I am convinced that aeons ago the deities of the Kalahari and Antarctica came to a grudging agreement regarding Cape Town. The summer months would be time for the spirits of heat to dance through our streets. Some days it feels as if the heat and wind will never stop. Come winter, the cold spirits of the south get their chance. The sun hides for days. The rain arrives in horizontal sheets and the waves loom over the coastline. On days like those, one feels tiny in the face of eternal power.
On occasion, most often in the weeks between the heart of seasons, it seems that a truce is declared. The weather is temperate. The air; still. The light; copper and bronze. The ocean is lazy and comfortable in its strength. The last week has been like this. Tired of lockdown, but in our mostly non-vaccinated land, wary and cautious, we have sought out open-air spots.
It was a joy to discover that Cape Town stalwart, Maria’s Greek Café, is now open for Sunday lunch. They’ve been going for 55 years, deservedly so, and it was the perfect way to spend a lazy Sunday. The midweek took us to Leo’s Wine Bar, a fascinating selection of wines shoehorned into a bagel shop. As the evening progressed the smells of great cooking lured us next door to Andrew Kai’s Tomson.
Speaking to Andrew, I realised that years ago I would see him wrestling paella pans into his car on an early Saturday morning. It’s great to see how that energy has enabled him to open his own permanent place in the world.
Reflecting on the joy that these moments gave me, I realised it had two sources.
First, each person was doing it in their way. The bagel shop transforms into a wine bar. A chef’s journey starts in Valencia and then loops its way into bringing South Cantonese flavours to Southern African streets.
Second, the warmth that each establishment radiates, Maria’s merrily gives Harvey the Husky a lamb bone on arrival. It’s the warmth of people who care about people and express that in ways authentic to themselves. And so, our forays into the world provided the impetus into this week’s musings.
/ STRATEGY
Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich franchises seem a far way from the local businesses we’ve just been speaking about.
Forbes estimates that it’s 2019 revenue was $11.3 billion. For six successive years it’s been the top restaurant on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and its sales are achieved despite having a much smaller footprint than most other franchises, and a shorter operating week.
However, its not those specific variables that drew me to them for today’s letter. In their recent book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leaders Guide to the Real World, Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall explain the rationale behind the Chick-fil-A franchise agreement devised by founder Samuel Cathy, way back in the 1950s:
“As a Chick-fil-A franchisee you cannot own two thousand locations, no matter how much capital you have. Instead, you are allowed to own one. You can throw as much money at Chick-fil-A as you like, and it won’t be swayed into giving you any more locations: the franchise agreement, unchanged since Cathy devised it in the mid-1950s, forbids it. At its founding, Cathy decided that the mission of his company was less to sell chicken than it was to build leaders in local communities. Some of us might scoff at this, but Cathy stayed true to it, and devised his franchise agreement accordingly. He reasoned that if he was to grow local leaders, he would have to ensure that each person he brought on as a franchisee had a good reason to stay close to their local community. The best way to do that, he thought, was to keep these leaders in their stores, and the best way to ensure that, in turn, was to allow them only one. If you have only one, he figured, then you will be in this store all the time, staying close to your guests and close to your team members, knowing intimately the concerns of each—what the community is interested in and what it’s worried about. And over time you will respond to these needs and take action, and therefore, over time you will grow as a community leader.”
I found this to be so refreshing and energising. It reminded me that there is not one way to build a business. Indeed, that you can chose to build your business in a way that build community.
In the same way, South African chicken franchise Nando’s has consistently championed an irreverent, progressive tone in its marketing. I have no science to back my view, but I have no doubt that having that voice in the South African landscape has been an important element in enabling us to hold the powerful in account. For if one has the courage to laugh at the moments when the use of power becomes absurd, becomes abusive, when one sees others exposing the absurdity, then one feels a little more inclined to act.
In their ways, each of these businesses show the possibility that intentionality unlocks. In being unique, in championing what is important to them, they’ve had positive impact.
/ SELF
I discovered Eileen Fisher’s story thanks to Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson’s book, the fearless organization. Following the bibliography breadcrumb trail took me to Janet Malcom’s New Yorker piece on Fisher and her leadership style.
Eileen Fisher is both the name of a clothing retailer and its founder.
Fisher tells Malcolm that she had started to work with Susan Schor, then a university professor now Fisher’s Chief Culture Officer, in an effort to untangle what had been an overly bureaucratic and alienating management structure. She says, “It began as an effort to give more structure to this almost feminine way of doing things—I didn’t know how to run a business”.
Schor describes that period in the company’s history, “It had become more corporate, more hierarchical, less collaborative, less caring. There was more unhappiness, I’d say. People weren’t kind enough to each other. Deadlines were more important than the process that led to the deadlines.”
Fisher wanted to balance getting more structure and to ensure joy and well-being for her people. For her this meant bringing “in a very caring, feminine style of leadership that valued people working together, that valued cooperation rather than competition, that made room for having a full life.”
By foregrounding her own experiences as a female leader, Fisher was able to work with Schor to build the kind of organisational culture that reflected her values and experience. She did so in a way authentic to her experience.
Today, Fisher owns 60% of the privately held company. Nothing too unique there. What is unique is that the other 40% is held by employees through an employee share ownership scheme. Fisher reflects that “When the company started to be really successful and there were extra profits, my first impulse was to ask: ‘How do we share the profits with the people who are doing the work?’ I believe that it’s important to share, that it’s fair to share. It shouldn’t be about me or a few people at the top getting wealthy. It’s about how do we share the wealth? I really think every company should have to do that.”
To put this in context, Eileen Fisher has 60 stores across the US and Canada and the company is worth approximately $400 million after being started by Fisher in 1984 with just $350.
It did make me think of the billionaires who are ostensibly waiting for government to reform the tax codes, or the competition legislation, or the whatever. Fisher has adopted a simpler, more immediate approach. She put the money back in the hands of the people helping to create the wealth. That’s something any shareholder, an owner, can do. She did. And, she still has a private sushi chef 😉
/ SOUL
I have been contemplating these words of the great Nigerian activist and musician, Fela Kuti captured in Carlos Moore’s Fela: This Bitch of a Life, “Do I want to leave an imprint on the world? No. Not at all. You know what I want? I want the world to change. I don’t want to be remembered. I just want to do my part and leave. If remembering is part of the world’s thing, that’s their problem. I’ll do my part. I have to do my part. And everybody has to do his. Not for what they’re going to remember you for, but for what you believe in… Just do things ‘cause you believe in them. A human being should be like that.”
Happy Sunday, or Monday, or whatever day it is that you’re reading this.
All the best
Karl
PS: If you miss me during the week, you can follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I am not a social media super user, but from time-to-time share snippets that you might want to borrow or share with others.
PPS: If you’d like to know more about my coaching work, check out my website or better yet mail me and we can speak. You can subscribe to this newsletter here.
(This letter was first published on 13 June 2021)