PART 1 – Pizza, Toys… and WORLD DOMINATION for your business?
If you know me then you will know that I am passionate about people and building successful world class organisations through acquisition and development of talent.
What you might not know is that as a child I was passionate about LEGO, and as an adult I have a real weakness for Pizza!
So I was really pleased when looking through my TV planner recently that there were 2 documentaries coming up about my favourite things:
• Domino’s Pizza – A Slice of Life
• The Secret World of Lego
I saved them to the hard disk and yesterday (it was a Sunday after all) I had a TV binge watching both of them back to back.
What I hadn’t necessarily expected was the learning I gleaned from both programmes about the way the businesses, albeit completely different, have built their brands through their people and by embracing, promoting and developing their unique and strong VALUES based corporate CULTURES.
Domino’s operate a franchise model worldwide, and in the last 20 years have made enough pizza dough in the UK alone to wrap around the world 4 times…. That’s a lot of pizza!
Eddie El Lamaa – Domino’s Franchisee
What really struck me though was the enthusiasm of their people, especially the 32 year old Eddie El Lamaa, who holds 10 franchise outlets and demonstrated incredible enthusiasm, belief, drive and passion for the brand. It just goes to show it’s not what you make or do, it’s always WHY you do it that counts.
Eddie showed up on screen with his “Guiding Principles” on a white board in the background. Here’s a picture:
They are values that Eddie has built his own pizza empire around and guidelines that every member of his team can quickly understand and make their own decisions based around.
We even saw footage of Eddie rallying the new staff at his Rotherham site with the battle cry “Sell more Pizza, Have more fun”. It may be a bit “American” for us Brits, but it is crystal clear in its message about what he wants for and expects from his team. He even had the Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Rotherham chanting along!
Now, you may not have a pizza empire, and you may not even care too much for the franchise, but what you should appreciate is the CLARITY that this VALUES based, Culture led approach offers you and your staff when setting out on your own personal mission in whatever field you have chosen (or found yourself in!)
Domino’s employees who represent the corporate brand values, living and breathing the ideals and beliefs of the business, proudly refer to themselves as “Dominoids”, something that is encouraged and celebrated at Domino’s head office.
How do your team view themselves in respect of your company values and beliefs? What is your equivalent of a “Dominoid” and would your team be proud to tell their friends and family of this accolade?
The show ended at the national awards ceremony held at the ICC in Birmingham, where Zagros Jaff was crowned UK’s fastest pizza maker and also Manager of the Year. The joy and pride he took in his work was truly inspirational and credit to himself and the business for encouraging and developing such commitment in their people.
So you might not be as big a pizza fan as me, but it leaves the question open, what are you doing to inspire, encourage and develop your own people to build a values based world class business?
If you need help finding some of the raw talent required to grow your business please get in touch, we’d love to help you find some raving fans of your own.
In Part Two of this mini blog series I’ll take a look at the Secret world of Lego…