A Labor Day Gift – Building a Better World of Work
Who knew that Labor Day could be one of those gift getting holidays! Last week I received one – a profound one.
I had the pleasure of spending some time with Martin Staubus’ class on Leading High Performing Companies at the University of California San Diego. The course breaks down tired, old, outdated management theories that see organizations as machines and workers as task-driven apparatus to more contemporary participative theories where the organization is an ecosystem and workers are participants and contributors. Martin’s class takes theory to action where students are exposed to lived examples of corporations that operate powerfully. Companies like WD-40, SRC Holdings, and New Belgium Brewing to name a few.
A student approached us after the session was over. With great passion, she exclaimed how grateful she was. She explained how the concepts taught in the class were previously unknown to her. She had never heard of a job like mine or companies that value people and talent is nurtured, grown, and integrated to build great products and long-term wealth for employees. At that moment, with her, I felt like I had made a profound difference in how someone sees the world of work.
My guest talk in the class reviews the best-of work that we did at New Belgium and how leaders can design a work experience that is ambitious, disciplined, profitable, and rewarding. It is a lived example of a period where leaders love people and people love the company which creates a reciprocal love for the consumer that turns in to revenue. It is a story of reinvesting profit into the company in a thoughtful manner that transcends an extractive anonymous shareholder model to an intrinsically driven triple bottom line for a known shareholder through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). It is the story of where humans are humans, not machines.
New Belgium Brewing is a manufacturer and there is essential task-driven, high-quality, high-efficiency work that is done to create a time-and-again tasty product. But, we didn’t stop there. Because employees are beneficial shareholders through a trust, they are not only interested in short-term productivity, but long-term value creation. This stakeholder/shareholder model along with servant leadership creates an environment where fostering wide-ranging knowledge, participation, and influence is a daily leadership activity. Employees don’t just own their labor, they own a piece of the value created by the great collective thinking.
It’s real. People matter. Good jobs matter. If we think we have the right to better jobs, each of us has to take responsibility to build a better world of work. One easy thing to do – purchase from high-road companies – employee-owned, Worldblu, B-Corps, and other mission/values-driven companies. These companies may hide among us – like PFSbrands – an employee-owned company active in supporting great convenience store food service programs. They are out there and deserve our consumer dollar so they can keep reinvesting. Let’s celebrate post-Labor Day by taking responsibly and doing our best job every day to raise the bar for what a great company looks like and honor those that make doing-well by doing-good part of their corporate DNA.