We love Success Magazine. If you don’t subscribe to it, you should. It comes with a great monthly magazine focused on a basic theme per month along with a great audio CD you can listen to in your car. The December issue had an article titled “Taking Care: Panda Express Nurtures Employees So They in Turn Treat Customers Well.” This is not rocket science. I remember a Southwest executive telling me once that if we take care of our people they will take care of our customers and that will take care of our profits. Since their inception this has held to be true. The Success article was an interview with the CEO of the $1.8 billion company, Andrew Cherng. Here are some pointers that he made to help nurture your workforce:
- “The environment here is about personal growth, personal well-being. When you are healthy mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually—when you’re doing well, you’re likely to do good things in your life and that’s what we advocate.”
Tell me you wouldn’t want to work for a boss like this!
- “The environment is a way you see the future. One person at a time.”
Cherng realizes your environment and culture is a choice. As he stated, you can only build a culture through individuals; one person at a time.
- “People who are successful tend to take care of those little things very well. And then they accumulate credit, resources, and do whatever it is that you need in life—that’s the preparation for success.”
Do you take care of the little things very well? Have you accumulated credit, resources, and do whatever it takes to prepare for success? As the saying goes, when you take care of the little things the big things tend to take care of themselves.
- “We can all do a better job. And when we do we all get rewarded. The reward may come in just being happy or in other people being happy. When you do your job well, your customer feels that and your business blossoms”
How motivated are you and your fellow employees to not do just an average job or a comfortable one but an extraordinary, awesome one? Are they doing tasks in a way that make them feel happy?
- Cherng suggests that management should ask employees: “Are you being mindful? Are you putting your heart into the work? Are you passionate about your work? Are you loving your environment? Our job is to raise everyone’s levels of understanding and caring. When you raise the level of caring, you see a good result.”
While we think of ourselves as good people and have good intentions we often times don’t manifest that. An excellent book was written about it “Leadership and Self Deception.” The essential theme being that we deceive ourselves; that we in fact manifest caring. What have you done lately to show employees that you care?
Lastly, we love the Panda Mission Statement. “Deliver exceptional Asian dining experiences by building an organization where people are inspired to better their lives” What can really be more important than this statement? We live in an experience economy and the whole purpose of any business is to increase human well-being. What a wonderful opportunity for every one of us!
