One of the most common questions I’ve heard in the past couple of years is, “How can you be both a President/CEO of a fast-growing company and an author/speaker at the same time?”  Well, first of all, whether you’re a candidate running for President, an athlete training for the Ironman, or a mother who’s birthing a baby, to an outsider, it can often look as if you are under significant duress when you’re pursuing your calling.  Yet, those who are called by what they do have a high pain threshold and couldn’t imagine living their life in any different manner, as there’s a depth of internal inspiration that comes from pursuing their calling.  The reality is that some of these high functioning states of being are not necessarily sustainable over the long haul, and I recognize that I can’t juggle these two demanding roles forever.  I feel very fortunate that in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to elevate a 14-year veteran of Joie de Vivre, Ingrid Summerfield, into the President’s role.  This is good for her, the company, and my desire to continue to spend time writing and speaking beyond the fifty hours per week I put into my role as CEO.

Since I am only one man and want to get the PEAK message and principles out into world, I spent the last six months developing and testing corporate seminars with my colleague, Sue Funkhouser (who is an organizational development specialist and former VP at Ogilvy & Mather).  This fall, we conducted three beta executive seminars for PEAK with a wide variety of companies represented at each.  These companies ran the gamut from large organizations like Merrill Lynch, Kaiser Permanente, and Adobe Systems, to start-ups, non-profits, and mid-sized companies that were looking to incorporate the principles of PEAK into their business model.  One of the seminars focused on the employee experience, one on the customer experience, and the final one focused on how to create a PEAK-performing organization by addressing the higher needs of all three key stakeholders: the employee, the customer, and the investor.

Someone recently asked me, “What are the 5 most resonant insights that came out of these beta seminars?”  Well, one that was particularly fascinating to me is that a stalwart financial giant could share a table with an up and coming sex toy retailer and find commonality in ways to create customer peak experiences.  There were more similarities between these various organizations than one might guess and, clearly, at the heart of each is the idea that each of us - whether we’re in the role of employee, customer, investor, boss, vendor, donor, community member or whatever - has a Hierarchy of Needs that can be properly characterized by the progression from Survival needs (where most of us are currently focused) to Success needs to Transformation needs.  And, those organizations that are able to move their constituencies up that Transformation Pyramid clearly have the greatest potential for differentiating themselves from their competitors and creating deep loyalty within their constituencies.  But, beyond that foundational principle, I would outline the following 5 most valuable insights that participants took from these seminars:
Culture, when nurtured and leveraged by focusing on higher needs, acts as a key performance driver for any organization and leads to long-term, sustained profitability and market positioning.
Great organizations find ways to move their employees up that Job/Career/Calling pyramid such that their employees are more intrinsically motivated by what they do or what the organization does (it gives them Meaning) as opposed to externally motivated by the Compensation package or Recognition.
Customers typically become evangelists when a company gives them a transformational experience that has one or more of the following four characteristics:
·         it helped them meet their highest goals in a new way;
·         it gave them the ability to truly express themselves in a self-actualized kind of way;
·         it helped them feel like they were part of a bigger cause; and/or
·         it offered them something of real value they hadn’t even imagined.
An “investor” can be defined as anyone who invests time or money in a company or in an employee in the hope of receiving some kind of return.  Investors who feel they have an engaged and collaborative relationship with an organization are more confident and patient (and less likely to jump ship during difficult times) because they see the value of the long-term relationship.
Business has a tendency toward the tangible, but the PEAK principles are very focused on the intangibles at the top of the employee, customer, and investor pyramids.  So, it is essential to look for ways to measure the level of inspiration and engagement that an employee feels, the enthusiasm and evangelism that comes from a self-actualized customer, or the sense of pride of ownership or legacy that an investor feels when they’re putting their wallet where their heart is.  The good news is that business schools, consultants, and authors are evolving how these intangibles can be measured and benchmarked.
Some of my greatest pride during these beta seminars was seeing how these various companies made this material real for them.  One set of participants realized that they wanted to be transformational leaders, but that they were in a transactional industry.  But, before they got depressed, I encouraged them to look at how Goldman-Sachs, a PEAK-performing company, transcended the investment banking industry.  Take a look at the Musing on my website from last spring where I compared Goldman with Bear-Stearns.  Another company acknowledged that there were cultural and generational differences for employees in their company which meant that what created “Meaning” or “Recognition” for one employee could be very different than for another.  And, just as Prius and Whole Foods Market have come to realize that they have various customer market segments with different “unrecognized needs” at the top of the pyramid, one retailer that attended the seminar realized they needed to create three different customer pyramids - one for each of their three biggest types of customers.  One of our savvier participants realized that there’s almost a leap that needs to be made from the second level to the top level of each pyramid.  In other words, moving from Success to Transformation is where the real magic happens so any company that can create the conditions that allows that magic to occur is going to be a transformative organization.  And, one consistent learning that all participants had is that gravity takes its toll on these pyramids as there’s a certain fluidity to how humans move up and down the Hierarchy of Needs, no matter whether their role is as an employee, customer, or investor.

Now, we’re moving forward to revise these all-day seminars so that they can be applied to organizations who’ve asked us to come in and help them apply the principles of PEAK.  We will be launching PEAK seminars toward the end of this winter and, on occasion, will once again do a multiple-company seminar as we did with these beta tests this fall.  If you have some interest in learning more about this or if you know an individual or organization that has expressed some intrigue into how they can live the principles of PEAK, please feel free to email me or Sue (sue@pinwheelperformance.com).

The most poignant conversations I had at these seminars related to how PEAK can help any organization deal with the natural fear that arises during economic turmoil.  A recession breeds fear and fear drives employees, customers, and investors to the bottom of the pyramid.  That is why this is such a topical and valuable model right now.  I learned so much during the last downturn and saw that managing toward the higher needs is what helped JDV grow from a $70 million company (annual revenues) that was facing extinction to being a $250 million company just a few years later.  There’s no doubt that this economy is once again testing us and all of you, but having a common language within your organization that helps your employees and executives focus on what can differentiate you will help assure that your company and culture can thrive even amidst these external challenges.

Keep checking in with my Musings on www.chipconley.com as I’ll continue to spout what I’m learning along the way.