Freedom, Inc_ - Brian M. Carney [60]
Zobrist paused to observe the stupefaction. The room was silent. “There will be no more furloughs. If we are pushed to such measures, I’ll apply them first to managers, myself included. There won’t be any managers’ lunches. We’ll either eat all together or we won’t eat!” Then Zobrist turned to the managers, who had huddled together, as if to protect one another against the clear threat to their professional ways, and continued. “How will we function in the future? I do not know. I’m sure that we will function differently but I don’t have a replacement model. We’ll learn by doing,6 being people of good faith, of common sense, and of good will.” With this last nonthreatening gesture toward the managerial rocks, Zobrist pushed ahead.
“If there is something we could inspire ourselves by it’s the functioning principles of the world’s oldest profession: prostitution! If this profession has survived thousands of years, its principles can inspire us too.”
Here Zobrist was being deliberately provocative, even by French standards. Many of the liberating leaders we met were fond of precisely this tactic—putting their listeners off guard in order to convey to them something that they otherwise would not be willing to learn. That said, his chosen provocation in this case had a very French flair. In 1983, the erotic film Emmanuelle had been showing in France continuously for a decade and had been seen by millions. Having delivered the desired shock to his audience, Zobrist continued.
“The prostitute’s first operating principle is to display herself. If she stays in her room, she won’t get new clients. So, we will display ourselves too: to our clients of course, [but also] to our prospective customers, to our families, our friends, to the mayor, to the governor, to everyone who may be useful to us.” Later, this principle would lead not only to having a sales leader for every twenty-something-member production team but to encouraging everyone to be in touch with clients and other stakeholders, including going to see them without anybody’s permission—even abroad—if an operator deemed this necessary.
“The prostitute’s second functioning principle,” Zobrist continued, “is to use makeup excessively to draw the eye to her. We’ll do the same. We’ll clean up our equipment and paint it in red, green, yellow …” This principle led FAVI to wash and paint its equipment—something not done in the early 1980s—as well as to become the first in France to introduce the Japanese “5S” method, which creates a self-sustaining culture of a neat, clean, safe, and efficient workplace.
“Her third functioning principle,” continued Zobrist, beginning to sound like The Office’s Michael Scott, “is that she specializes. If she doesn’t offer anything better than what one gets at home, nobody will visit her. We’ll do the same. We’re currently only casting brass. We’ll also machine it, assemble it, and deliver it as well as design, optimize, and test it. In sum, we’ll make more and better [products] for our clients.” According to Zobrist, this third principle served as FAVI’s corporate strategy for years. As a result, specialized products rose to 97 percent of sales, from 4 percent when he took over.
“Finally, her fourth principle is not to transmit diseases to her clients … We have three illnesses we must heal. One is being late on delivery. If we promise delivery Monday, we have to honor it. Otherwise, customers won’t believe that other, less visible things we have promised, like quality or price, will be also honored.” FAVI would go on to sport a perfect on-time delivery record for the next twenty-five years—and counting, as of this writing.
“The second illness is our pricing. How can we prove to our clients that our price is right? There is only one solution: never raise it again.” FAVI and Zobrist would keep this commitment, too, even refusing to raise prices to account for inflation. As a result, FAVI’s prices actually fell in real terms every year, year after year,