Page 28 - The Apple Experience

FedEx managers communicated a different three-word vision to their
employees: get the packages.

Basch, Fred Smith, and the other senior executives at FedEx were

justifiably anxious on the new carrier’s first day of operation on March 12,

1973. After years of planning, FedEx had twenty-three airplanes positioned

in ten cities. Dozens of salespeople were ready to accommodate the flood of

orders. There was one thing they didn’t expect—no packages. On the first

day of operation, FedEx delivered exactly two packages! Founder Fred Smith
had the great idea of creating a customer-focused delivery system based on

the motto, “People-Service-Profit.” But the company would be out of

business within a week if it didn’t get the packages.

FedEx managers made the decision to communicate that vision—get the

packages—and get out of the way of employees who were tasked with

accomplishing the vision. In his book, Customer Culture, Basch tells the story

of Diane, a tracking clerk, who received a call from a distraught bride-to-be
who needed a wedding dress to be delivered for her big day, which happened

to be the next day. The dress, however, was 300 miles away. Diane had

internalized the vision and did what had to be done. She lined up a Cessna

and a pilot to fly the package to Florida. The bride was so ecstatic she called

Diane from her honeymoon! She said the FedEx story stole the show.

Everyone at the wedding was talking about the company that gave a wedding

dress its own plane.

When Diane told Basch about the situation, he was taken aback. They

would surely go bankrupt if they kept pulling these stunts, he thought. But
Diane could not be faulted for creatively executing on the vision. It didn’t

take long for Basch to come around. One company executive who heard the

wedding story assigned his company’s shipments to FedEx and began

sending twenty packages via the service. Others at the wedding began using