is motivated to help build community.  It’s a mission to be proud of.

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More Evidence: Trust and Connection=Life, Distrust and Isolation=Death

Trust increases when people feel a sense of connection to one another. Strength of connection and trust develop over the time.  This happens as people interact and get to know one another increasing each person’s credibility and reliability in the eyes of the other, and as intimacy develops. Several studies support that this connection that develops trust is the most or among the most significant factors affecting the performance of organizations.

Parker Palmer, the Quaker writer and educational thought leader, told me about the book entitled Trust in Schools by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider. Bryk and Schneider found that far and away the most powerful factor affecting school improvement during the 1990’s in Chicago was “relational trust.” Money, governance, curriculum, etc. were nowhere close to affecting educational outcomes as compared to relational trust (Tony Bryk is now the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.)

I learned about two additional studies related to connection and trust from the writings of Dov Seidman, the founder and CEO of LRN.

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Strategic Alignment: Pixar Puts the “Corpus” Back in Corporation

The definition of corporation is “a group of people combined into or acting as one body.”  My colleague Jason Pankau pointed out to me that the root word of corporation is “corpus,” which in Latin means “body.”

Does your organization act like one body?

Do personal rivalries and silos exist so that the members are working at times against the body’s interest?

One of the greatest challenges leaders face is to lead the members of the corporate body to work together as one.  We call this “strategic alignment.” Great leaders increase strategic alignment  by making it clear that “we” are one organization.  They find ways to make members feel proud of the overall organization.  They get out regularly to meet people and tell stories about members who sacrificed the me for the we.  They reward members who cooperate and help their colleagues and the overall organization. They confront members who behave in selfish ways.  They promote a feeling of partnership so that everyone feels like part of the team and that they can make a difference.

Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar Animation, excels at this.  On one trip when I visited Pixar’s corporate headquarters, I observed an extraordinary Connection Culture.  Here’s what Catmull once wrote about his aspiration for Pixar’s culture:

“What we can do is construct an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes everyone’s creativity.  If we get it right, the result is a vibrant community where talented people are loyal to one another and their collective work, everyone feels that they are part of something extraordinary, and their passion and accomplishments make the community a magnet for talented people coming out of schools or working at other places.  I know what I’m describing is the antithesis of the free-agency practices that prevail in the movie industry, but that’s the point: I believe that community matters.”

Does Catmull’s description fit your organization?  If not, why don’t you become a catalyst for change.  Get started today by reading this changethis manifesto entitled  The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage.

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What would Jack Bauer do?

24wallpaperIn the current season of the show “24,” the President of the United States is about to uncharacteristically agree to cover up a murder for the sake of a peace treaty. When Jack Bauer, the show’s hero, confronts the president, she admits she doesn’t like to do this but in this particular instance the end justifies the means. Bauer disagrees and is now working against the American government to expose the murder.

It’s a thrilling story and I have to admit I’m hooked on this season of 24. It’s interesting to note that Jack Bauer in pursuit of justice is not averse to torturing suspected enemies to get information that will help him prevent harm to others or protect America. His justification, like the president’s, is that the end justifies the means.

The story in this season’s 24 also happens to be relevant to a series of presentations, articles and a book I’m working on about character values and how they impact the performance of individuals and organizations, including employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity and innovation. In June, Jason Pankau and I will be speaking about this at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where during the Apollo 13 mission Gene Krantz uttered the line “failure is not an option” that was made famous in Ron Howard’s spectacular movie Apollo 13. Was Krantz right? Are there indeed times when anything and everything is acceptable to achieve success? If not, when is failure acceptable?