Stan Slap is “the guy” who wrote the book”Bury My Heart at Conference Room B”. It recently made the New York Time’s best seller list and what’s cool about that is the Tokii co-founders are sharing in the glory of it all. Stan acknowledges Al, Karla and Regina in the opening notes of Bury My Heart and writes about the whirlwind escapades of us launching (ahem “steamrolling”) values training and a values based culture at Oskar in the Czech Republic starting in 2003. (See extended sidebar in book pages 214-220.)
Skeptics galore, resistance high, we did it anyway, because we knew it was the right thing to do as executives; and the employees and the business won as a result. We had gut wrenching sessions where people were asked to discuss profound moments in their lives. We had some people leave as their values dictated they should be doing other things. But what happened most of all was the unleashing of lots of passionate people who were given permission to yes live their values at work; to bring their whole selves to the office each day and bring their continued energy and focus to outperform targets for twenty-six consecutive quarters.
We are proud that the Oskar story lives on in the Bury My Heart chronicles. The great news for us that we have lived it – we know it works. Once you live your life with your values leading the way…there’s no going back. We look forward to meeting you all someday in Conference Room B.
