• A Culture of the Little Things

    Posted on October 26th, 2011 by and currently 2 commenting.

    At some point in my time at Brains on Fire I was given the responsibility of handling requests from people seeking jobs and internships. I thought it was a great opportunity, and the rules were pretty simple: respond to every single person in an inspiring way, especially when we’re telling them no.

    I didn’t realize those simple rules would create a whole lot of work when students started emailing us in the spring about summer internships.

    The first time I was in the weeds of wading through requests, I lost the heartbeat for why I was repeating something over and over that felt so inconsequential while I was doing it. I asked for a reminder, and the response I got was about the same as the one I received when I was told why we answer the phone so differently than most companies: “We want people to remember when they connect with Brains on Fire. If we ask our clients to do the work it takes to create word of mouth, we have to be willing to do it ourselves.”

    Now, that didn’t magically make 50 emails disappear, but I was amazed at how practicing the discipline over time taught me to sweat the details, and how it eventually showed me what the effect can be. Here’s an example of the type of email I started to get back:

    Good afternoon, Eric,

    First and foremost, I cannot thank you enough for responding.  The most frustrating part of this whole process is not hearing anything at all.  So thank you for your kind words and advice.

    For future reference, where on your website would I search for available positions?

    Thank you again for your response and inspiring words!  I will keep my eye on Brains of Fire :)

    I realized that the little things matter because they can really make a difference in people’s lives, and that can really make the difference in a company.

    What are the little things in your business? What is the most annoying, but potentially important task that you have to do on a regular basis? What are the little things for your employees? How can you take those small things, infuse them with vision, and remind yourself that doing them is an important part of the mission?

  • http://www.logoguru.co.uk/ Sam Anderson

    Nice appealing post, Good sort of information provided. Thanks

  • Hal

    Great article! I submitted my resume, cover & PDF Portfolio to you all a few days ago after calling about design positions offered. I love how the person I spoke with asked me relevant questions and tried to get to know me a bit more instead of just saying “oh, send that stuff to [insert name here]” (then saying bye before you have time to thank them and wish them a good day).
    Emails, or any work that you do multiple times in a row can get a little daunting — most interns can vouch for that — but thank you for having this rule. It means a lot to people with burdens of anticipated answers on their hearts.