Co-Evolution

Well it turns out my boss did.

He literally would take every single person in the company out for lunch. 1:1 with the Chairman. I was gobsmacked.

As Nicole says in the video “Who runs a company AND takes EVERY SINGLE PERSON OUT FOR LUNCH?”

It was my first real job at Lang Marketing (then Chris Lang and Associates). I was 28 years old and the Chairman (Chris) said ‘come on we’re going for lunch’. I think I had been working there for 8 months or so.

Thankfully he gave me no notice so I had very little time to get nervous.

Lunch was at McDonald’s.

We sat down and I am peppered with questions about myself - not the client work. He just wanted to know how I was doing, what was going on in my life.

Every lunch ended with ‘Let me know how I can help.’

Seriously. Who does that?

Chris did that.

My first lunch with Chris was in the spring of 1989, my last in the fal of 2020 and many in between. Over 30 years of lunches.

He ended our time together per usual - ‘ Let me know how I can help.’

It may have been our last time together in person, but it wasn’t the last time we spoke as Chris had me on rotation on his ‘call list’ ending with “Let me know how I can help.”

Take a listen to this short video (4:02) for the passion and care in the voice of the staff about the kind of culture that his leadership brought.

His leadership beget all our leadership.

We modelled what we were taught and we thrived in a culture of trust, respect, innovation, creativity and laughter.

Our culture was the embodiment of humanizing work.

We absolutely worked hard.

We absolutely were goal driven and results driven.

People FIRST, process and purpose.

And we absolutely had a wicked boat load of fun along the way.

Chris passed away this past August.

I am forever grateful that my first real job taught me that humanizing work is not inconsistent with driving results.

P.S. This won’t be my last post on the impact of the culture at Lang- the learning is a gift that just keeps on giving.

If you are at all curious about the ‘how’ of building a high functioning team culture click the link in my bio to book an exploratory chat.

I can help.

Let it be easy.