Back in 1990, the appointed head administrator for the recently bankrupt Eastern Airlines, Martin Shugrue gave an all hands speech in front of employees in an attempt to rally the troops and save the company.
It was a powerful talk. So powerful, they used the filmed footage of it to make a very well-received ad campaign (created by our friends at Ogilvy), which boosted booking by 73%. A huge number, given the circumstances.
It was considered a great ad at the time. Honest, compelling, real. If only things had worked out better for Eastern, which folded permanently less than a year later.
For all its power, Shugrue’s message was actually pretty simple. To paraphrase: We know it’s a hot mess right now, but that being said, we are still a good airline, we still have lots of things to be proud of. I can’t promise miracles, but what I can promise is that for the next hundred days, every day we’re going to get a little bit better than we were yesterday. And by doing that, we’ll get people flying with us again.
The next hundred days. Sounds like a pretty good strategy, right? Because it’s an old one. Tried and true.
A good karate sensei will tell students: don’t worry about the color of your belt. Worry about being a better student today than you were yesterday. And keep doing it. Every day.
Toyota took this idea and scaled it with “kaizen.” It’s not about making the perfect car, it’s about making small, continuous positive changes. And doing it over and over again.
Transformation in continuous bite-size pieces. Far more realistic than waiting around for greatness to suddenly land in your lap.
There’s a Latin phrase for this (because of course there is): “Semper ad meliora.” “Always to the better.”
It’s optimistic, yes. But meliora isn’t an optimism you get for free. It’s one you have to earn.
There’s a line from the 1970s cartoon book, God Is Groovy that puts it well: “God helps those who help themselves’ means if you didn’t do your homework, it doesn’t do much good to pray.”
Theodore Parker, later quoted by President Obama said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” That may be true. But not if everybody just sits on their hindquarters all day, waiting for it to happen. People have to get busy.
Same reason “work hard and keep overheads low while steadily growing” is generally a better plan than “quit the shoe store, take a Greyhound to Hollywood and become a star, because I’m really, really special.”
The former is “meliorian,” the latter is “delusional.”
We love the word meliora. It may not be a word that’s used much, but unlike a lot of the pop-psychology buzzwords out there, it actually explains how the real world works.
And in our work with clients over the years, it turns out to be a key ingredient to successful cultures.
To build a great culture, nice people being enthusiastic isn’t enough. There has to be some heft to it. Some substance behind the smiles.
There has to be meliora.
