Her criteria for knowing when people are partner material? For one thing, "they don't need career counseling anymore," she says; another tip-off "is when the client calls them instead of me."
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Cunningham is disingenuous when she claims she introduced the second leg of her plan, the input teams, so she "wouldn't really have to run the company anymore." What she's done is create a benevolent dictatorship; she sets mandates for the agency and leaves the execution of them to everyone else.
"I sent 15 of the company's top people off-site with Mike Gullard and asked him to find out what's going to keep them at the company," says Cunningham. "And what came out of it was that they wanted a voice in running the company. They didn't complain about money or bonuses or anything else; they wanted to help run the company."
There are six teams: marketing, professional development, strategic planning, quality, fun, and community relations. Except for finances, in fact, every aspect of the company's management has been turned over to teams. Everyone -- from new associates to receptionists, finance staff to senior account people -- serves on at least one team, meeting 5 hours a week. (The leaders spend 10 hours a week and have less billing responsibility.)
Cunningham gives each team a charter -- a defining mission for the year -- and the group of 7 to 11 people comes up with plans, budgets, and strategies for meeting it over the year. For example, the charter of 1992's marketing team is to "increase visibility of the agency among target audiences," including existing clients and potential employees.
Last year the team had a three-page set of tactics and a $110,000 budget, for events and promotions including a lecture series, a "communication-excellence award," and involvement in the national Computer Bowl. The professional-development team organized CCI's off-site "university" program and ran in-house seminars; it also encouraged attendance at industry conferences and use of the $100 monthly stipend the company gives each employee for physical-fitness expenses. The professional-development team's budget last year: $90,000.
"We could be 10% more profitable without the input teams," says Hunt, although that would mean cutting not just perks like free concert tickets (courtesy of the fun team), but training and marketing programs as well. Besides, points out Cunningham, the teams perform the valuable service of demythologizing management. "They learn that it's hard to make choices and trade-offs, and to follow through." The teams help put everyone at CCI on an equal footing. They also, says Hopkins, enable Cunningham and the partners to tell a complaining associate, "Don't bitch. Fix it."
" 'Running the company' is not that critical to me," says Cunningham, who meets with each input team once a month. "The charter is. And making sure the groups stay on track. But people should have a say in what they do, and they come up with ideas I never would have."
* * *
The final piece of CCI's organizational puzzle, complementing the compensation system and the input teams, is training. "Training by osmosis doesn't happen anymore, once the company gets to be a certain size," says Gullard. Here's how CCI institutionalizes education:
* It holds several orientation meetings in the first week for every new employee. New hires meet with Hopkins's assistant to go over a detailed company handbook that outlines everything from the firm's history and what's meant by Cunningham Culture, to the sabbatical program (six weeks after four years) and the company's 401(k) plan. Later they meet with Hopkins to hear about the MBO system and input teams. Leon Hunt talks about the finance department and cash flow at CCI, and Cunningham herself tries to make time for a lunch date. Leigh Phillips, the office manager, hands out Franklin Day Planners and delivers her sermon on time management. (All but two people at CCI are Franklin users, if not devotees; " Never," reads Phillips's orientation sheet, "go anywhere without your Franklin.")
* It sends new hires, within their first six months, through a more formalized training program to learn about the company and the business of PR. Called CCI University, the three-day session is held off-site, with seminars run by Cunningham, Hopkins, Hunt, and Ricci.
* It produces an internal newsletter that tracks client information and company news.
* It allots $1,000 for every employee to attend a professional or industry conference. People have gone to seminars ranging from those sponsored by the American Management Association (for managerial-skill building) to electronics or other industry meetings (to build their own reputations, find new information, and look for new business).
* It holds informal "town meetings" every other month, at which associates can describe a PR problem to an ad hoc group of colleagues and collect ideas and suggestions.
* It encourages people to read an hour a day. FitzGerald is particularly keen on that. "Everybody reads the trade and business press and is expected to look through the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe [for associates at the Cambridge branch], USA Today, and Investors Daily, every day, on company time."
"What Andy and the rest of her organization have created is a different look for a public-relations agency," says Jim Christensen, a PR manager at Hew-lett-Packard, a two-year client of CCI's. "They have found, and they understand, that the key to success is their people. It is not their name, it is not their knowledge base, but the people working on accounts. The person who works full-time on our account just went to CCI U, and others regularly go to conferences that are related to the business. The company just keeps training them."
