You have been on the job for five years now. You come in every day at 8 a.m. and stay until well past closing time. You work hard, you work well, and you have never taken a sick day. So, when that better position opens up, you think you have a good chance of getting it. But, when your application comes back rejected, what do you do? You feel like your efforts are not being justly rewarded, but who can you talk to about it? Well, if you work at Costco, you can go straight to the head honcho, the man in charge, Jim Sinegal.
For as long as he has been in business, Sinegal’s managerial style has been as unique as his business model itself. Choosing to maintain an open door policy, Sinegal has striven to create a company of real people – and of equal real people at that.
His office in Issaquah, Washington is a small one with little but a second-hand desk and chair. To look at it, one would never know it is the home of one of America’s most successful businessmen. But, what makes this office even more astonishing, aside from its modest furnishings, is the fact that its door is always open. Any Costco staff member can walk right into this CEO’s office and have a chat with the millionaire. With no secretary, Sinegal even answers his own phone. “If a customer’s calling and they have a gripe, don’t you think they kind of enjoy the fact that I picked up the phone and talked to them,” he says.
Sinegal is not just a friendly man, although he may well be that too. His open door policy reflects the belief that it will foster greater managerial accountability, across his Costco stores. “If warehouse managers know that their own regional bosses have open door policies and will talk to any employees about their issues, then they are going to be a little faster to talk to the troubled employees themselves,” says Sinegal. “They don’t want the problems to come back to them through their bosses.”
Once a year, Sinegal makes a personal visit to each and every Costco warehouse. He wants his employees to feel like, at least in theory, they could have the chance to talk to the company’s CEO himself. This, he says, will make them feel like a more valued part of the Costco team. And, when he visits, he wears a name tag that reads just, “Jim.”
“We have said from the very beginning,” says Sinegal. “We’re going to be a company that’s on a first-name basis with everyone.” For Costco, that is not just a fluff statement; that is its living and working mantra.
Sinegal is no softie; do not make that mistake. He runs tough budget meetings and spares no sympathy for managers who fail to meet profit margin goals. But, soft or not, he does not want any Costco employee to ever be able to say he was not there for them.
Lesson #4: An Open Door is A Company Score
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