Lessons from a Costco Warehouse Manager, Part 2

Written by Shala Hainer Friday, December 09 2011

Snapshot: Dianne Crampton, president TIGERS Success Series
For more than 20 years, Dianne Crampton has helped companies reach their next levels of success by changing work environments. The founder and president of TIGERS Success Series, Crampton shares her secret to creating motivated and enthusiastic employees through focusing on six values: trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk, and success.

Her system isn't just for the corporate world. She and her team have been called upon by nonprofits, church groups, and families who need help changing their dynamics.

Internationally recognized, her work with Native Americans was featured at a United Nations conference, and her company received honorable mention in Inc. magazine’s entrepreneurial awards.

Crampton lives in Bend, Ore., where she enjoys organic gardening and hiking with her husband, Bill.

Womenetics: What was the most memorable group you've worked with, and why?
Dianne Crampton: Over the past 25 years, I've felt so humbled by the terrific organizations I've had the opportunity to serve. But when it comes to women and the excellence of women in the workplace, I've had a couple of great opportunities with one company. I helped Costco with their merger with Price Club. In that, I had the great pleasure of working not only at the corporate level, but also in the individual warehouses. I had the great opportunity to work with the first female warehouse manager for Costco. This is the first time a woman had been elevated to this very responsible position with a multimillion-dollar operations budget.

In this unique situation, she was given powerful managers from all over the Pacific Northwest to work with her at this warehouse. There was a tug of war – she had to prove herself. There were power struggles. But we went into her staff before the warehouse even opened. This was a warehouse in a very small community that was acting against what they considered a big-box store coming into their community to shut down all these little local businesses.

Joan, being a local leader, was able to grasp the idea of TIGERS – building trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk, and success not only internally but also externally through her vendors and her suppliers as well as the community itself. She was able to build a team dynamic from the get-go that, literally, when that warehouse opened, created what I call a corporate whiplash effect. Necks were turned so fast in her direction because she achieved such a high level of initial success in a small, little community.

They wanted to know why she was successful. She was successful because we were able to break down the notion of the very powerful male managers, about the way to do it in LA, the way to run operations in Seattle, the way to run operations in Oregon, to what we developed as Joan's warehouse’s way of operating. The team came together very quickly. They knew exactly what they would be measuring. They hit every one of those measurements way ahead of schedule. They exceeded their expectations and everyone's expectations. Joan soared to star level in that company very quickly. To support the first female warehouse manager for a multinational corporation that received such success was a joy.

Yes, she was a talented woman, and she had a lot of antagonism coming at her until the team jelled. And then there was no stopping them. They were so successful. I just love telling that story because she's a powerhouse of a strategist, but also a very caring and nurturing leader. We were able to show that this was not a disadvantage. It was most definitely an advantage for her.

Womenetics: What is the most rewarding aspect of your business?
Crampton: I think for me, personally, is when I see chaos correct itself very, very quickly – the pride that comes from employees, when they really love the new environment they have co-created with their leaders, when they love their work because of that. They understand how what they do makes a difference, and, as a result, a lot of anger, chaos, bickering just settles down so quickly. Managers can actually do their jobs rather than put out fires with employees who could not imagine working anywhere else. That just gives me so much joy.

Womenetics: How do you market your products? Do you incorporate social media?
Crampton: Yes, we do incorporate social media. We're active on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as we have blogs. We blog onto other people's blogs, and we write blogs for other people. We also use the three cornerstones of our product funnels, which include press releases and public relations, advertising, and writing about the benefits of our products that we deliver in our own newsletters and blogs. We're duct-tape guerilla marketers in that we make sure we are getting our information out there, and, of course, there’s a lot of word of mouth that comes from our customers.

We also revenue-share with people who are referring our business to others. I think this is important because it gives back to our community and empowers people who might be out of work right now, who recommend our product to others. Those recommendations – in a sale, we reward them handsomely for that referral. We believe it's very important to build a team not only within companies and our own company, but also with people who believe in our model. We share our riches with those who recommend and refer us.

We also use YouTube and webinars and other opportunities like that so that a person who wants to learn more can come to our website at corevalues.com and obtain a wealth of information for free. People are forever having a conversation with us. If that is what they need to do to know whether our company is a good fit for them, we provide resources for people to learn about us. We think that's important to the product funnel as well.

Womenetics: What is the secret to bringing employees around to caring about their company's welfare?
Crampton: It's all about the work environment and how people treat one another on a daily basis and whether or not they are empowered to remove the barriers to their work successfully. Oftentimes leaders who are not working with employees on a daily basis will think they have a good idea for a new goal, not realizing the intricacies of an employee's job life and their procedures, which often produce barriers.

If employees run into this barrier and it just doesn't make sense when it comes to accomplishing the goal, they need to have an avenue where they can discuss this barrier with their supervisor or leader. They need to be able to explain it without sounding like they are whining or complaining or challenging their leader and, as a result, get help in removing that barrier so that they can scream forward toward achieving their goals with high levels of success. Ultimately, employees do want to be successful. If work relationships and work environment and work procedures are frustrating the opportunity to achieve goals, their morale and engagement will plummet. I believe the secret to bringing employees around to caring about their company is to find out what is frustrating them and engage them in the solution. When that happens, employees will be more accountable for the outcome.

This is extremely important for organizations with low engagement, with the fear that they are going to lose their managers, which is a realistic fear nowadays. As soon as new opportunities come up, I think it's something like 60 to 70 percent of U.S. managers have indicated they will be looking for new work, which is devastating for companies. So it's absolutely important now to deploy the employees' knowledge of how to remove bottlenecks to the success of their work, cross-training them, so that they have more job interest and opportunity and engage them and empower them to build a work environment they can thrive in. I often say to leaders who are trying to wonder what they should do to correct situations to not wonder, but to go out and talk to employees because they will share if they trust that the sharing won't result in repercussions.

Womenetics: What is the most important thing you teach the leadership in the companies you work with, and why is it important?
Crampton: Actually, there are two things I think are extremely important. The first is to walk the talk. Don't say one thing and do another. Be trustworthy. And the second thing is to listen to your employees. The reason this is important is because when you walk the talk, you become trustworthy, and your employees will open up to you. If you are listening to employees rather than telling them what to do or jumping to conclusions in fixing their problems, you will engage people in, No. 1, removing barriers from their success, but also teaching and empowering them to solve problems. Thus, as leaders, you grow the company. That's really what you should be doing.

Womenetics: What has been your biggest challenge as you've built your business?
Crampton: Good funding – being able to get funding when I am expanding my company. I, like many women business owners, have capitalized my business on credit cards and personal savings. So it is funding. Being able to get that funding, and sometimes the mentoring to really build and continue building an organization when it's time to do so, even in down economies like we have now.

Womenetics: Can any company implement the TIGERS model successfully or are some not a good fit?
Crampton: I think that any company can become more trustworthy, more cooperative, more genuine, more empathic, can do appropriate risk taking and become successful. If leadership is not behind it, a manager can build her own unit to demonstrate those behaviors and those values, but the culture itself will be frustrating. I have seen TIGERS work very well in divisions of companies that would be considered very top-down, commanding control, non-empathetic, organizations.

Any group of people can be trustworthy, genuine, empathetic, appropriate risk takers, and learn from their mistakes and be extremely successful. When it comes to organizations, I have seen the TIGERS model correct family dynamics. I've seen it correct nonprofit boards of directors. I've seen it correct staffing in schools at the school administration and building level. I've also seen it grow amazing leadership teams in schools that have tackled problems like disengaged students who are isolated and a little bit scary and bring them into the fold so that we don't see things like Columbine and other horrific and life-threatening situations from students who are so disenfranchised that they quit caring.

Womenetics: You were a single mother when you first started your business. What advice would you give to other mothers wanting to become entrepreneurs?
Crampton: Do it! I started very small. I was able to do the level of work I could do and perfect my work one step at a time. For every entrepreneur, building the business is a one-step-at-a-time process. In fact, in one situation, my day care had completely fallen apart, and I had to bring my daughter with me to a facilitation. I gave her a corner of the board and some marking pens, and she mimicked everything I did. The male bankers in the room, their eyebrows lifted when they saw how well mannered my daughter was in the process. Soon, she just became part of the operation.

I say do it! Don't be intimidated by the fact that because you have a family that you can't be an entrepreneur because you can. It's all about the relationships you build and the community you build that supports you that is trustworthy, interdependent, genuine, very empathetic, able to learn from mistakes. I'd say do it. Absolutely do it, and find those mentors who you can ask questions of, build your community, build your support system, just like you would build your business, just like a real Tigress. There's nothing stopping you – go for it.

Read Part 1 of this two-part series.

Based near Atlanta, Shala Hainer has been writing and copyediting since 1995. Beginning her career at newspapers such as the Marietta Daily Journal and the Atlanta Business Chronicle, she most recently wrote and edited articles for several nonprofit organizations before purchasing a flower shop in 2006. She earned a bachelor’s in communications from Jacksonville State University.