Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture

Chapter 44. Leading by Example

Inspired and energized by Kathryn's card, Nancy heeded Grandma's advice and added a big dose of appreciation to the soup. She made it a habit to write three to five thank-you notes every day to the employees and customers of Soup, Inc., and encouraged her leaders and managers to do the same. She also wrote thank-you notes to her husband and children for being so loving and supportive. Before long, she and her managers had written hundreds of thank-you notes, and, as a result, engagement scores continued to climb.

Yet despite all their efforts and focus on engagement, communication, training, mentoring, and appreciation, there remained some people, like Tom and Claire, who were not engaged at all. There were some people who, although not overtly negative, weren't excited about working at Soup, Inc. They were, as Grandma would say, cold (meaning disengaged), and with only 30 days left to convince the board not to sell the company, Nancy knew she had to do something about these disengaged employees. There was still one more ingredient she needed to add in order to make the soup hot.