Smart Business Magazine, Mar 2013

24 Smart Business Indianapolis March 2013 Decent bosses typically try to lead by example As a leader you must model appropriate behavior to promote the greater good and to send a constant message with teeth in it The French term esprit de corps is used to express a sense of unity common interest and purpose as developed among associates in a task cause or enterprise Sports teams and the military adopt the sometimes overused cliché One for all and all for one Semper Fi is the Marine Corps motto for always faithful We commonly hear Were only as strong as our weakest link However the real test of team building and motivational sayings is that they are good only when they move from an HR PR catchphrase to a way of doing business every day As soon as you put two or more people in the same room a whole new set of factors comes into play including jealousy illogical pettiness and one upmanship all of which can lead to conflicts that obstruct the goals at hand Certainly much of this is caused by runaway egos Perhaps a little bit of it is biological but most of it is fueled by poor leadership Everyone has his or her own objective and its the bosss responsibility to know how to funnel diverse personal goals in order to keep everyone on track This prevents employees from straying from the target and helps avoid major derailments Essentially it all gets down to the boss leading by example with a firm hand understanding peoples motives and a lot of practicing Do as I say and as I really do myself Communicating by ones actions can be very powerful A good method to set the right tone is stepping in and lending a hand sometimes in unexpected and dramatic ways This shows the team that you govern yourself as you expect each team member to govern his or her own behavior In my enterprises I constantly tell my colleagues that the title following each persons name boils down to these three critical words whatever it takes Certainly I bestow prefixes to this one size fits all three word title such as vice president or manager but I consider these as window dressing only After speeches when I explain this universal job description I always get questions from the audience about how I communicate this concept I follow with a real life experience that played out in the first few months after I started OfficeMax As a new company we had precious little money never enough time and only so much energy which we preserved as our most valuable assets in order to be able to continually fight another day In those early days too frequently I would see what looked like a plumber come into the office go into the restroom and emerge a few minutes later presenting what I surmised to be a bill to our controller I knew whatever he was doing was costing us money and probably not building value The third time he showed up in as many weeks I immediately followed him into the restroom much to his shock and consternation I asked him what in the world kept bringing him back He then proceeded to remove the toilets lid and give me a tutorial on how to bend the f loat ball for it to function properly That was the last time anyone ever saw this earnest workman on our premises Instead after making known my newly acquired skill whenever the toilet stopped working I became the go to guy This became a lesson to my team about how to save money At that time 50 bucks a pop was a fortune to us It got down to people knowing that all of us in this nascent start up were expected to live up to their real three word title This was our version of how to build esprit de corps Others began boastfully relaying their own unique whatever it takes actions and it became our way of doing business The lesson I learned in those early days was that it wasnt always what I said that was important but rather what I did that made an indelible impression A leaders actions with emphasis on the occasionally unorthodox to make them memorable are the ingredients that contribute to molding a companys culture How to create esprit de corps in your organization Its less about creating clever catchphrases and more about seizing unorthodox opportunities Michael Feuer co founded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and 20000 of his own money During a 16 year span Feuer as CEO grew the company to almost 1000 stores worldwide with annual sales of approximately 5 billion before selling this retail giant for almost 15 billion in December 2003 In 2010 Feuer launched another retail concept Max Wellness a first of its kind chain featuring more than 7000 products for head to toe care Feuer serves on a number of corporate and philanthropic boards and is a frequent speaker on business marketing and building entrepreneurial enterprises The Benevolent Dictator a book by Feuer that chronicles his step by step strategy to build business and create wealth published by John Wiley Sons is now available Reach him with comments at mfeuer@ max wellness com CLICK OR SCAN to read Michael Feuers blog on The Benevolent Dictator www benevolentdictator biz TIPS FROM THE TOP MICHAEL FEUER