Work Thoughts

I read this article on Google's 10 commandments and thought about how much I would like to work for a leader. Google clearly knows what they want to accomplish and the boundaries inside of which they are committed to working toward those ends. They sound like a place where only the very best is ultimately accepted but where it's ok to fail if you aim high enough.

It's good to work for a leader. At Merrill, there was an emphasis on providing the best customer service of any financial services company. Sure, it was really not much more than a job answering phones, but there was a real and committed stance toward being the best.

At Enoteca, we really thought we were the best place for wine in the city. We thought we were one of the hippest bars in town. A lot of that kind of feeling comes from the whims of the marketplace, but we tried hard to be a really cool place for aficionados.

At Ruth's Chris, there was a real belief that we were serving the best steaks in town. If the steaks could ever be challenged, the belief was we were serving the best steaks in town at that price point. There was a further challenge to try to be the best of the other Ruth's Chris houses in the region.

In my brief time at S&P, they made it clear that they believed they were providing the best information in the most relevant format for their users and subscribers. Their processes for entering and reviewing data were suggestive of the level of excellence they supported.

Even at Omni Financial, the company truly thought that they were the very best at what they did. And they may have been. The problem there was that what they were the best at was stringing people along and ripping them off.

At my current job, we talk about not being able to compete with the Schwabs and Fidelitys of the world. We talk about high-touch service, but don't actually prioritize it. The first question in any situation is, "How do they handle this sort of thing at Merrill/TiaaCref/Schwab/Invesco/Janus?" When I give feedback on marketing materials that highlights incorrect grammar or punctuation, I am told that it is not my place to worry about how these things appear to the outside world. We have terrible websites that are always changing but rarely improving. We borrow materials and manners of phrasing from other sources without checking, without attribution, and without taking the time to make the language our own.

I think a company can strive to be the best at what it does without being a market behemoth ala Google or Merrill. The company from the top down needs to preach what they're going to be the very best at or how they're going to lead in their niche. Then every successively lower rung on the ladder needs to hear and believe the same message. I think that it's a lot more rewarding for employees when they feel like they are part of a company that is the best at what they do even if their leadership is in a very narrowly defined niche.

I sure hope my next job holds greater promise in this regard than my current one. I recognize that there are still opportunities to display personal excellence with any employer, but when the corporate example is third fiddle, when no one seems to be striving for excellence, and when perfection is neither encouraged nor rewarded, it makes it hard to care.

Jonathan 5/15/2007 08:25:00 AM