Recently I heard a story on the How to Do Everything podcast that I thoroughly enjoyed. The hosts of the show have a funny award they present occasionally to businesses and people for having unique or interesting restrooms. On this particular episode, they interviewed a convenience store manager about his restrooms. The unique quality?

Cleanliness.

The restrooms were cleaned numerous times a day enthusiastically and completely. It might sound like such a simple thing, but if you’ve ever experienced a restroom in need of some cleanliness, you know how special this small touch can make customers feel.

The thing that struck me was the intense pride in the voice of the manager. He was excited about providing a healthy and hospitable location to his customers, whether it be friendly service at the counter or a fanatically clean restroom.

Making the transition

That leads me to the topic for today. In the past few years that I’ve worked at my current employer, I have made numerous attempts to qualify and quantify a characteristic that influences the workplace: pride.

The majority of our staff are incredibly proud to work at Pinnacle, but I can’t figure out the exact root cause.

• Maybe it’s because of the leadership team.
• Maybe it’s because we’re serving the military through our products/services.
• Maybe it’s because we’re performing solid, ethical work.

Whatever the case, it’s evident that they are incredibly proud to say they work here. That comes in handy numerous ways. I tell every new hire that we are too small to have a public relations/marketing team, so each person has to be trusted to represent us well in whatever they pursue at work or at home. When I meet an employee’s spouse or family for the first time, one of the first reactions is how much they appreciate the work environment, because that contributes to our employees being happier at home.

This video I shot several years ago captures this conversation well. It focuses on how each person should look to tie their daily work into the ultimate goals of the organization and how that can impact the business in a far greater way than if each person is unable to understand the bigger picture.

What about you?

Let’s look at two key questions to wrap up for today.

1. Are your people proud of what they do and where they work? 
2. Do each and every one of your people understand where they tie into the business’ overall goals and direction?

If you can’t answer “yes” to both of those, then it sounds like you have some homework to do. :-)