A True Team

Yesterday we had another reunion of our Johnson & Higgins (J&H) Chicago team, i.e., those of us who worked together in the J&H Chicago office

People came from all over, from California, Philadelphia, Florida, New York, and other parts of the country. Those who could not attend because of family weddings, college visits to see their children, and in some cases the flu, were truly sadden to miss seeing their friends

And I mean sadden and I mean friends!

Virtually everyone who could not attend was regretful, said they hoped they could come to next year’s reunion.

At the reunion itself, people were deep in conversations with one another, one-on-one and small conversations. I am quite sure that everyone had a conversation with everyone else.

There was no distinction as to roles one had, be they a receptionist or an executive. Everyone was a leader. Each of us could satisfy or disappoint a client, including our internal clients, i.e., one another, and we all understood that. No one was more important than anyone else. We were all teammates!

After a while, we stood in a large circle and one by one we shared briefly about our lives now. However, no one could resist mentioning how much being on the J&H team meant to them and how much we all still mean to each other. Lots of choked up people and teary eyes.

A true team means people admire, respect, and trust one another. This was so obvious that everyone deeply cared about one another. This is so special!

J&H totally cared about our clients. To me that is a must, yet it is not what separates a great company from the rest in the field. There are lots of companies that care very much about their clients. What separated and distinguished J&H was that we cared deeply about our people, and they were our internal clients.

In fact, few people with big egos advanced. Being a great teammate, taking the initiative, contributing ideas, being positive and only positive, and helping and encouraging one another is what mattered.

It certainly helped that we were a private firm, that we could focus on the long-term and invest in our people, their learning, growth and future success, which is such an advantage.

We believed that if our people were happy and we had:

• Discipline to ask each of our clients about their expectations, needs, and wants from us
• Communicated this to all team members
• Did our very best to exceed our clients wants from us

Then we did not have to worry about revenues and earnings.  We knew that at the end of the year, we would be just fine.

My hope in writing this short article is that readers will think about their company and realize that having a culture like we had at J&H is not mission impossible. It is appreciating that our people are our internal clients and understand that we must truly be servant leaders, that we genuinely care about one another (everyone!), and their success, happiness, and well-being.

Two key messages:

• Our organizational culture – the spirit of our people – is vitally important!
• Leadership is not about being great ourselves, it is about our helping others be great!