The alarm goes off. It is 6.10 am on 23 September 2019. My wife Karen and I have a quick cup of tea in advance of our 7am cycle spinning class and I switch on the news. The lead story is the not unexpected overnight collapse of the travel company Thomas Cook. Moments later a recording of Peter Frankhauser, the Swiss-born CEO of Thomas Cook Group, is aired, in which he announces the liquidation of the company.1 He apologises to his 21,000 employees. He then says sorry to all his customers and finally to the hotels and all the other suppliers. He does not say sorry for taking Ā£8.3 million in salary and benefits since he took the helm in 2014.
The following day, The Times , The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Daily Mirror all have this as their lead story, expressing their anger at the āfat catsā. For the millions of pounds that he and the rest of the Board have received, with estimates of pay and perks ranging from Ā£20 million as stated in The Times2 to Ā£47 million as stated in The Daily Mail.3 Even Brexit was knocked off the front page of the morning newspapers.
In the immediate aftermath, reporters pointed towards too much debt, about Ā£2 billion when the pension deficit was included, the weakness of sterling and even the heat wave of 2018. Perhaps these were the contributing factors, but my mind went back to the early summer of 2015, when the same Peter Fankhauser refused to apologise at the inquest for Thomas Cook Groupās role in the death of two children. Christi and Bobby Shepherd had died of carbon monoxide poisoning whilst on holiday in Greece in 2006.4 At the same hearing a previous CEO of Thomas Cook, Manny Fontenla-Novoa, simply refused to answer the questions being asked by the coroner. Only later, after the inquest had found that the two children were unlawfully killed, did Peter Frankhuaser apologise on behalf of Thomas Cook.
I believe that there is a direct link between the refusal to apologise and the liquidation of the company four and a bit years later, as it shines a light on not just the self-serving behaviour of the bosses involved, but the culture prevalent within the company. Not apologising, presumably on the advice of their lawyers, until forced to by the coroner, showed a complete lack of care and sensitivity towards the parents of the two children involved, who were Thomas Cook customers. Given that the premise behind their well-known advertising line āDonāt Just Book It. Thomas Cook Itā was customer care, the complete lack of it caused significant damage to the reputation of the company. It left me wondering if that is how they treated the parents of two dead children, what was their mindset towards their customers and their employees? During the weeks that followed the liquidation it became quite clear that there was a lot of love amongst the employees for each other and the company, but not for the bosses at the top.
Thomas Cook is by no means alone as a company with the wrong set of values, and what could be imagined as a fairly rotten culture to be part of. As the events over the last 10 years but particularly since the financial Armageddon of 2008 have shown, never has the link between a combination of poor leadership, company behaviours, brand reputation, the customer experience and āmoney in the tillā (long-term sustainable growth) been more clear. Companies and their leaders frequently make the front pages of the mainstream media for the wrong reasons. These companies and their bosses are shown to be stuck in an outmoded way of working. This rogues gallery includes BP, VW, British Airways, United Airlines and Oxfam to name just six, not including the banks. Household names which people used to believe in. Over the same period many of our most cherished institutions in the UK, including the BBC and the National Health Service, have been found wanting. Perhaps most significant of all is how people now feel about our politicians, many of whom have been exposed as liars in the run-up to the Brexit referendum, and the subsequent three years. Leaving people asking the question, who can you trust?
Yet at the same time, as many companies are struggling to survive or have collapsed, others are thriving. We seem to be in a world of winners and losers, with few just bumbling along in the middle. As a consequence of this breakdown in trust, the expectations of customers and employees have changed. People want more from work than ājust a jobā. Customers also want more. They want to believe in the company they are spending their money with. The companies who are winning understand this shift. Whether they operate on a global, regional or local level. They recognise the importance of creating sustainable relationships with their customers through building trust. These companies embrace a philosophy where they set out to create enjoyable, sometimes memorable, but rarely just okay customer experiences. They also know that if they want their customers to āloveā the experience on the outside, this needs to start on the inside, with their employees loving what they do, engaged around the companies values, beliefs and sense of purpose. Clear about what the Company and its Brand stands for, what makes it different and how it needs to behave.
These are the ones that get bragged about.
This is the philosophy and approach I call the Business Case for Love. Where I unashamedly make the absolute link between the love employees and customers feel for a company and its long-term commercial success. In short, the opposite of what has happened at Thomas Cook. It is the underlying way I work with my clients through my company, The Company Spirit, and it is the title of this book. One that has been some 40 years in the making. It has turned out to be more autobiographical than I first intended. Mainly because the guiding principles I use today have been honed out of the experiences I have had throughout my career and my life. The people I have met, the places I have been, the views of my family, the companies I have worked with, have all played a role in forging my beliefs.
I have tried to make the book as readable and enjoyable as possible. I am no fan of the ābusiness bookā as so many come across as cold, turgid and a little preachy. I do enjoy reading books written by or about people I admire, Steve Jobs, at Apple, Ed Cutmull at Pixar, Phil Knight at Nike, Howard Schultz at Starbucks and the Google āBoysā: Sergey Brin and Larry Page. I have been influenced by the writing style of UK journalists Robert Peston and Tim Shipman. I hope it appeals to a wide range of people from differing ages, backgrounds and interests. I am not expecting the reader to agree with everything I have written, but the very least I hope is that it will give some fresh insights and perspectives on how they and their company behave. Whether the reader is a CEO or someone who has just entered the world of work.
There are three parts to the book, and whilst each chapter can be read in isolation, I would recommend the more standard approach of starting at the beginning and finishing at the end rather than dipping in and out.
Part I, titled āHow to Kill the Company Spiritā, focusses on the mess in which much business and politics now finds itself.
Successive scandals in the UK, Europe, the USA and Japan have rocked the reputation of business and those CEOs responsible. For them, sorry seems to be the hardest word, with their lack of accountability fuelling mistrust amongst employees and customers alike.
All of which gives even more reason why employees want to believe in the company they work for and to feel proud of it. They want it to have some ethics and beliefs and they want to feel valued by their company. Yet according to research by Gallup, a staggering 87% of employees are not engaged. Is the traditional command and control form of leadership to blame? Are the current MBA schools producing the wrong type of leader? Good at the āheadā part but struggling with the āheartā side, and thereby out of touch with the needs of employees today. By drawing on personal experience (either as a customer or as an employee) with British Airways, WH Smith, Toys āRā Us, Mothercare and BHS, I examine how these companies stop looking after what makes them different and embark instead on a race to the bottom. An emphasis on transactional behaviour which leads to little or no customer experience, and in time, no business. They are run by people who have little idea as to how to create companies that are loved by their employees, and their customers.
These are the ones who kill the Company Spirit.
In Part II, titled āFalling in Loveā, I suggest how companies need to behave to get bragged about.
By retracing the ups and downs of a career starting in advertising and then progressing onto marketing and Consulting, I illustrate how these experiences shaped what would become the unique philosophy and approach called the āBusiness Case For Loveā. I draw on anecdotes from work in Europe, the USA and the Far East to explain why my focus is now on company culture. And how one simple question, āWhat is a customer experience you love?ā, starts people on a journey to behaving differently in business.
I look at why almost every company judges itself exclusively against their immediate competitors but as customers we donāt. Why we judge a company against our own roller deck of personal experiences and how we as individuals are very clear as to what makes a memorable customer experience.
Hence part of the philosophy and approach with my clients is to help them take the blinkers off and inspire them to behave as a āBest In Classā company, not just āBest in Categoryā. I have come to the conclusion that there are six ābest in classā company behaviours which really do separate the best from the rest. Each one is shared and brought to life through observations and experiences.
āLoveā, perhaps not surprisingly, is a polarising word in business. That is why it is central to my beliefs, philosophy and approach. It is what my clients buy into. The āLove Gridā is a unique yet quick and simple way of explaining the role love can play in business. It shows the link between the internal company behaviour, normally set by the bosses, and the consequential customer experience and customer relationship. The āLove Gridā illustrates the three different types of behaviour found within business (the āDealerā, the āRetailerā, the āBrandā) and how this affects how we feel about the company in question. Is the experience ok, enjoyable or memorable? Is my relationship with the company transactional, respectful or based on love? And why is the middle no longer a safe place to be?
Drawing on experiences with clients in a range of categories (Automotive, Banks and Insurance Companies, Fashion, Food, Manufacturing, Technology and Transport) across Germany, Sweden, the UK and the USA, I use the last chapter in Part II to demonstrate how to create a Company Spirit. The Company Spirit Model is what I call my signature dish, and its primary role is to create clarity around what a company stands for. My job is to help guide and facilitate its birth. Unlike many consultancies, I start from the belief that the answer is in my client, not in me. It is through the very act of a team creating their Company Spirit that their beliefs, ownership clarity and a commitment to bring it to life manifest themselves. This is the mindset that kicks off cultural change. It illustrates the importance of āRootsā and how this is the anchor for the whole of the Company Spirit. Each Company Spirit is by definition unique, as no brand or company is the same. Each has its story to tell, and when told in a genuine, honest way, it means the company culture is grounded in authenticity. One which employees get and customers feel.
Part III is titled āStaying in Loveā and discusses how this requires the boss to behave as a ābest in classā leader. To be crystal clear, this is a sea change from those who operate with a command and control approach, or whose primary driver is āIā not āweā. As with company behaviours, I believe there are six leadership behaviours which separate the best from the rest, and I highlight these through discussing some heroes and villains, as well as bringing in exam...