Lunch with lucy : Maximize Profits by Investing in Your People

Transformational Leadership Through Empathy In Lunch with Lucy, entrepreneur Sherry Deutschmann shares how she built a $40 million company by putting her people first. She created an employee-centric practice called “Lunch with Lucy” that removed the hierarchical dynamics within the organization. On any given Wednesday, any employee could invite “Lucy” (Sherry’s midday moniker) to lunch. At these events, Sherry wasn’t the CEO. She was “Lucy”, a co-worker. By making herself 100% available, “Lucy” created an environment where she could learn about the unique challenges faced by her team members, their dreams, their ambitions, and their insight into what she was doing right or wrong as a leader. She credits this approach with the success of her company. The book’s chapters are presented as courses on a restaurant menu. Deutschmann uses this construct to illustrate how choices can directly impact employee morale, engagement, and commitment, ultimately leading to a healthy and hearty bottom line, one lunch at a time. With refreshing humor and humility, Lunch with Lucy is one woman’s story of building a robust business through empathetic leadership and uncommon, commonsense business practices. Deutschmann deliberately put the needs of her people above those of her shareholders and customers through initiatives such as fair living wages and an equal profit share plan. This culture led LetterLogic to recognition by The New York Times, Forbes magazine, INC. magazine, Fast Company magazine, and EY. Entrepreneurs will engage with this thought leader as she shows how she was successful—not in spite of her unorthodox leadership, but because of it. Her business model is transformational. Transformational Leadership Through Empathy When entrepreneur Sherry Deutschmann first decided to start a business, she knew she wanted to build something totally different. In her first book, Lunch with Lucy , Sherry tells the story of the creation of that company, LetterLogic, and how she turned it into a $40-million company by putting employees first—even ahead of customers and shareholders. Putting her people first took many forms, with an extremely generous profit sharing plan and fair living wages among them. But the centerpiece and heart of LetterLogic's culture was the employee-centric practice Sherry designed called "Lunch with Lucy"—a practice that removed the hierarchical dynamics found in most organizations. On any given Wednesday, any employee could invite "Lucy" (Sherry's midday moniker) out to lunch, at a place of their choice, with the bill picked up by Sherry. At these events, Sherry wasn't the CEO. She was "Lucy," a co-worker. By making herself 100% available, "Lucy" created a judgment-free environment where she could learn about a team member's dreams, ambitions, and challenges—and gain their insight into what she was doing right or wrong as a leader. She credits this approach with the success of her company. Lunch with Lucy 's interior, refreshingly laid out like courses on a menu, invites us to see how a leader's choices directly impact employee morale, engagement, and commitment—and in this author's case, ultimately led to a healthy and hearty bottom line. Sherry's voice is new, and her honesty, humor, and humility shine through this story of a woman building a successful business through empathetic leadership and uncommon, commonsense business practices, one lunch at a time. Sit down at the table and learn about a business model that is truly transformational. Lunch with Lucy is a successful entrepreneur's business book about how and why companies will be more profitable if they take better care of their employees and how an employee-first culture drives top-line growth and bottom-line success. Deutschmann exemplifies how she put her employees first by means of a program she set up called Lunch with Lucy. She used the name Lucy, a fake name for herself, to make employees feel less intimated about inviting the CEO out to lunch. Any employee, at any level, could invite her out on any Wednesday (with the bill paid by the company) so they could openly share any concerns or topics were relevant to their personal lives or to her company, LetterLogic. She credits this approach and her employees' honesty with the success of her business. Chapters are laid out like courses on a restaurant menu, and the author uses this construct to show how she used empathy and open leadership to transform her employees' lives and her company, one lunch at a time. This book shows she wasn't successful in SPITE of her unorthodox leadership, but because of it "Lunch with Lucy's interior, refreshingly laid out like courses on a menu, invites us to see how a leader's choices directly impact employee morale, engagement, and commitment and in this author's case, ultimately led to a healthy and hearty bottom line. Sherry's voice is new, and her honesty, humor, and humility shine through this story of a woman building a successful business through empathetic leadership and uncommon, commonsense business practices, one lunch at a time. Sit down at the table and learn about a business model that is truly transformational"--Amazon.com