Read Part 1: Assholes are bad for business.
I know what you are going to say: “Olivier, what’s up with the poopy-words all of a sudden? The other week, it was “assholes”. This week, it’s this. Didn’t your mom raise you to be a polite young man?” Answer: She tried. But sometimes, the polite version of a word just doesn’t do the job. Case in point: I could say “care.” Care about your customers. Care about designing the best products. Care about giving it your all every day. Care about taking your business into the stratosphere.
Care.
Except no. This isn’t about caring. This is about giving a shit, and yes, there is a difference.
When the word “care” no longer actually means caring.
“Caring” about something can mean a lot of different things. I can care about matching my shoes to my belt. I can care about the way my rainbow sprinkles touch the peanut butter ice cream but not the ball of Nutella ice cream underneath. I can care about maybe watching Curb Your Enthusiasm tonight, or waiting until tomorrow or next week. I can care about trying to sound pleasant on the phone, or maybe not so much. I can care about something if the conditions are right, and care less about it if circumstances change. Caring lives along a broad scale, as demonstrated by this awesome home-made graph:
But when you give a shit, that isn’t any kind of passive caring. Giving a shit means caring to the max. It means committing heart and soul to caring about something. Giving a shit is to caring what running a full-on sprint is to jogging. It is the storm to the light drizzle, the bazooka to the cork gun and the bear hug to the friendly nod. Giving a shit means you won’t sleep tonight if you screwed it up. It means you are going to take it all the way to the line. It means you are going to excel rather than settle for average… or mediocre. Giving a shit means you are driven by something more than a paycheck. It means you are driven by passion. And that, boys and girls, is some mighty strong secret sauce. Nothing can crush that. Nothing can get in its way.
When I walk into a store and talk to one of the salespeople there, I don’t want them to “care.” I want them to give a shit. The chef in the kitchen, I don’t just want him to “care”. The customer service guy on the phone, “care” is just the price of entry. You want to make your company kick ass? You have to take it a step further. That politician I just voted for? Guess what: He needs to do more than just “care.” The surgeon operating on my kids, yeah, her too, what I want her to do is actually give a shit.
When you give a shit, excuses don’t work anymore. Falling short (failing) becomes less of an option, if at all. Giving a shit means you’re invested, and that is when I know you are bringing your A-game. You aren’t just there for a paycheck, the dental plan or the free tickets to Wally World every summer. You are there because you want to be. Because you give a shit.
Look, everyone acts like they care when you interview them. “Oh yes, Mr. Jones, I really want to work here!” Right. In six months, that new hire will be spending half his day complaining to their office-mates about you, about pesky customers and their temperamental complaints, about having to work late, and about how poorly he gets paid. When you walk by his desk, you won’t even catch a glimpse of the Facebook tab or the game of computer solitaire you just interrupted. That’s what “care” will get you. And you know what? You’ll be to blame. Here’s why: Because your company culture made them that way.
When I call a company’s phone number and get an automated message telling me “… we care about your call,” what that company has just told me it doesn’t give a shit. And since companies don’t think – people do, namely executives making decisions (like having a computer answer my call instead of a human being), I know that this wasn’t an oversight. Someone made a deliberate decision to communicate to me and everyone else who calls them that the people in charge of building the company’s internal culture don’t give a shit. Way to get things off on the right foot.
The importance of creating “I give a shit” cultures.
None of this is rocket science. If you hire people who aren’t passionate about what you do, about what your company is about, or even people who don’t particularly care about their profession save getting a big fat check at the end of the week, you are going to create a culture of mediocrity. If instead you hire people who love your company, who were fans long before the job ever opened up, you will get a completely different result. Likewise, if you hire someone who is passionate about what they do, they will probably not disappoint.
A few years ago, one of my then employees admitted to me (when her bonus didn’t seem as guaranteed as she would have liked it to be) that she was considering transferring to HR. Puzzled by that admission, I asked her to elaborate. She told me “they just make straight salary over there.” I studied her for a moment, and asked her “Don’t you want to do this? If HR is something you’re interested in, why are you here?” She sighed and told me “I don’t really care what I do. I just want a steady paycheck.”
This is someone whom, if asked, would have told the CEO that she cared about her job, that she was passionate about it, that she loved it. That’s the average value of “care.”
Nb: I made sure my team hit its targets that month and the one after that, and she did, in fact, hit her bonus.
People like this are everywhere. It isn’t that they are necessarily lazy. Some are, but some are just apathetic. Doing what they do is a job. A paycheck. Nothing more. They spend their day watching the clock. They are out the door as soon as their work day is over and not a minute more. This is not the kind of employee you want. I don’t care if you are managing a hospital, a restaurant or a global brand, people like this are poison. They are engines of mediocrity, lackluster service, and lousy customer experiences. And god forbid they should become managers, or worse yet, SVPs or C-suite executives.
Imagine a CEO who doesn’t give a shit, for example. Or one who at least gives the impression, through their actions or words, that they perhaps don’t give a shit? What would that look like? What would be the impact of that type of “leadership” on the entire organization? On the brand’s reputation? On decisions being made up and down the corporate ladder inside its four walls? What kinds of ripples would this create?
Now imagine a CEO who does give a shit. What would that look like? What kind of company culture would that generate? What kind of profitability and customer experience excellence would that drive?
Company cultures don’t grow from a random churn of interactions. They are engineered and designed from the inside out, deliberately, by people who give a shit. Or by people who don’t. The difference in outcomes between the two is typically fairly spectacular. We have all seen amazing companies falter under the direction of this CEO or that, solely based on their degree of giving a shit.
Why am I emphasizing that company cultures are engineered? Three reasons:
1. People who give a shit tend to hire people who also give a shit, and so on. Companies like this tend to hire carefully because they understand the importance of only hiring what you might call kindred spirits. Fans. Like-minds. They aren’t hiring as much as letting the right people into their little tribe of believers. When your entire company gives a shit, customers notice and become loyal. Why? Because they like that you give a shit, and they respect that. Besides, since you give a shit, you treat them well, which is more than anyone can say about companies that don’t give a shit about either their employees or their customers.
2. When customers like you (see 1. above), they tend to do a number of things: a) They love doing business with you, b) they do business with you as long as you keep giving a shit (which could be their own lives), and c) they recommend you to everyone they know, which in turn helps drive your business.
3. One CEO can make or break a company. Just one. Remember what happened to Apple when Steve Jobs left, back in the day? Should I mention some of Home Depot’s ups and downs? Show me a company whose CEO gives a shit, and I will show you a company about to bloom like a flower in sunlight. Show me a company whose CEO doesn’t, and I will show you a company about to race headlong into a very rough patch.
More than anything, customers instinctively know that they will eventually get screwed by someone who doesn’t really give a shit. They also instinctively know they will never get screwed by someone who does. This is important.
Even if giving a shit didn’t generate better design departments, better products, better service, better customer relations and generally healthier businesses, this point alone should catch the attention of CEOs, boards or directors, and investors alike: Consumer perceptions, trust, loyalty, these things matter in the mid-to-long term. Heck, they matter today. This very minute. Every single consumer making a purchasing decision right now is weighing one company against another. One will win. The others will lose. How are you feeling about your chances?
Leadership isn’t all about skills and experience. It’s also about attitude. And giving a shit, boys and girls, is a pretty important component of the sort of attitude we are talking about today.
The reciprocal effect of giving a shit.
The above diagram illustrates the process of engineering loyalty and positive WOM (word of mouth) by sticking to a no asshole policy (see Part 1) and making sure you hire people who actually give a shit.
Note the jokers in red ink who didn’t really give a shit and are therefore not hired. The fact that they are not invited to spread their apathy and inevitable passive aggressive disdain to their coworkers and customers like a CSTD (Customer Service Transmitted Disease) ensures that your company maintains its edge.
Now let’s look at another kind of organization – one which doesn’t discriminate quite so much:
Note how in this alternate version, a company having allowed such individuals to breach its inner sanctum begin to spread mediocrity across their entire business, and how that trickles down into customer experiences and perceptions.
In short, giving a shit is contagious. From the CEO on down to everyone in the company and outwardly to customers. Positive attitudes and perceptions spread virally through recommendations, discussions and general perception. In the same way, not giving a shit is contagious as well, and it too spreads like a virus across departments, front-line employees, customers, and to their social and professional networks.
This is how reputations are both made and unmade, depending on what kind of culture you decide to engineer.
What are some of the obvious symptoms that a company doesn’t give a shit?
This is important, because these are common red flags. When consumers spot any of these (or several,) they know that perhaps your company doesn’t really care a whole lot about you, your loyalty, or your affection for their products or brands.
1. Customer service is outsourced. (Because nothing says “We care” like handing you off to total strangers working under contract for less than minimum wage.)
2. The recording says “your call is important to us…” which is kind of funny coming from a recording.
3. The company’s employees look at the clock more than they look at you.
4. The CEO, in the middle of a crisis, says things like “I’d like my life back.”
5. Outsourced social media accounts, especially when it comes to customer service functions.
6. When the product fails, technicians will be happy to “look at it,” and repair it for about 70% or more of the value of the product in about 6-12 weeks. This is usually followed by “you could just buy another one” type of “caring” advice.
7. False or misleading advertising.
8. The company spams your inbox, twitter feed, phone, or otherwise valuable channel.
9. The average customer has no idea who the CEO of the company is. Until they see him or her on TV, defending pretty bad decisions.
10. After several interactions with company employees or management, you begin to suspect that everyone who works there might actually be some kind of asshole.
11. Poor product design, characterized by lousy user UI/UX.
12. The manager, in an empty store or restaurant, still manages to blow off his only customers… assuming he is even there.
13. The company sells your personal information to third parties.
14. The CEO’s Twitter account, blog and/or Facebook page – all proof that he “cares,” wants to “engage” customers and feels that social media is “important” – are all managed and fed by a proxy, (or ghost writer) preferably working for an outside firm or agency. (Sorry Mr. Pandit, but you have been advised improperly on this one.)
15. More excuses than solutions, followed by buzzwords and lip service.
16. The CEO spends more time on the golf course than he does listening to customers.
And there you have it.
Three questions.
So the three questions you have to ask yourself are these:
1. What kind of company culture are my customers experiencing whenever they interact with one of my employees, colleagues, bosses, products and services? The kind that gives a shit, or the kind that clearly doesn’t?
2. What kind of company culture should I be building?
3. Once I cast aside the propaganda, tag lines, mission statements and sycophantic reports, what kind of company culture am I really building?
Be honest. Are you setting the right example? Are you hiring the right people? Are you teaching them to give a shit? Are you rewarding them accordingly?
… Or are you banking on a mission statement to communicate to your employees that they should “care”?
Giving a shit is hard. So is kicking ass. So what?
Yeah, giving a shit is hard. It’s expensive too. It requires all sorts of investments: Financial, cultural, temporal, even emotional. (Perhaps especially the latter.) Giving a shit means that your business isn’t just about balance sheets and incremental basis points of change. It’s about creating something special for and with your customers. It’s about building the foundations of a lovebrand – like Apple, Harley Davidson, Virgin Airlines and BMW. It’s about investing in market leadership, in customer loyalty and evangelism, in your own reputation, and in the strength of your own brand. In short, it means investing in long term success, in stability in tough economic time, and in a demand vs. supply ratio that will always be in your favor. Giving a shit is an investment, yes, and not one that might immediately make sense to financial analysts, but one that pays off every time. It is the genesis of everything that ultimately makes a business successful: Professionalism. The endless pursuit of quality, of great design, of remarkable user/customer experiences.
The moment you lose that, the moment you start giving a shit a little bit less, the moment you start cutting corners, that’s when you start to screw up. When you lose that competitive edge. When you start sinking into the fat middle with everyone else. That’s when you start to lose. Before you know it, you’re stuck picking between BOGO pitches and worrying about price wars with foreign imports. I’ve worked with companies like this. You don’t want to go there, trust me. It’s ugly. It’s stressful. You wake up one morning and realize that even if you tried to give a shit anymore, you couldn’t. There wouldn’t be enough time. It wouldn’t make a difference. It might even get you fired. Everything you’ve worked for all your life is hanging on the edge, and it’s a long, hard road back too the top. Most companies never make it back. I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to never fall than to have to climb back up again, but either way, it’s a daily battle.
In fact, giving a shit is so hard that very few companies do anymore. It isn’t how the game is played any longer. “The customer is always right” is a relic of the past, isn’t it?
Or is it?
Have you listened to what people are saying about your company on Twitter and Facebook lately? Do you know what they are saying about your competitors? In a year or two, do you think companies whose leaders don’t give a shit are going to be able to compete against companies whose leaders do? If you don’t see giving a shit as a competitive advantage yet, as a differentiator, even as a normalizing agent, then at the very least see it as a matter of survival. The age of the “I don’t give a shit” CEO is done. Game over.
Time to make a change or two?
* * *
Since it’s June, here are this month’s three quick little announcements:
One – If you haven’t read “Social Media ROI: Managing and measuring social media efforts in your organization” yet, you will find 300 pages of insights with which to complement this article. It won’t answer all of your questions, but it will answer many of them. If anything, the book is a pretty solid reference guide for anyone responsible for a social media program or campaign. It also makes a great gift to your boss if you want him or her to finally understand how this social media stuff works for companies.
You can sample a free chapter and find out where to buy the book by checking out www.smroi.net.
Two – If you, your agency or your client plan on attending the Cannes Lionsfrom June 19-25, I am planning something a little… “unofficial” during the festival. If you are interested in being part of it, let me know.
You can send me an email, a note via LinkedIn, a Twitter DM, or a facebook message if you want to find out more. (The right hand side of the screen should provide you with my contact information.)
Three – If the book isn’t enough and you can’t make it to Cannes later this month, you can sign up for a half day of workshops in Antwerp (Belgium) on 30 June. (Right after the Lions.) The 5 one-hour sessions will begin with an executive briefing on social media strategy and integration, followed by a best practices session on building a social media-ready marketing program, followed by a PR-friendly session on digital brand management, digital reputation management and real-time crisis management, followed by a session on social media and business measurement (half R.O.I., half not R.O.I.). We will cap off the afternoon with a full hour of open Q&A. As much as like rushing through questions in 5-10 minutes at the end of a presentation, wouldn’t it be nice to devote an entire hour to an audience’s questions? Of course it would. We’re going to give it a try. Find out more program details here. Think of it as a miniRed Chair.
The cool thing about this structure is that you are free to attend the sessions that are of interest to you, and go check your emails or make a few phone if one or two of the sessions aren’t as important. The price is the same whether you attend one or all five, and we will have a 15 minute break between each one.
The afternoon of workshops is part of Social Media Day Antwerp (the Belgian arm of Mashable’s global Social Media Day event), and I can’t help but notice that the price of tickets is ridiculously low for what is being offered. Anyone can afford to come, which is a rare thing these days. (Big props to the organizers for making the event so accessible.)
The event is divided into 2 parts: The workshop in the afternoon, and the big Belgian style party in the evening. You can register for one or both (do both).
Register here: Social Media Day – Antwerp
My advice: Sign up while there are still seats available, and before #smdaybe organizers realize they forgot to add a zero at the end of the ticket prices. 
Cheers,
Olivier.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
It’s great to know that someone gives a shit enough to live it, let alone write and talk about it. Great post Olivier. What colorful metaphor is left for Part 3?
😀 I’m not sure. It’ll come to me.
Such a great post and yet, describes 99.9% of cases out there. The problem with most of these companies is that they manage to survive rather well over the years after all….especially in a crisis – because bottom line usually is that people want the lowest prices no matter what – whether or not customer service is in Bombay or wherever – case in point: most airlines.
Very true. But you know, every day I see examples of the opposite:
People still buy the iPod or the iPhone over cheaper alternatives. Starbucks can charge 2x what many other coffee shops charge for similar drinks, yet there’s always a line. I can buy a polo shirt just about anywhere for less than Ralph Lauren’s “3” series, but I can’t go ten minutes this season without running into one. I’m not just talking about jet-setters buying Kate Spade bags and Cartier watches in Cannes. I am talking about that category of products (or brands) that warrants in all of us that extra 27 centimes per kilo, that extra five mile drive, or that extra $10.
Why do people pay $3-$5 more to see a movie in 3D when one of the screens usually shows the same movie in 2D?
The lesson here is this: the lowest price usually wins, but give people a reason to spend a little more, and they will. Make a better product, create better customer experiences, treat people like kings, and many of them (enough of them) will pay a little extra. 😉
But yeah, it takes courage and vision to be one of these companies.
Cheers, Jerome.
Jerome, unfortunately, has it right. Many industries have sunk to the lowest common denominator because customers SAY they want high levels of performance yet continue to purchase on price alone. (Airlines aren’t the only example here, just the best.) I spent years in a retail line where we gave a shit until we had none left, as our customers went across the street to a discount store that sold a pale shadow of our product for half of what we charged.
I’m still puzzled why some industries (coffee, clothing, escorts) seem to be able to get customers to differentiate while others fail so miserably. Maybe that’s the next post.
Brand management has something to do with it. Why do people flock to Apple’s iPad when other devices exist that are similar and more moderately priced? Why is it that Starbucks still does so well? You have to give consumers a reason to spend more with you. Not all customers will, but some will. Find that reason (or set of reasons) and build a brand narrative around that. 😉
The difference between purchases made from companies that give a shit and purchases made based on price alone = the story that the company allows (facilitates?) the purchaser to tell themselves. If it’s a commodity (like airline seats have become), then it’s really difficult to break through the price barrier with a story. Virgin Airlines did it, though. If I had a choice of flying Virgin and any other airline, I’d choose Virgin, regardless of the price (and I have) – because they live the story that created Virgin. Or at least they do in my head (the story I tell myself). They give a shit. Will everyone do that? Absolutely not. All that matters is that enough people do to make a profit.
Bingo.
Take someone who really gives a shit; someone willing to do the work for free, because it’s what he believes in. Sell him on the opportunity with your company, bring him in under the premise of giving a shit together, then stipulate all shits being given must adhere to a laundry list of petty, corporate mandates and double standards.
Betcha he still gives a shit… just not about “business needs.”
There’s an HR piece here that gets missed in most organizations.
Yup. Top-down is more about giving people shit than giving a shit. For that, you need top-down, bottom-up, and side-to-side; omni-directional communication. Seems I read a book recently where this guy was talking about internal social programs where everyone would know their boundaries and be empowered to move within them to serve the customer, themselves, and the organization.
Everyone needs to give a shit together.
PS: Do you give a shit that checking the “Notify me of follow-up comments via email” box below results in getting an email for every single comment posted here for eternity? Just a friendly chiding that Disqus defaults to only updating replies to your comments, and allows for continuing the conversation via email (which is convenient on-the-go).
🙂
Thanks, Brian. I didn’t realize it did that. (It’s why I never check that box on other blogs anymore.) I’ll make sure the new version of the blog doesn’t have that problem.
In the UK we have Virgin Trains and rather than giving a shit, they simply are shit.
I guess Sir Richard wasn’t very passionate about train travel?
Can we use this example to illustrate how passion for one thing and apathy about another, from the same CEO, will result in completely opposite outcomes?
Amen, Olivier. It’s amazing how companies invest so much in technology or product development, but they forget their biggest asset is their people, their culture. Companies with pepole who give a sh*t, can do extroardinary things, things that blow any other fancy business out of the water that doesn’t have this basic foundation.
Yep!
Thank you for writing this post. I couldn’t agree with it more! Especially, “giving a shit is so hard that very few companies do anymore.” It definitely seems that way. They’ll have low prices, but customer service is non-existent. They think it’s only about the money. Don’t they know that (for the most part), people will pay more for great service? Show up and care. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Sometimes, low price points win. But not always, obviously. And in the end, low prices = either crap or a race to the bottom (lowest quality, lowest customer satisfaction, lowest profit margins). Unless you want to turn into the “Everything’s $1” company, you have to have some kind of customer service strategy.
Cheers. 🙂
Thanks for this. Really struck a chord. Its why people who do work ungodly hours without asking for more pay, why good enough just isn’t, and why people around you no matter who they are should be treated like…people. I try to keep two things at the forefront. It’s all about relationships (passion), and you earn the right to be heard. Thanks again for a great post. Look forward to more.
Thanks, Roger.
Absolutely spot on. I’ve worked at places that have both attitudes, and the happiness level of customers and staff are miles apart. It’s a shame that the companies that do give a shit are the exception rather than the rule.
Yep, and yep. Thanks for the comment, Chris.
Absolutely brilliant. I’m ready for Part 3.
Even worse, to me, is the CEO that declares with all their heart that they “give a shit”–but every single corporate policy and practice in place does the exact opposite.
As you state so brilliantly Olivier, it’s too stinkin’ hard to swim against the stream of corporate culture these days. One person in the corner, trying their damndest to make a difference becomes just a drop in the tide if the rest of the company doesn’t give a shit.
Do they think that the customer doesn’t notice? That they can’t tell that all of their interactions with the vendor are governed by corporate speak, obfuscation, and “That’s our policy”?
Our company President took a road trip down to Vegas to visit Zappos headquarters a couple of weeks specifically to get a glimpse at a company whose customers KNOW they give a shit.
Yep x infinity.
Wow, this really rings true, Mr. Blanchard. Makes me think … do I “care” or “give a shit.” Any thoughts for people who “care” but would really like to “give a shit”?
Working on a Startup – looking around for company values. “Give a Shit” should definitely be one of it! Thanks 🙂