Did you, like me, grow up with one of those Original Little Red Wagons® in your front yard?
Robert Pasin, CEO, Radio Flyer Inc.
Robert Pasin, CEO of Radio Flyer Inc., likes to say that he received the gift of being thrown into crisis at a very young age. It was a gift because he could reinvent and look at new ways of doing things. Specific to the company almost going bankrupt and losing its way, Robert was blunt in an extended interview with me: "We hadn't really evolved, we weren't really listening to our customers, and so we had to really figure out what did we want to become."
The first thing Robert did was turn to the people who knew Radio Flyer best, the team that had been a crucial part of the success. Next, Robert turned to his coaches and mentors to create a framework. "Basically, I was trying to draw out of the team, asking what are the great values already here [Radio Flyer Inc.] because a company can't last for 70-plus years without those kinds of values."
The recurring theme of that meeting was that Radio Flyer was a place where people valued quality, honesty, and dependability. "There were some other things that people said were not as positive, like being adverse to change and not being good at communicating across teams," he added.
The company used those insights to tease out what they wanted to do more of and what they wanted to do less of. The whole team was involved in every step of the process. Robert pointed out that they stuck the notes they made on the wall so everyone across the company could be included in brainstorming the new DNA of Radio Flyer.
They came up with the term FUNomenal to describe their company culture. Robert recognized that to establish a thriving company with an engaged team, he also needed to figure out what kind of leader he wanted to be.
"One of the ways I did that was just tapping into who I am as a person," he mentioned. "I like to laugh a lot, I'm very high energy, and I really appreciate excellence, doing things really, really well. So, I just did my best to try to lead by example and then get others to join me that believe the same thing and act the same way. It really took us years to build the kind of culture that we have today."
In our conversation, Robert told me it took several years of refining their hiring process, transitioning unsuitable team members into other employment, and finding the right leaders to drive this FUNomenal culture. Now, he is proud to say that the FUNomenal culture is behind everything they do at Radio Flyer Inc.
An essential aspect of this culture is the permission to dream, which celebrates the company's failures. Every new team member joins the Learning and Development onboarding program WagonU. On the first day, Robert hosts a breakfast where he discusses his failures. "I tell them a lot about my failures, product failures, and people failures; you know, things that I tried, and others tried at the company, but it's mostly my failures," he joked.
His goal is to normalize failure because he would rather the company try many things and fail rather than stagnate. "We use the analogy of planting a lot of seeds. We have to plant a lot of seeds to see what will grow; we don't want to bet the farm on any one seed so that we can have failures and the company can keep thriving."
Making sure the work has meaning is another important part of the Radio Flyer culture. Meaning is what motivates people to get up every morning ready to give it their all. Robert jokes that while they may not cure cancer, Radio Flyer's products bring joy to families and keep kids outside and active.
Their meetings start with a slideshow of photos and stories from families who use their products, so they can keep the joy alive. For example, the Starlight Foundation, – whom they partner with to donate wagons to hospitals to give children a fun transportation option during their treatments – sends pictures of kids in the wagons for the company's onboarding experience. "We would get these photos from Starlight Foundation of kids in the wagons. Some of our designers said that the hospital jerry-rigged an IV pole to the back of the wagons. We thought we could design something better."
Radio Flyer Inc. Hero Wagon
The designers were given the green light to design a purpose-built wagon as part of this meaningful work. "We got Starlight involved, and we created this gray wagon called the Hero Wagon that has hospital-specific features. It's just been one of these projects that checks every one of our culture boxes; it's been amazing."
If you're considering a company culture review, Robert says it starts at the top. "I had to work on myself as a leader, so I was the first person in the company to get a 360-feedback 20 years ago. I got feedback from everyone around me, and that was an eye-opener because I learned things in there that I was doing that weren't that effective," he reminisced.
I agree with Robert Pasin that it is important for a leader to be able to think about themselves and be open to change. It's clear to me, however, that the FUNomenal culture that Robert has instilled at Radio Flyer brings a smile to many people's faces.
Watch the interview with Robert Pasin and Dan Pontefract in full below or listen to it via the Leadership NOW series podcast.
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Check out my award-winning 4th book, “Lead. Care. Win. How to Become a Leader Who Matters.” Thinkers50 #1 rated thinker, Amy. C. Edmondson of Harvard Business School, calls it “an invaluable roadmap.” Publishing in October 2023, a new book: Work-Life Bloom. (You don’t want to miss harvesting it.)
