AF#2 - Employee Obsession: The Key To Unlocking Customer Obsession (& Results)

What a hurricane taught me about leadership.

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath, Coney Island. 2012, Image: Copyright John Huntington

I worked at Skanska from 2007-2014 before joining Amazon, a global construction company based out of Stockholm. My last project there was the emergency response to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy; restoring heat and hot water to thousands of flooded homes in Coney Island. It came around Thanksgiving just as the coldest months were starting. Normally Skanska’s domain was that of the large civil projects of New York City (2nd Avenue Subway, World Trade, etc.).

Our ‘field office’ was an amalgamation of trailers and shipping containers mobilized in the parking lot of the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball stadium, a 10-minute walk from the last stop on the Q train.

By the time I arrived every morning at 6:45am the yard was already buzzing with hundreds of workers stocking up their trucks with boilers and hot water heaters. My 90-minute commute from the Upper East Side was one of the better ones. At least I could bang out some problems sets for b-school on the subway.

The cause was noble, but the job was horrendous. I ran a team of four, which made up our cost department.

MCU Park, Home of The Brooklyn Cyclones. Image: David Torres

Our scope was turning the hundreds of sheets of paper that were generated every day (time cards, invoices, shipping manifests, etc.) into some sort of ticket that a city inspector would sign so that we could then usher it through the labyrinth of auditors at city hall to be turned into reimbursement.

Did I mention it was horrendous?

We could barely keep up with the 7-day workweeks not to mention that sorting out paperwork after the installations were already complete hardly felt like being on the front lines.

But the capitalist reality, and my responsibility was that any contractor who pulled key people off of every other job in the city only to drop what could easily turn into a $100MM donation would probably not be around to help out during the next disaster.

Sorting through the mountain of paperwork every day was rewarded by a fresh mountain the next. It didn’t take a genius to see that this assignment was not a great stroke of luck for anybody on my team.

This is how I accidentally stumbled into a leadership style--I needed an inspiration hack.

I made it my mission to somehow turn this assignment into the best thing that ever happened to any of my team. It was lofty and unlikely, but I committed myself to try.

There were not a lot of obvious career benefits I could offer.

One woman from accounting was interested in improving on Excel so I tried to share some skills I had been honing, which would have her running circles around her department back at the office.

Another woman I actually helped to analyze the job offers she was getting from other construction companies. I didn’t care what my teams’ goals were, I just wanted to add value.

I learned that the two younger guys on my team had similar business-geek interests to myself so I’d take them to see guest speakers that I had access to up at the NYU b-school and then I’d buy them beers afterwards so we could talk about economics. Or golf. Or woman.

It became a game, seeing if I could make this unique experience a net positive for each of them, not just in careers but in life. I didn’t start caring any less about my job but I was caring way, way more about my people.

And something magical happened.

There is a subtle yet humongous difference between employees ‘wanting you to have the opinion that they’re good’ versus ‘not wanting to let you down’.

There is no review process I could have put in place that would have delivered stronger results.

Rhymes

In 2017 Amazon rolled out the ‘Career Choice’ program for hourly associates. It would pay tuition for continuing education ‘regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon.’[1]

In his letter to shareholders Jeff B. (Bezos) said it was something of which he was particularly proud.

’We want to make it easier for Amazonians to pursue their aspirations,’ per the Amazon Career-Choice website[2].

This idea of making the job a net positive to an employee’s life sounded familiar.

This concept I had stumbled into at Coney Island - making your employee’s dreams into your obsession - Amazon would be investing $700MM: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-pledges-upskill-100000-us-employees-demand-jobs-2025

I guess I had stumbled onto something down at Coney Island.

The Boardwalk at Coney Island. Image: Brittany Petronella from nycgo.com/attractions/coney-island

Seems ‘New-Age’y

You could say it sounds extreme - caring about your employee’s goals more than your customers - but if your ambitions for your customers are extreme then your tactics are going to have to match, whatever they are.

Stillwell Ave, The Last Stop On The Q. Image: NilsPix from flickr.com/photos/nilspix/6977375157

‘Tactic’ though, isn’t the right word for this. Caring can’t be faked.

My employees were not a means to an end down at Coney Island and the truth was, employee obsession was not a sacrifice. It was the unlock to amplifying customer obsession and delivering results in a sub-optimal situation.

If it worked at Coney Island I can only imagine if I were actually offering great roles to boot.

I’d have to beat away candidates with a stick.