GreatRidge Station

I went out for lunch the other day to a sit-down restaurant. A table away from me, there was a family who were obviously immigrants. As the dad helped his young son with the Ketchup/Catsup (and struggled to get it out of the bottle and onto the plate), I realized that we take a lot of cultural things for granted.

Everyone knows, for instance, that the way to get Heinz Ketchup (that’s the proper Heinz spelling) out of the bottle is to hold the bottle horizontally and gently rap on the 57s that are molded into the glass around the neck. This simple action causes the Ketchup to flow from the bottle with no trouble at all.

So, how do I know that? And why didn’t the dad in question know that. Cultural memory. I’ve always known this to be true, probably because of an advertisement from the 1940s or before. I’ve never heard Heinz mention this in their advertising, but I’ve hear it from my parents, aunts, uncles, and friends. It suddenly occurred to me: Immigrants don’t know this.

Cultures have a lot of shared knowledge that is, in general, taken for granted. Seriously, who would ever know, or guess, that the raised 57s on a bottle of Ketchup serve that very practical purpose. We know, for example, that on standard light switches, down is off and up is on–but not so in some cultures around the world. I learned that through experience, and asking the right questions.

Consider your organization, then, and think about the things that long-term employees know and take for granted. This is the tacit knowledge that must become expressed knowledge. This takes effort, because it’s never easy to unearth the things that you just know.

Incidentally, this is the quandary that Circuit City (see Yesterday’s Post) put itself in. They fired the people who knew the purpose of the 57s on the corporate ketchup bottles.

As leaders, unless we do the hard work of understanding the things that make our organization work, we are in danger of losing important practices that may seem minor, but are actually very helpful. Next time you have french fries, think about that Ketchup before you dip. And think about that before you lay off 3400 wellsprings of knowledge.

A couple of weeks back, Circuit City announced that 3400 employees were being cut simply because the employees earned “more than the market based salary for their role.”

Allow me to translate: Circuit City is cutting long-term employees who have been loyal, and who have performed well enough to merit raises in the past. They also liked working at the firm well enough to stay around and make a significant personal investment in the company’s well-being.
This falls under the category of “you reap what you sow.” Organizations that cull such people from their ranks ultimately suffer for it. I believe it was Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors who encouraged his leaders who hire people who were bettet and smarter that they were, in order to create a company of giants, noting that if managers only hire people who are not a threat to them, or are not as smart as they are, you end up with a company full of runts. Those are not his exact words, but the sense of it is clear.

Circuit City has chosen a path that will ultimately lead to its destruction. A company that sells technology and innovation must have people who are innovative, clever, and (sorry) smarter that the current leaders Circuit City has in place.

Any company that creates such an obvious disincentive to excellence and long-term commitment seals its own fate. Firms that make this kind of move find out soon enough that they have lost not only the positive influence of such people on the organizational culture, but also the knowledge and expertise that these people carried out the door with them. It’s sad, because here is a company with great potential. And a bullet hole in its own foot.

Cool. I earned a mention in another blog.

The truth is, I blog mostly for me, and this is generally an act of shameless anonymity–well, at least beyond the dozen-or-so people who have confessed to reading my stuff. This may just be my 15K (or so) of fame, to paraphrase Andy Warhol.

It all started when I sent a comment to the daughter of a gentleman for whom I have great respect. This blogger lifted my comment, credited me, and used it as fodder for her comments.

Long story, but you’ll find the posting in question at the bottom of the page at the Iambic Admonit archive for January.

This is a bit of an honor for me, since Rosie Perera wrote an article that I linked from my GreenSheet page, and recently assigned to one of my classes. Thanks for the affirmation, Ms. Perera.