From "The Speed Trap"

Six years ago, a large national advertising company found itself in a serious financial crisis. Although it was a relatively successful company, it was overly financed and had accrued a debt of $17 million. Its lenders were giving the company six months to turn the business around or they would sell off their assets. Several of the owner’s other businesses had already been sold to pay off debt, and this was the next one on the chopping block.

The mood in the company was anxious and near panic. The employees were trying hard to save the company and their jobs, but they weren’t thinking clearly and were making lots of mistakes. They were putting in long days and nights, but seemed to be losing ground despite their efforts.

One day the CEO got a call from the company’s owner. “Kurt, I’d like you and your regional managers to go to a wellness workshop next weekend and all bring your spouses. Please have our CFO make the necessary arrangements. I think this can help pull us out of this slump.”

That was all he said, and Kurt was left feeling confused about how something like this could possibly help them with their current crisis. Nonetheless, he listened to the owner and put things in motion for everyone to travel to a small town in the state of Washington in search of “well-being.”

Kurt and his managers arrived at the seminar feeling guarded and suspicious. They wondered if this was going to be some sort of confrontational group or the owner’s diplomatic way of announcing the end of the business. Their imaginations were definitely out of control as they pondered the possible outcomes of the weekend.

Despite their worries, just being away from the pressure cooker of their day-to-day business situation seemed to help calm them down. They were in a vacation-like atmosphere with their spouses, and the seminar leaders didn’t challenge their present business strategies. The consultant assigned to their group listened to them and basically felt that they were a very competent group of people. The seminar they attended focused on how to maintain a healthy state of mind in a difficult situation.

By the time the weekend was over, the managers and the CEO felt refreshed and more hopeful, yet they had no clue as to why they felt this way. Nothing had really changed -- they had no new strategic plan in place for saving the company, but they felt calmer, had a greater sense of trust in themselves and each other, and felt more confident.

Before the group left Washington, the group’s consultant asked to meet with Kurt again individually.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Kurt replied. “Maybe two years from now. But right now I have a company to save that’s on the brink of bankruptcy and I don’t have time for myself.”

“It looks to me like you have a choice,” the consultant said. “You have to build a new foundation for this company if it’s going to turn itself around. You can do that in one of two ways. You can do it from a healthy level, or you can do it in a way that will cause everyone hate you. Your style right now is abusive and controlling, and your employees have a chip on their shoulder about you. In all fairness, however, I don’t think you have a clue that you are the way you are.”

Shocked, Kurt responded, “I’ll see you next weekend.”

The Fork in the Road

That next weekend Kurt discovered how his personality intimidated others under him in the company. He had always been told that his type-A personality was perfectly suited for a CEO position, but what he was learning now was the complete opposite. Kurt learned that his personal style was not only intimidating to his employees, but also to his wife and children.

The consultant shared an alternative approach with him that was based on creating a healthy work environment and building trust among the employees. Intuitively, it all made sense to Kurt, even though it appeared to go against common business practices.

Years later, Kurt shared his realizations with me. “I realized I had to make a choice between my habitual high-pressure, high-intensity way of doing things and a new way based on calm and wisdom. It was a leap of faith, but it felt right. I had an epiphany that weekend that was somewhere between the intellectual and the spiritual realms. I started to see that it was an inside-out world and that we were all creating our realities with our thinking. Responding with calm and wisdom seemed a lot better than reacting habitually to outside forces and pressures. Over the next few years, my employees and I learned how to operate more instinctually and in the moment with a creative approach rather than adhering to a strategic game plan.

“Our business is constantly changing and responding to the fluctuations in our markets. We have slowly evolved into a company that is happy as well as successful. Before, we were very unhappy -- stressed, hostile, reactive. Now our employees genuinely enjoy their jobs. I don’t think there are any employees who would say that their job is getting them down.”

I asked him, “How does it help a company to create an atmosphere in which employees can be happy?”

“Several things happen,” he said. “First, defensiveness comes down. People who are happy put other people at ease. Before, they felt fearful of making a mistake or saying something stupid. Now they trust each other and open up more, sharing their ideas in a creative exchange. As the atmosphere became less controlling, ideas began to flow and the focus was not on office politics and competitiveness, but rather on getting the job done. Motivation became an internal drive, rather than the result of promises of external rewards to employees. I’ve found that when people are internally motivated, they get twice as much done in half the time. My managers’ sole job is to provide an atmosphere in which people can be happy. We don’t feel responsible for making people happy, but we show them how to do it themselves. We don’t have to baby-sit our employees anymore, which leaves us more time to actually do our jobs -- to be creative in looking at the markets and seeing opportunities.

“Our meetings used to last eight hours and were very detailed and tedious. Now they last two hours maximum, and they reach a profound level of discussion very quickly, getting to the heart of the matter. If you don’t trust your employees, you have to go over each detail for fear they won’t know what to do. But if you trust in the health of your employees, you see their common sense come out. The most important thing is that employees are no longer afraid to make mistakes. They know they won’t be judged if they do. This allows them to take bigger risks with greater rewards.”

“How does this translate into the bottom line?” I asked Kurt.

“We made a $567-million swing in our company’s value in the past six years. We went from a deficit of $17 million to $550 million in assets. We more than doubled our ‘same-store business,’ that is, twice the income for an equal amount of overhead. One good idea is worth a lot of money. The other bottom line is that I work with a group of people who love their jobs, and I do too. That gives me enormous personal satisfaction. The financial rewards are the frosting on the cake.”

The Principle in Practice

When Kurt had his epiphany while meeting with the consultant, his understanding of the source of his experience of life changed. He realized that the cause of his stress was internal and was not caused by the competitive nature of his business. Most important, Kurt saw that he had a choice: he could continue in the direction of his habitual type-A personality, or he could manage his company and his personal life from a new level of understanding that was based on wisdom and a calm mind.

When our level of understanding increases, we suddenly see more choices in our lives. Things that appeared fixed and unchangeable, such as what we might have considered to be a part of doing business in today’s world, now seem like options instead. Other ways of dealing with life suddenly become obvious. To Kurt, it was clear that the choice of operating from calm was the new direction he wanted to take both for his own sanity and the atmosphere and success of the company.

Most business management operates on the basis of control, fear, external motivators, and a lack of trust in employees’ abilities and goodwill. In contrast, what Kurt developed in his company was an atmosphere and a business philosophy based on healthy thinking -- calm, reflection, insight, creativity. The faith in this type of thinking among management and employees results in internal motivation, good decision making, mutual trust and respect, and honest and open communication. When employees are not stressed, they think in a more clear-headed, wiser manner. As the CEO put it, “A good idea is worth a lot of money.” When employees are in this creative flow of ideas, they are more responsive to the changing forces in the marketplace and are able to come up with solutions to keep their business competitive with other companies.

Instead of having to hold employees hands through innumerable personal problems and office politics, Kurt was able to put his energies into anticipating market changes before they even occurred. Most managers are in a crisis mode most of the time, so that by the time one problem is fixed, another one is already forming. Kurt now feels that he is ahead of the game and able to anticipate problems and solutions before they come up.

Kurt’s company and its employees have realized success in two ways: financially and personally. He had the wisdom to see the value of putting his well-being and that of his employees first and having faith that the financial rewards would follow.

Happiness lowers overhead and increases profits.

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