The Gorilla in the Room: Why Real Human Connection Matters

Description: How a seemingly fun office culture led to unexpected team issues, highlighting the importance of understanding your team beyond just numbers. A lesson in human connection and management.

This week's blog is a guest post by Francisco Mahfuz. You'll find his profile at the bottom of this post.

It’s 2005. I’m sitting in the office preparing a report and my colleague Melanie is on a client call when our boss, Chris, bursts in – pretending to be a gorilla.

He’s got his chin jutting out, his knees bent and is pounding his chest while making grunting noises. He looks straight at Melanie, who has this look of panic on her face but is still trying to go on with the call.

Chris starts investigating her phone, pulls on the cord and starts wrapping it around Melanie, who whispers,

“Chris, knock it off!”

When she’s tied up to her chair, barely able to hold on to the phone, he bangs the desk with his knuckles, gives out a satisfied huff, and gorillas his way out of the office.

Chris could be many things as a boss, but boring wasn’t one of them. He was a drum and bass DJ on the side, he pulled pranks like this often and he named this telemarketing start-up he founded Love. Once I asked him why, he said,

“Do you ever find new recruits or clients lost in the parking lot?”

“Sure, it’s really hard to find the door for our offices.”

“When you offer to help them, what do they say?”

“Well, they usually look a bit embarrassed and say, ‘Ahm, I’m looking for… Love?’”

“That’s exactly why I did it.”

He could be fun to work for, but he didn’t know that much about managing people. This is my first job looking after a team, and I want to do it well, so I ask him how I can know the team are happy.

“Are they arriving to work on time?”

“Sure. I mean, there’s always the odd exception, but yes.”

“Are their numbers good?”

“Yeah, they’re doing really well.”

“You got nothing to worry about then.”

But Chris is wrong. About three weeks in, I start our Monday morning meeting looking to congratulate everyone on the great sales from the previous week, and I get completely ambushed. I’m talking, but they are not paying attention, and they’re not looking happy at all, until one of them says,

“Francisco, I have a big problem with my pay. I’m here every day on time, I work full days, but every week I’m short a few hours.”

“Same for me,” someone else says.

“And me.”

“Me too.”

And on it goes. It turns out they have all been talking about this for a while and I had absolutely no idea.

Then they’re all pushing me for an answer. I try to explain that the way the system calculates their hours has to do with how fast they dial, how long their breaks are and what they might be doing wrong to cause the issue, but the truth is I’m caught completely by surprise, I get defensive, and I make a mess of it.

Within a few days I lose some of the team, results nosedive, a few more people leave and within a month we lose most of the team – and the client.

What did I do wrong there? How come I had no idea this was happening?

Well, the truth is I just didn’t try to.

I talked to my team all the time, but this was either when I was telling them what to do or making small talk during our breaks. I never really took an interest in who they were or how they were feeling. I had no idea what they really thought of their job – or of me.

What Chris didn’t know, and I had to found out the hardest way, was that just because your people are good at a job, it doesn’t mean the job is good for them.

Jeff Bezos says that “your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”

That job taught me that a company or team culture are the stories people tell about you when you’re not in the room.

If you don’t make meaningful connections with your people to know what those stories are, you might also be in for a nasty surprise – even when the numbers are good.

Guest Post by Francisco Mahfuz

Francisco Mahfuz has always loved speaking, even before he had anything useful to say. He’s been telling stories in front of audiences for a decade, and even became a National Champion of public speaking. Today, he’s a keynote speaker and storytelling coach trusted by global organisations to inspire teams and individuals to communicate more effectively through intentional storytelling, and his clients include PepsiCo, HP, the United Nations, Santander and Cornell University.

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