L. Bart Adams

About six months ago, we began using a tool called Start, Stop, Keep for our semi-annual employee reviews. (We meet with each employee twice annually for a review.) We have a form that the supervisor uses to ask the employee three questions:

1. What should Mountain View Mushrooms START doing?
2. What should Mountain View Mushrooms STOP doing?
3. What should Mountain View Mushrooms KEEP doing?

We also ask for an annual goal and how we can help them achieve this objective.

I first heard about this method from the book Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. He suggests using this method for employee surveys before annual planning meetings. We have used these questions before yearly planning meetings, as well.

We find the tool effective because it gives us feedback that never shows up in a suggestion box. I prefer our supervisors fill out the form while asking the questions. The supervisors like having the employees fill out the questionnaires on their own. There are three reasons the supervisor needs to ask the questions and complete the form:

1. It allows the supervisor to interact with the employee differently than typical day-to-day work.
2. The supervisors can dig deeper and gain clarity on some of the employee’s answers.
3. The employees can talk instead of worrying about filling out another form.

Once the form is complete, we review the results at the weekly manager’s meetings. Here action plans are created to address the various topics in the Start and Stop questions. The Keep questions provide positive feedback to the group about what we’re doing right!

We have had many great ideas stem from these questionnaires in only six months. I’m excited to see what great solutions our employees come up with next.

Several months ago, I started writing a weekly newsletter for my employees. In it, I would include a brief statement from me about the status of the farm, upcoming events, and good news. Along with employee birthdays and work anniversaries, I had “Stories of Our Values.”  The stories include employees who exemplify our values. I felt like reinforcing the values with public praise by sharing these stories would also increase our teamwork and camaraderie. I was wrong. I found out that their coworkers were putting down many of the employees we recognized. Therefore, those recognized were left feeling worse and less valued as a team members. As soon as I heard about this, I removed this section of the newsletter.

It turns out in the Hispanic culture that they are good team players, so long as the team gets the praise and recognition. Recognition of individual members of the group appears to lead to jealousy and resentment. The unpraised employee seems to take it personally when someone else received recognition as not good enough. In their culture, this does not motivate them to do better, to receive praise themselves. It leads them to lash out at those receiving the recognition to bring them back down.

What have we learned from this experience? Each culture has its preferred form of praise and recognition. We have now changed our practice of public appreciation to praise in private by their supervisors and managers. I have also started recognizing teams in the weekly newsletters to reinforce our values. Ironically, one of our values is teamwork.

Our business culture comprises the many cultures of our employees. (In our case, about 70% Hispanic, 3% Cambodian, 27% Caucasian.) Each of these employees brings something different to their teams and, in turn, the farm as a whole. As leaders, it is our responsibility to learn how our values, vision, and purpose can be communicated and executed within each culture to form the business culture we are seeking.

Earlier this year, I participated in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business program. It was a 20-week course, where I spent about one day per week in a workshop setting with other business owners. We learned about how to operate our businesses better and develop a growth plan. We were assigned to present a “Cultural Artifact” from our company in one of the sessions. A picture, story, or another item that defined or played a role in our culture.

There were a lot of exciting and meaningful artifacts presented, from pizza dough balls to specialized hand tools. For my business, I chose a $10 gift card for our company store.

How has a gift card become part of our culture? Well, it’s been a tool to reinforce our values. Each week in our team meeting, I ask my managers for stories of our values, which are:

• “Above and Beyond” – Dedicated and hard-working
• “Continuous Improvement” – Making it better
• “Teamwork” – Working together

If the managers share a story of an employee or employees who have exemplified one of the values, I give them a gift card to give to that employee.  Some examples are an employee who comes in on their day off to cover for another employee who called in sick or an employee who stays late to clean up and organize their work area or equipment. We also use this card for employee birthdays, or when we see other positive behaviors, we want to reinforce them.

As a team, we have been doing this practice for over two years.  It seems to be working well, but I have noticed that most of the stories my team shares only involve the “Above and Beyond” or “Continuous Improvement” values. I see teamwork throughout the farm daily. Why are we not rewarding these values? How are we missing these values in action?  A couple of weeks ago, I had an epiphany. With the gift card, we have been rewarding individual efforts, not team efforts. Our managers are looking for persons who are excelling, not teams. So, I made a slight change to the weekly stories of our values. From now on, we will have a pizza party or buy donuts for examples of excellent teamwork. The managers are currently looking for team efforts along with individual accomplishments.

Maybe our new “Cultural Artifact” will be a slice of pizza or donut box. Time will tell.

We once had an employee who asked for a raise. I asked this employee's supervisor, "if he deserved a raise?"

He replied emphatically, "No!"

"Why did this employee not deserve a raise?" I inquired.

He went on the tell me how this employee had been underperforming in his job. The supervisor had had several "coaching" conversations with the employee about improving his performance. His response was, "If you pay me more I will work harder. I feel like I am working the level of my pay." This employee's performance did not improve. A few weeks later, this employee again asked for a raise and was denied.

He quit.

I'm not sure where this employee developed his mindset of working to the level he felt was proportional to his pay? In my experience, this is a unique thought process regarding wage-earning. Especially considering the following:

• He worked in the picking department before transferring to this "new" position. He understood our policies, procedures, and company culture.
• He worked from time to time at this position (while still working in the picking department) to learn the job before applying for the full-time position. So, he understood how to calculate the wages and the work required.
• His supervisor coached him on multiple occasions about his sub-par performance.  He understood he was underperforming.

Perhaps his mindset was influenced by the previous two positions he held at our facility. He worked as a box folder and a picker.  In each case, the job pays on a piece-rate basis. His speed or performance determined his wage. He was in control of how much he earned. I can only conclude that making the shift to an hourly wage proved to be too difficult to change this employee's mindset. If he had improved his performance, he would have earned a pay increase. What he failed to understand was that he still controlled the amount he made by his performance.

I have read and heard many definitions of CEO disease. Wikipedia defines it as “CEO disease,” which refers to the information vacuum around a leader; that arises when employees withhold relevant (or unpleasant) information.

In my experience, diagnosing CEO disease in the company is evident by one or more the following symptoms:

1. The CEO is the last person in the business to receive the bad news
2. The CEO does not get all of the information needed to make crucial decisions
3. Subordinates believe they are protecting the CEO by withholding some or all the necessary information

I recently discovered that I was suffering from CEO disease at my business. It’s been almost four years since I have been in this role, and only now am I uncovering the symptoms. I cannot say how long it’s been happening because, like sign number 1, the CEO is the last to know. The most recent incident had to do with several interpersonal conflicts among my office staff. When I got the bad news, I was blindsided by what was going on and surprised that they hadn’t brought the issue to my attention sooner, so I could help resolve it before it came to a head.

In light of my new understanding and study of this disease, I am currently using the following prescription to help fight this disease at our facility.

1. Don’t kill the messenger. How the CEO responds to terrible news makes an impression on the person delivering the message and can have a lasting impact on the CEO promptly receiving any bad news in the future.
2. Build trust with subordinates through weekly/monthly one-on-one meetings. Direct reports will be more apt to share valuable information if they trust you. Increasing the frequency of one-on-one sessions can help build this confidence and give the subordinate a forum to share helpful information with you.
3. Ask good questions. If the CEO is not getting all of the information, they are most likely not asking thoughtful questions. It is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that clarity exists in all communication with direct reports.  Asking the right questions is a way to deepen understanding and gain clarity.

I am making a special effort to apply this prescription and hope to rid myself of this fallible yet curable disease. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Recently, I attended a meeting where I enjoyed a 4-hour presentation about health and wellness from presenter Dan Miller. He said that stress is the number one reason people fail at achieving optimum health. He also taught that stress is self-imposed. It’s something we do to ourselves. It is a choice. He defined stress as “our reaction to outside stimuli.”

He gave several tips on how to reduce stress in our lives. The most interesting and, so far, most helpful for me has been asking a simple question. When you feel like reacting to some outside stimulus, ask yourself the following question, “Will it kill me?” Pretty simple, right?! Since attending this workshop, I have used this technique many times, and it has helped me tremendously. My family can attest to its effectiveness, as well. I used to get angry and stressed about things like:

• A child’s dirty or unorganized room
• A misplaced toy or clothing in the middle of the living room floor
• Receiving the wrong food on my order at a drive-through restaurant
• Getting the bad news about a piece of broken equipment at the mushroom farm

These are some things that used to send me into an emotional tailspin. Of course, it wasn’t just one isolated incident that would affect me; it was a day full of these events accumulating until I would lose my temper. Resolving each of these issues can all be taken care of more quickly with a calmer head.

This simple technique has worked well for me because 99% of things that happen to or around me will not kill me, and that is excellent news!