Former Jamba Juice CEO on New Book "Culture Design"

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Watch Former Jamba Juice CEO on New Book "Culture Design" - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

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00:00I want to start off with this idea of what design really is because we were speaking with Phil

00:03Gilbert earlier this week and he really kind of hit home this idea that it really isn't always

00:07about the aesthetic. It is about trying to create a culture within a company, particularly when

00:11you're trying to turn around a company and motivate the employees to go along with whatever

00:15that top line vision is. So the way we think about culture, you have companies have culture by

00:21designer default. That's kind of the thesis of the book. All the companies, all companies have

00:27culture. You might as well build the one that you want. How hard is it to come into an organization

00:33where you know that there needs a lot of change and going to your hundreds or in this case thousands

00:38of employees and trying to sort of articulate not only what you want from them, but having the

00:43confidence that they're going to follow. We have a very disciplined process that we talk about in the

00:48book, knowing what matters, doing what matters, and then measuring what matters. So if I just think

00:53about my own Jamba experience, as I came in kind of the first week, what I wanted to do is really

01:00spend time with the stakeholders. And the first place we started was in the support center. And I

01:06had just four basic questions. What are the things that I should stop doing, the organization? What are

01:13the things we should start doing and what things should be continued? And then the final bonus question

01:18is what advice do you have for me as CEO? So listening is the first place we start. And then

01:24for me, what I think of as an archaeological day where you're literally looking at all the things

01:30that we say we stand for, documenting those, and then laying out a future vision for what the ambition

01:36is. And then what's the gap between what we say and what we do? And then, you know, kind of marching

01:40forward from there. And how do you balance building trust trust with making hard decisions that I have to

01:46imagine that a chief executive has to make when they come into a company, when they come into a

01:50role where they're expected to execute a turnaround? Because I have to imagine for a lot of CEOs coming

01:56into that sort of role, it involves laying people off. It involves cutting out new businesses. It

02:02involves, you know, bringing in new ones. And I have to imagine it's difficult to thread that needle

02:07with also building trust with your employees. Well, the main way you build trust is by, you know,

02:11really good communication, good listening skills. We talk about listening with heart. And one of the

02:18core capabilities that we believe leaders are going to need to have more of is empathy. So if I look at

02:24what's happening in the world today, this acceleration of AI, one of the things that we're missing is we're

02:31leaving the people out of that entire conversation. Sorry, but not to be not to be pedantic, but haven't we

02:38kind of left empathy behind? I mean, I feel I feel like corporate America kind of went through that

02:41empathetic phase. And then at some point, they decided it just wasn't worth doing it anymore.

02:46What I would say is the best leaders absolutely haven't done that. The leaders that we interviewed

02:51for this book, and, you know, talked about they actually lead with the humans first, people first.

02:58And I'll give maybe two examples. So I'm just flying in from Wisconsin.

03:02Actually, the last chapter of the book, we talk about a regional supermarket, Snook Supermarkets,

03:12my hometown, 86 year old company, literally four generations of leadership in that company.

03:20And we just made the biggest acquisition in the history of this company festival in Wisconsin.

03:28So one of the ways that that CEO, Todd Snook, prioritizes, you know, really building empathy

03:35and understanding culture is he flew the entire board. We went to Wisconsin, and the deal just

03:41closed three weeks ago to meet all the employees, to walk the stores and really get to feel the culture.

03:49The one surprising thing on that visit for me, and it's appropriate for this discussion,

03:53festival actually brings culture to life. And I'll give an example. They have a daily huddle

04:03at 935, 940, every one of their 40 stores, where they huddle up, and it's just 10 minutes where

04:09they set the direction. And that's the best illustrative example I can give you of leaders

04:14that really bring culture to life as an example.

04:17Well, it's a really interesting illustration, because you think about big acquisitions, you're

04:22not just integrating products or different services into an existing company, you're also

04:26integrating a whole other workforce and trying to make those two cultures fit together. And

04:31you think about these big combinations, sometimes, you know, it's not smooth sailing, exactly.

04:37Yeah, you start with the people. The other example I give you is a lifestyle fitness company,

04:42Bay Club on the West Coast. They're literally acquiring another lifestyle fitness company

04:48a month over the, you know, last 15 months. So they're constantly adding new employees and trying

04:57to integrate culture. And the couple points that I'd make here, their CEO, Matthew Stevens,

05:03you know, really started as a frontline worker in this industry 40 years ago. So that's where he starts

05:09as he's building culture. One of the resets they did kind of post COVID is they hadn't touched

05:15their culture and vision in about a dozen years. So they came back and really did a huge refresh.

05:22And it really has unlocked the full potential of this company on an annual basis. They have an event

05:27that they describe as Polaris, where they literally do a renewal around strategy and culture to keep

05:35driving the company for. But those are two examples.

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