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HAVE THE NICEST PEOPLE
A recruitment manager told me once, “Our graduate applicants think that what employers want is someone who’s ambitious, full of initiative and willing to take on a lot of responsibility. What we really want are people who will fit in with the team, make the tea when it’s their turn and get on with what we ask them to do.” Some companies have realised how important it’s to employ pleasant people. Others persist in believing that they need the hardest, meanest most ambitious staff members to be successful. The Harvard Business Review wrote about how one person can destroy a company’s positive culture. They called this person “the corporate ass-hole” and recommended that no matter how hardworking or financially successful this person is, they should be removed from the business, or sent for behavioural training to help them fit in. Their research showed that although the bullies had short-term success, long-term they would upset so many clients and colleagues that it would damage the business. Lush’s founder, Mark Constantine, recruits people only if he likes the idea of spending a two hour train journey with them. He regularly travels from Poole, Dorset, to London and back. He would picture himself travelling with a potential candidate along this route. If he can’t bear the thought of it, he would recruit someone else no matter how good this person looks on paper.
The idea One company that takes the pleasantness of its staff seriously is
42 • 100 GREAT BRANDING IDEAS
100 Great Branding Ideas 14dec.indd 42
12/14/11 11:14 AM
