1-800-mattress--leave Off The Last 's' For Sayonara

1-800 Mattres(s) – Leave the Last ‘s’ off for “Sayonara” by Keith J. Riemer 1-800-Mattres(s), leave the last ‘s’ off for savings, was a well known and well received advertisement for the last 30 years. It was a catchy jingle that attracted millions of customers, much like the McDonald’s, Coca Cola or Burger King jingles. The message was seen in print and heard over the airwaves thousands of times over the last 30 years by millions of people. 1-800 Mattress was a successful business model based on a simple premise: offer simplicity and choice in buying a boring but basic necessity, a mattress, over the phone, have it delivered, and as a bonus have your old beat up mattress taken away. It was a model of steady growth that came to a crushing halt. The founder of the organization, Napoleon Barragan, claimed that it was a culture clash brought on by new management, along with an expansion into brick and mortar sales that caused the decline. Further, as part of its expansion into brick and mortar operations, in 2001, the company recruited seven new Vice-Presidents. However, the new V.P.’s, which included former large company executives, often clashed with the firm’s tight knit entrepreneurial culture. Mr. Barragan claimed that in the past delivery truck drivers and customer service agents would engage in discourse--conversation, if you will, and propel business decisions based on information received through their experiences with customers. The new V.P.’s, however, often challenged and rejected the input of the delivery person and customer service agent. The former C.O.O. of the company, Joe Vicens, claims that the constant battling led to lost opportunities, and also led to poor communication among the company’s management. This discord, and poor communication, according to Mr. Barragan and Mr. Vicens, resulted in a “failure to recognize that poorly located showrooms were damaging the bottom line, even as overall revenues were rising due largely to internet and phone sales.” The result of this lack of communication and conversation was that they did not know how much they were losing, and thus, made it difficult to prevent from continuing to happen.

In hindsight, the former founder acknowledged that he should have groomed internal talent for management positions and nurtured a more unified culture. From my perspective, continuing the free flowing communication and seeking common understanding would have helped unify their culture. 1-800 Mattress may have survived if they recognized the value in what they were doing and enhanced their communication even more through Conversational Leadership, a concept espoused by the Jorgensen Learning Center (JLC) as the foundation to any organization’s success. Instead, this once thriving company with free flowing conversation and free flowing communication was brought to its corporate knees when both the conversation and the communication stopped flowing. This is exemplified by the salespeople and customer service agents no longer having conversations that sought common understanding which previously supported their success; the new management team was no longer listening for understanding, which is a conversational leadership guideline. As I see it, this company shut itself off to learning how to handle the new and emerging complexity inherent in change. The conversation died, no meaningful dialogue was exchanged, and there was by their own admission, no allowance for inclusiveness or difference by the new management team. This highlights another guideline of conversational leadership--holding the space for difference. Thus, a once thriving and vibrant company was unable to sustain itself due to the unintended consequences of placing new V.P.’s who did not value conversation as a success factor. When the conversation died, so did their success. Clearly, with disregard for the continued conversation with the delivery drivers and customer service agents, they violated yet another guideline, suspending certainty. Everyone wanted continued success, yet no one knew how to sustain it. In my view, the value of the conversational leadership conversation guidelines is a paramount tool which engenders success in any organization. Understanding and relating this tale of corporate demise through the JLC lens of leadership, the new corporate management team could have averted its demise if it utilized the guidelines. There are five guidelines in all; they are : listen for understanding, speak from the heart, suspend certainty, hold the space for difference and slow down the conversation.

For more information about how Jorgensen Learning Center can assist with enhancing leadership development in your organization, visit www.GOJLC.com.