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I was backstage in Bucharest, Romania, after my keynote at a large tech conference discussing the challenges of building the culture of excellence with a few fellow speakers, when one of them proposed simply:
“Highly suggest adding a Don Draper clause to your employee contracts.”
“A Don Draper clause?” I asked baffled.
“Oh, absolutely,” replied Lexi Mills in her charming British accent. “Our employees love it!”
Lexi is a Head of Digital at Dynamo PR, an award-winning PR and digital consultancy in London. The story that followed surprised and delighted me at the same time.
Apparently at Dynamo, every employee has a Don Draper clause (inspired by Mad Men) included in their contract, which means that on a regular basis each employee receives strange, creative, wonderful, personalized treats/gifts paid for by Don. One employee gets a regular deliveries of chocolate. Others get roller coasters, Givenchy cosmetics, Winnie-the-Pooh paraphernalia, burger birthday cakes, vegetarian’s recipe bible, brainwave cat ears, etc. Curious for more? Explore @DonDraperClause Twitter handle.
The clause is just one part of Dynamo’s culture, which is designed to attract and keep the best staff - particularly critical in PR, where there is a high turnover. Sometimes everyone gets involved and it becomes a fun way to find out more about their colleagues’ likes and dislikes, their personality, and life outside the office. Leadership team takes building and nurturing the right culture seriously.
What’s even more interesting is company’s vacation policy. “Since last year, we offered all of our staff unlimited holidays,” says Paul Cockerton, co-founder of Dynamo PR. “It enabled one of our employees, for example, the opportunity to drive from London to Mongolia in over 5 weeks, raising funds for charity.”
Now, that’s the company I can get behind! No wonder they have almost no turnover.
Why is it then that building the culture of caring is so hard?
Because most don’t build culture “through humans”, but rather through “CFO cash tactics,” says Gary Vaynerchuk. He addressed my question on culture in his #AskGaryVee show, episode #14.
“As an operator, I am all EQ over IQ,” says Gary. “All my decisions on hiring/firing are emotional. I don’t base those decisions on money or budget. I consider what this will do to the collective community.” He says that the long-term emotional health and happiness of his employees is far more important than the short-term money loss on a particular decision. In the long-run the loss of morale costs way more!
So how do you create and nourish the culture where people want to come to work every day?
It obviously isn’t an easy task. But I also think there is no size fits all. There isn’t the magic formula or the right answer. Because culture is different in every organization. And the reason is simple: culture is created by people, and people are all different.
To me, culture is about little things. The things that help your teams connect, laugh, collaborate, making every day enjoyable, not routine. For some, it could be Don Draper clause, for others it could be playing Ping-Pong or board games in the office. For us, at Sprinklr, it’s nicknames.
Nicknames for us are the topic of consistent conversation and bonding. They are always fun, and never boring. Just on our team we have: Win-Win, NattyBo, JRod, The Whopper, Vidal, Koala, JerBear, Piranha, Marzbarz, and many more awesome folks. The nicknames are personal and every one of them has a story. Mine? Batman. No, it’s not because I am a fan. I haven’t even watched the latest Batman movie yet. Why Batman then? Well, you’ll have to ask my team that.
How does that correlate to the bottom line? Well, let’s just say we got a number of comments and emails from our current and prospective customers telling us how much they love the creativity of nicknames and how much they enjoy visiting with us and feeling like they themselves are a part of the passionate bunch of Sprinklrites. And I am not even touching on the positive effect it has on the morale and long-term cultural health of the company.
The way I see it, when your employees have fun, your partners and your customers have fun. When your customers have fun, the bottom line takes care of itself.
