Our culture is upside down. We take a traditional organization and reverse the thinking. The folks on the top of the page? Customers. The employee.  Who is at the bottom? The leaders. Our culture is upside down because the old way does not work here any longer.  Its too slow. Leaders too far away from the action and ill-equipped to make all of the decisions.

So this is crazy talk right? Who makes the decisions? Who has the responsibility? Who is in charge? Who is the leader?  Well everyone is around here. We all have the best chance to blow away our customers if we are empowered and if we act like we own the place.

We feel like we own the place because of the trust, respect, and authority that is bestowed upon us. This is a sacred bond and trust. We are honored to take up the mantle, and we never want to let ourselves, our customers, our peers down. We do things because we want to; because we are allowed to think, not just do the task we are assigned! This is what being valued and living the culture of Everyone is a Leader is all about.

So here is the interesting part: We can all act like leaders, even if we don’t have the title.  But if you have the “title”, leaders are on the bottom because we serve the organizational needs.  Our role is to provide for the success of others.  Our job is to plan for, provide the tools, environment, training, and spiritual support so that folks can really let go and perform at a high level!

We are Defined by 3 Customers. We consider everyone we work with a customer – whether you are a client, an employee, or a vendor. All 3 perspectives add value and are integral to the success of our business. -Outside-In® Pocket Guide

Sometimes a value is perfect because it causes such debate and controversy. Defined by 3 Customers seems to be that value for our companies. The origins come from the desire to change the way company leaders and employees have typically thought about making decisions. And to alter the perception on who is considered most important in the business. Is it the vendor? Is it the customer? How about employees? Just depends on your point of view I guess. For me it was simple to think differently. My desire was to create balance and equality. To value all the same. And to use this sameness to allow the business to have balanced thinking. What would the impact be for employee customers? For our vendors? For paying customers?

In the past, I have worked with customers that put their stock price and shareholders first, and it showed in how they treated employees in big and small ways. In big ways, employees were numbers and disposable. In small ways, their needs, wants, ideas, desires and passions if at important seemed to come second. This is frankly still the case for many companies today.

The other common point of view is that there is only one customer. So don’t cloud the issue on this. A customer is a customer. An employee is an employee. A vendor/ partner is just that a vendor/ partner. I see the logic to the argument. But our goal is not clarity in words. We aspire to show the world we have a goal to be different and to value that difference in how we run our company!

By the way, this goes on all day long. In every facet of our business, in fact. There is magic in this message. I am often told and challenged about the vendor/ partner part. Why do we need to treat them special or go out of our way to stand out? When it comes down to crunch time and when you really need them they remember it. You take care of vendors by paying them promptly. By communicating effectively. By building unique relationships. Our goal is to pay our vendors in 10 days whenever possible. Some goals take longer than others.  As we grow, build the business and cash, this will become a guarantee!

Everyone has a choice to work wherever they want and for their own unique reasons. I want a place to come everyday where I can brag about our ongoing commitment to run our business while taking into account our three customers:  paying customer, vendors, and employees. Sure, we can overcharge our customers. And get away with it for the short-term. We can stop communicating with employees and tell people what to do. For a brief period. We can screw vendors by asking them to discount severely on one deal.  But they wont come back the next time. We face this ethics challenge each and every day. We have to find the equilibrium.

When you work in a growing, changing, stretching entrepreneurial company it is impossible to apply ironclad rules of thought to everything. This value has been challenged, and I have dealt with our imperfections. Try telling employees that you are Defined by 3 Customers when you need to discuss reducing headcount due to a recession. On the vendor side I have taken the calls from our partners when they feel shunned or ignored when we were not direct enough with our feedback on their performance.

This is not about the pursuit of perfection. You will not always make the right decision. This is the nature of decision making. We should all move to Vegas if we could get it right each and every time and win big.  This is about is your mindset. About having a belief that when you’re in a spot to make decisions or work on a project that you will think with all 3 Customers in mind as you wrestle with finding compromises and plans that treat all customers as if they matter for the long term!

Guest blog spot by Kelly Hocutt, Marketing Team Lead

Back in January we kicked off our company-wide annual theme, The Outside-In® Happiness Project, inspired by the best-selling book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. As followers of the business practices outlined in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish, we choose to establish a theme to motivate our company to accomplish its quarterly and yearly goals. Our company’s goal this year? To promote internal happiness and in doing so, optimize our company culture, Outside-In®.

Another business practice outlined in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits is working in a rhythm. At CBI Group, we have built in some of those best practices into our team’s routine: Annual Theme, Quarterly Kick Offs, monthly leadership meetings, weekly team meetings, daily huddles and so on. All of these things are about communication and being a part of something. All of these things keep us as individuals aligned with our co-workers, leaders, teams, business lines and our company.

Today, I realized that all of these things, each of which may seem like just another meeting are much, much more than that. They make me feel a part of something. And that feeling contributes to my happiness. When I did my job search and found CBI Group, I was looking for that feeling. I wanted to wake up in the morning and be excited about the energy, atmosphere, vibe of what a company stood for. I can manage projects, be part of task forces and committees, design collateral and write at any company. But not every company offers that feeling that you are a part of something.

So today, I recognized one of my “commandments” or “secrets of adulthood”as Gretchen would call it: Be a part of something.

Being a part of something, in any aspect of my life makes me feel happier. I have a close family but sometimes I take them for granted. When I focus on daily texts, weekly dinners or outings and don’t let holidays come and go without focusing on traditions, I truly feel a part of my family – and that makes me happy. I’ve signed up for team sports, shown up for happy hours with friends and RSVP’d to party invites that come my way – but when I truly focus on the rhythm of my time with friends, I recognize the value of my friends and feel a part of something – and that makes me happy.

In the office, maintaining rhythm and recognizing its value makes a huge difference. It can transform a job from being “work” to being a part of something. And the cultural aspect? The culture reinforces that feeling of something greater. With The Outside-In® Happiness Project, we hope that our team’s personal happiness will reflect within our culture, and in doing so, improve our customer’s experience; and in being a customer-centric culture, that is what Outside-In® is all about.

What are you a part of? Does it make you happy?

We Are Customer Centric

Being Customer Centric is an attitude, a way of life, and our business philosophy. We are guided by our customers – thinking through the eyes of the customers at all times. For us, customers are at the center of it all, deciding what priorities we focus on and driving the change as we adapt and evolve.  -Outside-In® Pocket Guide

The original Placers did anything and everything it could to make service the #1 priority for customers. That has carried over to CBI Group today. The root of being Customer Centric is really about putting the customer at the forefront of your daily thoughts. We all have so much to do each day, but is it with intention towards the one who pays the bills – the customer?

I like the idea of being competitive around service. Imagine if we all try to “one up” each other in our efforts to blow a customers mind. That kind of service is contagious. When you see others smile and practice it, Customer Centric thinking just becomes second nature. Service becomes easier, not harder. Imagine a world where every day you can make your company better. Imagine right now that you are 100% empowered to fix things around you. And that we want to really hone in on the fixes and hassles that can make us more and more Customer Centric.

I am always asked about the big stories of Customer Centric thinking, and I have one in mind to share. Many years ago, I was attending a sporting event that ended very late into the evening. In fact, as I was making the ride home some time after midnight my phone rang. This was a new customer who admitted to me that they had chosen to go with a competitor of ours. That competitor had promised them a recruiter to start that day (since it was after midnight) and they had just received an email that the company was unable to fulfill their initial promise. (You might think that I was being Customer Centric to even pick up, but all I did was answer the phone. The Customer Centric stuff comes next.) I started calling all of my leaders to ask if they might be able to help me help our prospect. Then it happened, Jamie O’Neill offered to go in that day.  Now this was no small feat! She had a team, a business plan, a full day, week, month of stuff to do. But we knew this really mattered, and we did it.

My memories around being Customer Centric involve the really big things in CBI Group’s history. But the best examples are the day-to-day ones. Seeing staff pick up a piece of paper off the floor. Watching a team member grab a phone call when someone is not available.  Customer Centric is really about executing the little things well. Customer Centric is our recruiters driving candidates around the weekends to show them schools, and nice neighborhoods and where the shopping mall is located. Customer Centric is when folks step forward to do volunteer work (recruitment or not) on their own time because they know it is the right thing to do and full of good karma!

I sure would love to gather more and different Customer Centric stories all of the time.  Get some new ones, and commit to getting this sort of thing in orientation and training for others.  We all want to know how to fit in.

Imagine a world where all of us wakes up and plans to be Customer Centric? That is how we will get better all of the time!

I am a fourth generation entrepreneur.  My family has worked for themselves for so long that it is all I can even remember.  My father always taught that it is best to control ones own destiny, to have your problems and opportunities be your own.  It sure makes sense to me.  The last thing I want is to have someone else make decisions that determine my fate.  By “being my own boss” I at least get to determine my own path.

When I started my company over ten years ago, I wanted my employees to get a taste of being an entrepreneur and set out to make entrepreneurial traits and qualities a part of the culture. In fact, we set out to select our values by trying to figure out what our customers needed us to be in order to serve them best.  This is the very nature of what Outside-In® is all about.  Do what is best for the customer all of the time.  Even when choosing values.  After all, values are the true personality of the company.  And this represents what I hoped would be the ongoing actions and behaviors of my people!

One of our values became Intrapreneurship.  I certainly didn’t invent the term; however,  the word seems to represent what I wanted from employees.  Be an entrepreneur.  Act like an entrepreneur.  Experience what it is like to be one.  Sell, Lead, Serve. Exist as an entrepreneur.  I felt then (and still believe) that if all employees embrace this then they can have a better day-to-day job.

You see, being an intrapreneur is about working day-to-day like you own the place.  To care like your name is on the door, and to have the kind of work experience and day-to-day role where anything is possible.  If you see a problem, prioritize and fix it.  If you want to more responsibility, go get more knowledge.  Perhaps you want and need more financial reward, well, find away to create equal or greater value for the organization.  Intrapreneurs look to create value.  They look for new market opportunities.  They figure out how and when to innovate new products and services that make our customer’s world a better place.

Without intrapreneurs we would not be in the contingent staffing business, which represents so much of our growth in customers, revenues, and of course opportunities for future intrapreneurs. Without intrapreneurs we would not be in the search business.  We would still be politely saying no to prospect and customer alike. Without intrapreneurs we could not help our relationships with services that support their job search with resume work, career coaching, and outplacement.

All of these seem big to me.  And they are.  Intrapreneurs help us change and evolve during turbulent and changing times.  But I promise you that the best thing about being intrapreneur is the growth and learning that one receives in exchange for their ideas, innovation and hard work. At CBI Group, our real challenge is that we are a flat, matrixed organization.  We don’t think much about titles, unless they make it more clear for our customers to deal with us.  We will always be adding talent to the business.  Everyone here is equal; we just play different roles!

Where else can someone do so much without taking on the financial risk themselves?  Sure, some alumni have left to do their own thing.  But, if you ask me, there is no greater compliment!

How will you apply your own intrapreneurialism to your company?

Outside-In® is our culture and our operating philosophy. Outside-In® is made up of our employees and a work environment that encourages individualism, innovation, and focus on creating a unique customer experience.  We want customers to be happy with great service.  We want employees to be happy with great culture.  And shareholders can be happy with the good profits that ultimately follow. These great employees are hired, recognized, and rewarded against our core values. Our core values guide us where others use policy manuals and mandates. The world is too complex and dynamic and the business world too fluid to not put the information, knowledge, authority and gumption in the hands of all employees equally.

With all this said, I’d like to take some credit for its creation, but I am not its “Founding Father”.  That credit goes to another Burkhard — Alan Burkhard. Over our lifetimes, we have worked together to refine the concept of Outside-In®. The focus of putting the customer first in business thinking. The notion of a culturally led business.  Alan did it first, and this Outside-In® brand, this Outside-In® philosophy can and is used in all kinds of businesses and industries.

Many years ago, I gave Alan the registered trademark as a gift that we share. We went first in using it in business, and the ™ symbol is our proof.  However, our goal was to encourage the world to use Outside-In® as a way of describing customer-oriented behavior and thinking.  This is my personal 10 year goal.  Make Outside-In® a household name.  Look it up.  It is more mainstream in business than you realize…

But this post is about how we think our Outside-In® philosophy gives us an edge in business. It helps us run better waste companies like Independent Disposal. We run better staffing, recruiting, and outplacement firms.  We run great restaurants.  And now we make Outside-In® movies.No one can say that we are not diverse right?  Find a market.  Look for a service gap.  Treat the customer better than they expected.  Create a customer-centered culture.  Focus on and make your company Outside-In®.

Do that enough, and opportunities present themselves.  Do that enough and you want to help people. Have enough success in life and there are opportunities to share what you know in new fields and you get quite a rush and ride along the way. That is where my Dad is in life.  He backed and helped make a independent movie, Yes, Your Tide Is Cold and Dark, Sir, written and directed by local filmmaker and friend, Chris Malinowski. My Dad makes a cameo as a bartender. He taught a group of talented actors, producers, directors, sound, key grips, and a whole lot more about Outside-In® and he got to help a friend fulfill a lifelong goal of getting a script to the big screen. When I spoke with Chris about his experience working with Alan on the project he said,

“Alan, empowered me to run the [film] company and believed in the exuberance of the project. He knew it was a challenging narrative. Producers tend to lean at times on the creative parties and stick their necks into the creative process. Alan didn’t do that. He empowered me completely.”

Empowerment and creative freedom on a movie set? That is the ultimate Outside-In® experience. I am proud.

Ultimately, what matters is that they took the risk. Through that risk, the Outside-In® brand and legend grows.  So, if you are in Delaware and are into independent films, watch the trailer, come to the premier, and most importantly help me celebrate the success of our Outside-In® brand and what can do for any business.  For Yes, Your Tide Is Cold and Dark, Sir trailer, click here. For showtimes and ticket information for this weekend’s premiere, you can visit the film’s Facebook page.

If you’ve ever read Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, the best-selling business practices book by Verne Harnish, then you’re familiar with the concept of establishing a theme to motivate your company to accomplish its quarterly and yearly goals. CBI Group is a proud observer of these habits and consciously works to frame our daily business practices after them.

Last Friday, team members gathered together for our quarterly celebration, the Quarter Kickoff, to announce the company’s 2013 theme as well as our goals for Q1! This year’s theme is The Outside-In® Happiness Project, and was inspired by the best-selling book, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. A popular self-help book, The Happiness Project chronicles Rubin’s personal journey to finding her own happiness and fulfillment in life.

To bring the theme to life, team members transformed our Grand Teton conference room into a relaxing oasis where attendees could unwind and be – what else? – happy! Daddy O’s catered the event and provided a refreshing menu of healthy, “good mood foods” which included seared polenta with roasted vegetable terrine and charred cherry tomato, coconut chicken with dark chocolate mole, grilled asparagus, and roasted mussels in a white wine sauce. These foods were selected based on their mood-lifting abilities – yes, you will actually feel happier after eating them!

Happy Bingo after lunch kept spirits light as team members competed to fill their squares, and along the way, learned what made their team mates happy as the bingo charts were full of the team’s submissions of their personal happiness. Some of the entries? Hiking, shopping, going to the beach, and working at CBI Group!

When the time came to announce the company’s goals, the leaders were excited to share that the rocks were mapped to reflect the 5 Happy Habits – five simple tips to maintain daily well-being – researched and defined by the London-based think-tank, the New Economics Foundation. So, what are these five simple tips for daily happiness?  They are:

• Connect With People Around You
  
• Be Active
  
• Take Notice
  
• Keep Learning
  
• Give

We are very excited to embark on our own journey this year towards being more Outside-In® and finding our own personal happiness. Our president, Chris Burkhard believes that if our team is inspired to pursue our own passions and find happiness, then we will be more Outside-In®, bringing our customers greater peace of mind.

What do you say to new employees about your culture?

I hope it involves stories, fables, and anecdotes.  Stories stay in the mind long after the first day on the job. After all the introductions, product overviews, and orientation meetings, people remember the stories in the end. What’s more, the messages in the stories are what really stick. I have some favorite stories that I use to bring our cultural values to life. I’ll share one powerful story with you today.

I often start by saying that there will be No Strings here.  I am not a Puppet Master, and you are not a puppet. The strings are a metaphor for tangible tools that managers use to yank us around as employee puppets.  Strings are threats, one-time contests, or traditional leader behaviors that create the typical reward for the right kind of behavior.  This management style is not evil or wrong. This style is just not our culture. No Strings describes freedom of expression. No Strings  means that your motivation is within.  You’re responsible for your own career and development. You’re driven by our set of 20 Outside-In® values.  Your actions and behaviors are congruent with who you want to be and how you want to live your life.

All in all, No Strings is the difference between internal or intrinsic motivation (things like learning, challenging work, respect, fun, growth) and alignment or extrinsic motivation (money, title, power, benefits, company perks, or fancy trips).  Don’t get me wrong,  all of us are motivated to some degree by financial needs.  But, all things considered, they don’t stay that way for long . Given the choice, most of us will choose the learning and fun over some short term performance based threat or bonus to hit a production number.

So, if you’re a leader are you a Puppet Master? If you’re an employee, are you a puppet with strings?

What stories do you tell your employees in their first week? Share them, I dare you! I have told this story three times this week, and hundreds of times in my leadership career. I know that No Strings empowers and creates equality in our flat, ever evolving set of companies.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dessert? We have a few family favorites that we’d like to share with you. Enjoy these pie recipes listed below. If you end up trying one for your Thanksgiving dinner, leave us a comment below to let us know how it tastes!  Have a happy and safe holiday with your family!

Chris’ Family Apple Pie
“Is any pie more sure to please, than this all-American favorite!?”

• 8-inch Pie Dish
• Pastry for 8-inch, two crust pie
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• Dash salt
• 5 cups thinly sliced pared tart apples
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Directions

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare pastry. Stir together sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt; mix with apples. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter. Cover with top crust which has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with 2 to 3 inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil for last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake 40-50 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

Lisa’s Caramel-Pecan Pumpkin Pie

• 2 eggs
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• ½ cup half-and-half
• ¾ cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 (9 inch) prepared pie shell
• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 3 tablespoons butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Beat the eggs, pumpkin, and half-and-half together in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the sugar, flour, lemon zest, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice until evenly blended. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie shell. Cover the edges of the pie with aluminum foil strips to prevent burning.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, prepare the pecan caramel topping by mixing the brown sugar, pecans, and butter together in a bowl until evenly blended. Carefully spoon over the top of the pie. Continue baking the pie until the topping is golden and bubbly, and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes more. Cool on a wire rack.

(recipe from Allrecipes.com)

Colleen’s Coconut Custard Pie

Colleen’s Coconut Custard Pie:

• 1 ⅓ cups sugar
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (14oz.) bag sweetened flaked coconut
• 1 ½ cups whole milk
• ¼ cup evaporated milk
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 unbaked (9 inch) pie shells (if frozen use 9 in. deep dish pie shells)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. In large bowl, cream the sugar and butter together for about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold coconut alternately with milk and evaporated milk. Add vanilla then flour.
3. Pour into prepared pie crusts and bake for 20 minutes then increase heat to 400° and bake for another 20 minutes.
4. Cool before serving

Enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving!

As Hurricane Sandy roars up through the Northeast and further away from our town, it’s hard not to sit back and feel proud of my company for their hard work over the past two days. Good bye, Sandy, we won’t miss you! (My basement can’t take another drop!) They say it takes some strong adversity to bring people together. For most cultures and organizations, I imagine it was easy to band together during a storm described as “apocalyptic”, “devastating”, and even, a “Frankenstorm”.  I know my company certainly did.

While Sandy’s cold rains and howling winds overwhelmed the area, the CBI Group team really banded together. Team mates helped out with contacting customers and employees regardless of their personal roles, titles, and responsibilities.  Leaders went into the office in the predawn hours so that others did not have to venture out into the dangerous weather conditions. Everyone fulfilled their role and whatever else was asked of them to get us through the time of need. Team members worked virtually as long as they had power and Internet. Customers meetings and team huddles occurred through Skype and teleconference as if the walls around them weren’t shaking under Sandy’s ominous presence.

None of this really is all that unique and fancy.  Rather pedestrian I think. And frankly, expected by the customers we serve.  At the same time, I am  also aware of how unique our team-based culture can be sometimes. I have always said that if you stopped and asked for help in my company that anyone would immediately drop what they are doing and help you. Even if it meant they might miss their own deadline on a project.  This is a fine line of course.  Too much helpfulness implies a lack of focus and deadline right? However, I bet a sense of too much isolation is even worse.

CBI Group is far from perfect.  We have our own brand of cultural politics.  After all, we are human beings that make mistakes every day.  There is a process and breaking-in period where every one must get used to being in an environment where people are extra helpful.  So many people doubt it is real – at first.  Then they feel and experience its power.  Our Team-based advantage?  We don’t need a massive hurricane to snap us into alignment on what is most important. We know that at CBI Group, team-based means that someone always has your back.