If you own a business, and you overheard someone talking about your company, what words would you want to hear? I am guessing you would want people to say, “Nice play to work” or “Great customer service”, etc. What if someone said, “The working environment feels very corporate”. Such a comment probably would not excite you. The “corporate feel” doesn’t sell like it used to.
For nearly 50 years I have been a loyal follower of a local restaurant chain in Chicago. These restaurants were special places with a lively staff that knew how to have fun and make the dining experience special for you.
In the past few years, I have noticed these restaurants lose their luster. Orders get messed up, people stopped smiling, and things just weren’t the same. Three weeks ago my family and I had such a bad experience that we decided to end our 49-year old tradition. Before I made my final decision, I called customer service and told them of my experience. They promised to get back to me. They did not. It was time to move on. I wish I could say the incident three weeks ago was an isolated incident. It wasn’t. We’ve had several sub-par visits in the past two years. Last week I was relating this story to a stock broker, and he commented, “Oh yeah, that company was sold in 2014 and is now publicly traded.” The lively team spirit this chain of restaurants had built had died a slow death. They now had the “corporate feel”. Do you work for a large corporatation? What can you do to make sure your team has a “caring feel” versus a “corporate” one?
