Cultureneering

Ian Fuhr

Description

'Ian taught me the valuable lesson that, without the right culture, businesses cannot effectively serve their customers.' - ANDILE KHUMALO, founder of I AM AN ENTREPRENEUR

CULTURENEERING = Building a strong business culture in a diverse workforce that delivers obsessive customer service

Are you a leader who aims to drive real growth for the people within your organisation and at the same time deliver exceptional customer service that sets you apart from your competitors?

Running a business in a racially polarised country with a melting pot of diversity, requires leaders to understand the complexity of building an inclusive culture out of a fragmented workforce. A strong culture is not only focused on chasing financial objectives, but is based on trust, equality, respect and mutual tolerance. When every employee has a true sense of belonging, despite their differences, it is possible to create a common purpose of obsessive customer service.

Cultureneering is a philosophy and framework that Ian Fuhr has spent four decades developing, and which he perfected while building the Sorbet Group, Africa’s largest beauty salon chain. This book takes the reader on a journey of personal development and unpacks the unbreakable link between culture and service. It reveals the tools required to build a company culture that is good for its people, its customers and, ultimately, for sustainable growth.

Leaders need to embrace this culture-driven approach to business leadership as it promises to play an important role in the overall transformation of our country’s workforce.

Sujets

• Gestion et management
• General officer
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Date de parution: 24 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781770107366
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Cultureneering
Culture, Diversity and Customer Service

Ian Fuhr
MACMILLAN


First published in 2021
by Pan Macmillan South Africa
Private Bag X19
Northlands
Johannesburg
2116
www.panmacmillan.co.za
ISBN 978-1-77010-735-9
e-ISBN 978-1-77010-736-6
© 2021 Ian Fuhr
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Editing by Jane Bowman
Proofreading by Claire Heckrath
Design and typesetting by Nyx Design
Cover by publicide


Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s note
Introduction: A monument to Cultureneering
1 The socio-political context: The soil in which we lay the foundation of our culture
2 The foundation: Purpose and values
3 Pillar 1: Self-development – The journey to exceptional
4 Pillar 2: Culture-Driven Leadership – The moralauthority to lead
5 Pillar 3: Community building – Creating a place of safety and belonging
6 The four phases of community building
7 The ceiling: A culture of common purpose and alignment
8 Confessions of a white entrepreneur
9 Obsessive customer service
10 Driving the Cultureneering programme
11 Culture and service during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
12 Cultureneering in summary
13 A cry for hope
Case study: Cultureneering in action
References

Acknowledgements
I owe huge gratitude and appreciation to Nadine von Moltke-Todd for the way she guided me throughout the writing journey. Nadine understands the Cultureneering concept so well that it is almost like she lives inside my mind. Her contribution has been significant and without it I do not believe the book would have materialised the way it has.
Andrea Nattrass and Terry Morris of Pan Macmillan publishers who have published all three of my books and continue to show faith and guidance.
Jane Bowman who edited the book on behalf of Pan Macmillan. Jane showed an uncanny ability to identify important nuances and ensure the smooth flow of the book.
My wife, Sandy. My constant pillar of love and support who gave me the time and space to write this book and whose opinion I truly value.
My son, Brent, who co-founded the Hatch Institute with me and has done a great job of developing and marketing the business.
My daughters, Jade and Courtney, who are an endless source of light and inspiration.
My stepchildren, Brandon and Caileigh Roy, who have become an important part of my world.
Lee-Ann Shepherd, who is a devoted Hatch coach and manages my working life on a daily basis.
Kerry Simpson of Mantis Communications, an exceptional public relations person who has amassed loads of media coverage for the Hatch Institute.
Dylan and Justin McLaren of Content Merchants, our digital marketing company. Two highly enthusiastic brothers who have brought passion to the Hatch community.
Reg and Chantal Lascaris, my close friends who so graciously allowed me to write the majority of this book at their beautiful farmhouse at the Boekenhoutskloof wine farm in Franschhoek in the Western Cape.
Rob Segal and Lance Williams of Lionel Isaacs Insurance Brokers who were the first clients to recognise the potential of Cultureneering and gave me the opportunity to practice it in their company.
And finally, to all my clients who have subsequently driven the Cultureneering framework in their companies and have created a community of Cultureneers.

Author’s note
‘Sit down for goodness’ sake,’ my wife Sandy, pleaded. ‘You’ve been pacing up and down since early this morning. You only left yesterday. Take a break. Relax. Enjoy your freedom.’
It was 1 February 2019. Sandy had been working from home for some time and the thought of me sitting at the other side of our shared workplace was clearly a little disturbing, especially if I was going to be acting like a singer without a song.
I had officially exited the Sorbet Group, a company that I had founded fifteen years earlier, the day before. I had sold the business to Long4Life, a listed company, towards the end of 2017 and had just completed my one-year contract as part of the sale agreement. Waking up that morning with nowhere to go was a bizarre concept to me. Thoughts of retirement ran fleetingly through my mind and I joked with Sandy about retiring for an afternoon nap. In reality, the seeds of my next entrepreneurial venture were already churning through my Sorbet-free head.
The long shadow of a true purpose
During the following weeks and months almost everyone I spoke to asked if I was sad to leave Sorbet. ‘How does it feel to give up your baby?’ was the most common question. My answer surprised some people. I had no feelings of loss or separation anxiety. In fact, my uncertain future excited me. Throughout my lifelong entrepreneurial journey, I have always been more stimulated by starting new businesses than by running them once they are fully established. By the time I left Sorbet, the combined turnover of the group’s 225 franchised outlets was over R1 billion, and I was well aware that my strengths did not lie in running such a large machine. For over 40 years, my passion has been focused on people and culture so when I left Sorbet it was the people that I missed, not the business or the brand.
Sandy was right though. I couldn’t just pace my days away. I needed a plan. And I was clearly ready for something new.
There are a multitude of quotes and inspirational sayings around endings and new beginnings, but instead of focusing on the end of my Sorbet journey, my thoughts kept circling back to its beginnings, in 2004.
There’s a pretty standard formula to most entrepreneurial stories, even if the details differ: The entrepreneur identifies a business opportunity, works 24/7 to get it off the ground, and, if this is achieved, the next step is to build a culture that will help the company achieve its ultimate growth objectives.
Sorbet did not follow this formula. Over the previous 28 years, through my various entrepreneurial ventures, I developed what I believed was the framework for a successful business culture. I was convinced that despite the complexity of the South African socio-political landscape, if you could create a working environment that was based on a sense of belonging and a common purpose of obsessive customer service, you had the recipe for a successful business. And it didn’t matter what industry that business was in or which customers it served.
By 2004, I had a culture blueprint that was ready for a business opportunity. By sheer chance, I found that opportunity in the beauty industry and I set about instilling my culture into the Sorbet chain of beauty salons. Over the next fifteen years, Sorbet grew into the largest beauty salon chain in Africa. In an industry where the competition was plentiful, it became clear that other industry players could copy our look and feel, our marketing, our pricing and even our service menu, but there was one thing they could never copy – our culture of service. We called it the Soul of Sorbet. It was the invisible attitude with which our staff delivered their services, and it became our single biggest competitive advantage.
Within days of leaving Sorbet, I had already ‘hatched’ the seeds of a new business idea. I had spent fifteen years proving that my culture blueprint worked, and I was ready to share it with other entrepreneurs and business leaders. I was going to start a new coaching and consulting business and I was going to name it the Hatch Institute.
Coaching and consulting were not totally new to me. In 1991, I started a race relations consultancy called Labour Link. It was aimed at helping large companies in South Africa navigate the hugely sensitive matter of racism in the workplace. It was clear to me at the time that racial polarisation was the biggest challenge facing South African businesses and helping them to prepare for the 1994 transformation to democracy became the focus of my work. The next seven years were hugely challenging, but highly stimulating and rewarding.
Working with companies like Lonrho Mining, Nedbank and Murray & Roberts, amongst others, opened my eyes to the corporate world and taught me invaluable lessons about the massive chasm between the culture of a large organisation and the culture of an entrepreneurial start-up. In 2019, nearly 30 years later, South Africa ’ s business culture was still plagued by racial polarisation and its impact on productivity and service. For me, it felt like unfinished business. I was ready to pick up where I had left off in 1997.
Most importantly, I now had the advantage of having proved my culture blueprint in the highly successful Sorbet business. Unlike many coaches and consultants who base their knowledge on academic theory, I had the benefit of actual practice. In the absence of a university degree and any other academic qualifications, I was able to draw on the wisdom of experience and I was now ready to share that wisdom.
I ran the idea past Sandy and my children, Brent, Jade and Courtney, all three of whom had played vital roles in building the Sorbet business with me and who had left the business at more or less the same time as I had. They were all supportive.
Jade was developing her own entrepreneurial concept for a new range of shoes for kids, Courtney had emigrated to the UK and was working in the beauty industry in London, and Brent was helping his wife, Aimee, launch a new events business called