Archives / April 2009

Wawa is a much-loved chain of friendly, well-run convenience stores on the east coast. They're particularly well known for their coffee... less known is the story of their first cup:

Russo was general manager of the Aston Township store, the second Wawa, 35 years ago, and one day he brought in a 30-cup percolator to make coffee for the staff. A customer noticed. "One gentleman asked if I would sell him a cup," Russo said. "I put the money in the cash register."

This from a Philadelphia Inquirer profile of Wawa. Nice case study of how a customer-centric business began, grew, and changed along the way.

In tough times, it becomes even more apparent who's sticking to their values... and extra-important to be among those people.

If you have a few minutes to get inspired, I'd point you to videos of two such leaders: Bridget Duffy, chief experience officer of the Cleveland Clinic; and Danny Meyer, famed New York restaurateur and author.

See the connection? One improves hospitals, one advocates hospitality. Both have the same basic, simple, powerful message: have empathy. Take care of the other. Be hospitable.

That message came through loud and clear when I read Danny Meyer's spring newsletter this week. I'm happy to share part of it below.

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Hospitality = Hope, which is, of course, the antidote to fear.

Recessions thrive on fear, glumness, and "dismality." In contrast, the goods we sell and the value we offer are often felt by our guests as hope. Our idea of an effective "stimulus package" is simply to send people back into the world feeling better when they leave us than when they first arrived. Serving dependably delicious food and drink are key ways to accomplish that, but so too are the hug that comes with eye contact, a smile, and the knowledge that someone is happy to see you. ...

The seasons don't read the business section.

Those pea shoots, spinach leaves, strawberries, and rhubarb stalks have no idea what's going on in the economic world around them. They taste just as good when the stock market is down as when it's up. They grow in response to the revolution of the earth, not the evolution of the news cycle. It's an act of faith in the power of seasons to pull us forward, up and out of our economic doldrums to enjoy the delicious bounty of the earth. And the farmer who grew them will feel better too if you do!

Life is short. No recession warrants wasting precious time.

We only get one crack at 2009 - in fact only one crack at the day on which you are reading this. No pundit has yet said we should stop living. ... While the rest of the world is retrenching, it's an especially good time to play offense.

Unless you believe that this recession - unlike all that preceded it - will be interminable; then now is the time to look for those opportunities that a recession uniquely presents. Become a regular at your favorite restaurant. Renew your lease - on your terms. See a play and buy really good orchestra seats - perhaps at a discount. Renegotiate your monthly parking fee. Give yourself the gift of a day at a museum you've been wanting to visit. Drink a special bottle of wine from your own cellar. What were you waiting for, anyway?

- Danny Meyer

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Used with permission from the Union Square Cafe newsletter, spring 2009.

Danny Meyer is founder of the Union Square Hospitality Group and author of Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which I highly recommend.

Everyone seems to be building community these days, or at least saying they are. Look at the buzz around Facebook and Twitter. Or consider museums - I've seen multiple recent exhibits of photos by visitors. How about politics? The leader of the free world is a community organizer. Or retail and travel - especially online, full of community features. Journalism - newspapers declining, locally-oriented sites rising. And so on.

How do we bring together different people, ideas, cultures, values, into a cohesive whole?

Off the top of my mind I have seven answers, surely an incomplete list - but here are some ways to conceive of joining disparate parts.

1. Solar System: A whirling ballet of major and minor parts, each with its own well-defined station and role. But everything is dependent on the one supreme central figure holding it all together. (See also, the atom - though electrons are less easily tracked :)

2. Crack the Whip: A common children's game in which players run or skate in a line, each player holding on to the one in front of them. The leader makes the decisions of when and where to turn, while everyone behind scrambles to keep up. Notably, the further back one is, the harder it is to keep up, eventually throwing the last in line out of the group entirely.

3. Birds on a wire: I couldn't resist this one - birds twittering on a phone line. They sit together "online" and each have their say, twittering their individual thoughts off into the ether. Sometimes there are interesting patterns as they fly off into a clump, a V, a flock - but mainly it's each bird to itself.

4. Melting pot: An American ideal - welcoming diversity, bringing in many different voices. But we often forget that the melting pot precedes the mold, which shapes everything into a uniform mass with a predetermined shape - much like an ice tray.

5. LEGOs: Different parts fit in different places, and they're interchangeable to some extent. Independence is the pro and con: each piece retains its shape but has no connection to any part it's not immediately adjoining.

6. Salad: Lots of pieces chopped up and tossed together, intended to create one delicious concoction. Not exactly a melting pot, as pieces retain their identities - but neither are the pieces exactly joined together in any way, except that they're in the same bowl together. (Some people have said that America is more of a tossed salad than a melting pot.)

7. Gel: My favorite. Can be hard to describe exactly what it is and what it does, but that's its strength. Parts are added together without losing their identities, but the whole can take on different forms (think of a jello mold). Can be used to hold a shape (hair gel), not hold a shape (dissolving toothpaste gel), adapt to pressure (gel pen handles) or protect from pressure (gel shoe inserts). Gel is both formed and formless, both strong and weak, depending on the situation.

Which model describes a group you're in? Which models did I miss?

P.S. Yes, I really did name the Gel conference for some of those reasons I write about above. You should be there with us (this month!) at Gel 2009...

See also:

• Classic book on the process of community-building: The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace by M. Scott Peck

• Together and Apart: A Memoir of the Religious Life and Vessel of Peace, two books with lots to say about community-building, written by past Gel speaker Sister ES (watch her video)

• All Gel videos tagged "community"

Matt Haughey describes how social media really works: "instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products ... and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need 'social media marketing' after all."

Good experience wins out again. (But then I'm biased.) Nice work, Matt.