Creating a Tribe Out of a Company

This week on the Higher Purpose Podcast, I had the chance to speak with author, Garry Ridge the CEO of the WD40 company (who used to be a radio disc jockey!)Garry has had some amazing successes with his business, and is responsible for employee engagement is responsible for a pretty incredible statistic.98% of the employees of the WD40 Company say that they LOVE telling people they work for the WD40 company.Think about that for a moment. How many people do you know who can say they LOVE working for the company they work for? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that it isn’t 98% of the employed people that you know.Now, you can hear all of the details, and some of the strategies about how Garry achieved this by listening to this week’s episode of the Higher Purpose Podcast, but right now, I want to think a little bit more about one of the ideas we touched on during our conversation.The teams at the WD40 company aren’t called ‘Teams’ – they are called Tribes.This isn’t very common in the working world, and Garry said that it came down to the values he, as CEO, and the rest of the workforce collectively decided were important to them as an organization.Those values are all about belonging, taking care of each other and supporting each other to achieve their own and the company objectives.You see the WD40 company isn’t just a lubricant vendor. Their goal is to create positive, lasting memories by solving problems, making things work smoothly and creating opportunities.This purpose is very closely aligned with Garry’s PERSONAL purpose – and the effects on the company have been profound. While the product hasn’t changed much in 20 years – they’ve grown by 13%.Prioritizing learning, growth, community and support makes the WD40 company a wonderful place to work – and as Garry says – profits are the applause! If you are creating a strong company culture then profits are going to be a natural side effect.Now this is all well and good if you’re the CEO and have the POWER to institute a nurturing and caring company culture, and prioritize the human element of your work, but what do you do if you’re a rank and file employee who has a supervisor and another supervisor and a boss and a corporate hierarchy that isn’t exactly accessible?Other than sending your boss Garry’s interview  – there are ways you can align your own individual purpose with the work that you do, which I have laid out into a 5 Day Challenge that you can sign up for by clicking right here.Some of the other ideas we discussed were:

• Identifying the what, why and how of your business – a way of thinking about your company (or personal!) values that is more natural and intuitive than mission or values statements.
• The attributes that keep people together, whether they are team (or tribe!) members or friends, family or colleagues.
• The practical changes and results that happened when Garry was able to align his individual purpose, with the purpose of his organization.

This week in the Higher Purpose Facebook Community we're talking about our favourite memories at work, and how we can make more of them.If you’re enjoying these discussions and interviews, you can help support the Higher Purpose Podcast by giving us a rating and a review on Itunes!