What happens when Corporate comes to town? Here’s an idea to consider. What if your teams were excited to see them?

Wait…what?

One of our VP’s today called me in to her office to show me the “best present she’s ever gotten!!” (A direct quote and I honestly don’t think I added enough exclamation points to the sentence though, she was really excited.) Intrigued, I followed her to her office. She had received several thank you cards, each with several heartfelt messages from her teams, and a beautiful hand-painted jewelry box.

Two weeks ago, she had spent time with some of our teams in Texas. After her visit, each team got together and wrote her thank you cards and as a whole sent her the gift.

This got me to thinking, how many teams actually THANK you when Corporate comes to town? And would they even want to? Let’s be honest, in my experience it’s always, “Oh no! My VP/Regional/Corporate team is coming to town. AAAHHH!” (Maybe some gnashing of teeth and rending of clothing if they’re really dramatic.) It’s stressful, an inconvenience with a little dash of fear tossed in when Corporate comes to town.

But in this case, it was clear that she was there to help mentor the teams. This all goes back to my previous blog post about serving our teams and our corporate culture. Our company’s core values are Proceed with Integrity  |  Value People  |  Embrace Opportunities  |  Pursue Excellence  |  Do Good as We Do Well.

So sticking to our company's values, she went there, valued her teams and encouraged them to pursue excellence. 

Whether you’re an onsite associate, a Regional, a VP or someone else from Corporate, how do you feel after a visit? Are you there to help and mentor? Or are you there to point out errors? Corporate coming to town can be a positive thing or a negative thing. The only difference is what we are there for.