CAN YOU PROVIDE AN EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU DREW ON SMALL SOURCES OF INSPIRATION?
Sure. One good example was the ‘‘Haka Challenge.’’ The Haka is a traditional Maori dance performed by New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team before each match. The idea is to intimidate and scare the opponent. The Haka represents the toughness needed to win at rugby. I said, ‘‘If we accomplish our business objectives and you help me accomplish my personal objectives, I will stand in front of you and perform the Haka. This will be a celebration of our achievements and recognize the fact that we’ve stopped intimidating each other and started scaring the competition.’’ Well, sure enough, we went from a $70 million loss to a $20 million profit, and we actually achieved two times our expected business plan. We doubled our profits from what we’d expected. Our employee satisfaction scores went up in nine out of twelve categories. I had been hoping for eight out of twelve, but we got nine out of twelve. I got 110 written pages of comments in our EOS survey; 60 were about the positive changes in our company and, yes, 50 were about those changes we still needed to make. This year our scores continued to improve, and we are now approaching first quartile status in our survey results, the first time in years. After our earnings were made public, we had a barbeque for all of our employees out in the parking lot. Seventeen members of the senior management team and I all performed the Haka. It was a fun day to celebrate the hard work of so many of our associates. My only regret is I wish I were a better dancer!