Speaker 1: You've probably heard of Who Gives a Crap A toilet
Speaker 1: paper company that loves a good pun, especially one that
Speaker 1: relates to your bum. And what's more, Who Gives a
Speaker 1: Crap also donates fifty percent of profits towards building toilets
Speaker 1: and providing sanitation to those in need. Now, for co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO Simon Griffiths, having fun with the brand
Speaker 1: is super important. Simon and his team are obsessed with
Speaker 1: delivering something unexpected to customers and creating a culture of
Speaker 1: quirky fun in the workplace. So how do you take
Speaker 1: a traditionally very dull and boring category like toilet paper
Speaker 1: and consistently deliver fun and laughs to your customers. My
Speaker 1: name is doctor Amantha Imbert. I'm an organizational psychologist and
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how
Speaker 1: I work a show about how to help you do
Speaker 1: your best work. Work On Today is my Favorite Tip episode.
Speaker 1: We go back to an interview from the past and
Speaker 1: I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. So
Speaker 1: in today is extract, I speak with co founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Who Gives a Crap, Simon Griffiths, and in
Speaker 1: this extract we chat all about how Simon sees himself
Speaker 1: in the business of delight, and more importantly, how he
Speaker 1: actually makes that happen. So how does Simon demonstrate that
Speaker 1: delight to both people within the business and also to
Speaker 1: his customers.
Speaker 2: I think to our customers it's just a part of
Speaker 2: the customer experience, and so it's not something that we
Speaker 2: talk about externally, but internally it's something that we come
Speaker 2: back to a lot. And so there's lots of different
Speaker 2: examples of this, but I think that it's often very
Speaker 2: easy to say, well, if we're in the toilet paper business,
Speaker 2: we just do this. But if we ask ourselves a
Speaker 2: question of well, what would we do if we're in
Speaker 2: the business of delight to how we solve this problem,
Speaker 2: then you'll come at it from a very different place.
Speaker 2: So I think that our packaging is an example of that,
Speaker 2: where when we very first had the early kind of
Speaker 2: concept for who gives a Crap, we realized that we
Speaker 2: weren't going to be in supermarkets, which is where most
Speaker 2: toilet paper was sold when we first got started, so
Speaker 2: we could think about our packaging a little bit more
Speaker 2: creatively and differently, and we said, okay, well if we
Speaker 2: put ourselves in the shoes of the customer. How do
Speaker 2: they think about toilet paper being in their house? And
Speaker 2: you often see roles being stacked up in the bathroom,
Speaker 2: and so we said, well, what if we could wrap
Speaker 2: every role individually and design the packaging so that when
Speaker 2: it's stacked up, it creates a really fun, delightful moment.
Speaker 2: And so we took inspiration from I think one of
Speaker 2: the co founders, Danny, who was working on this with me,
Speaker 2: had walked past the barbershop and seen one of those
Speaker 2: red and white striped poles earlier in the day, and
Speaker 2: so he mocked up, what would it look like if
Speaker 2: we had these roles and you stack them on top
Speaker 2: of each other, and they created that sort of barber
Speaker 2: pole effect with a red and white striped wrapper, and
Speaker 2: so that was what led us to initially say, well,
Speaker 2: what if we did forty eight different design wrappers boxes,
Speaker 2: And I said, well, our production team will kill us.
Speaker 2: We can probably do five, And so we mocked up
Speaker 2: five different roles, with the first of them being a red,
Speaker 2: orange and blue striped wrapper with a white stripe in
Speaker 2: there as well. Was one of the very first designs
Speaker 2: that we did that was part of our first packaging,
Speaker 2: and so I think we have a lot of wouldn't
Speaker 2: it be cool if moments and packaging was certainly one
Speaker 2: of those. Wouldn't it be cool if we could design
Speaker 2: something that was so beautiful our customers would want to
Speaker 2: take it out of the back of the bathroom cupveroed
Speaker 2: where toilet papers traditionally stored and put it on display.
Speaker 2: And there's probably fifty ideas that we have for every
Speaker 2: one or two that stick, and packaging was one of
Speaker 2: the one or two that really stuck in a way
Speaker 2: that was meaningful for our customer, to the point where
Speaker 2: when people first opened up boxes, it was so delightful
Speaker 2: that they wanted to take a photo of that and
Speaker 2: share that with someone else, either in a text message
Speaker 2: or what'sapp or on social media. And so I think
Speaker 2: if we come back to that, putting ourselves in the
Speaker 2: shoes of the customer and saying, well, what if we're
Speaker 2: in the business of delight, how would we insert the
Speaker 2: light into this moment? It allowed to think very differently
Speaker 2: about what we would do rather than just being a
Speaker 2: regular old toilet paper company.
Speaker 1: I feel like you've achieved that so well, I know
Speaker 1: within my own home. I had some people over for
Speaker 1: dinner last night, and I made sure that I topped
Speaker 1: up my little pile of who gives toilet paper in
Speaker 1: the bathroom because it just looks so cool. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the things I love about your brand is how
Speaker 1: you use humor and especially puns, which you have done
Speaker 1: from day one. And I'm personally surprised at how few
Speaker 1: businesses use humor at all. I mean, let alone use
Speaker 1: humor as amazingly as you guys do. And I want
Speaker 1: to know how do you personally encourage humor at work
Speaker 1: and with your team?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think like this is just like
Speaker 2: a core part of our culture. I think we have
Speaker 2: this philosophy of if you can't have a laugh at work,
Speaker 2: then what's the point of being at work? And so
Speaker 2: we sort of have a culture in a way, and
Speaker 2: a brand now that self selects people that thrive in
Speaker 2: that environment and want to be there to have a
Speaker 2: bit of fun and to think about things a little
Speaker 2: bit differently. And I think the challenging part of that
Speaker 2: is really being conscious of crafting a culture that's quirky
Speaker 2: fun rather than dirty fun. And we tread this fine
Speaker 2: line and we say that our brand name is the
Speaker 2: dirtiest thing that you'll ever hear us say, And so
Speaker 2: all of our humor has to be witty and clever
Speaker 2: and quirky without going down the path of being gross
Speaker 2: and disgusting. And that cannot necessarily be an easy thing
Speaker 2: to do for a toilet paper company, but it's something
Speaker 2: that we think about a lot, and particularly as we're
Speaker 2: interviewing for our creative team, for example, we'd really test
Speaker 2: how people think about the humor and the brand.
Speaker 1: How do you test someone's humor?
Speaker 2: A big part of our interview processes is the homework assignment,
Speaker 2: and with our creative team in particular, that can be
Speaker 2: a brainstorming session with our other team members to understand
Speaker 2: how they idate and what nuggets of ideas they grip
Speaker 2: together to turn into something that they think will be
Speaker 2: potentially a good campaign for the brand. And so an
Speaker 2: environment like that allows us to under stand, yeah, like
Speaker 2: how someone approaches the humor of the brand, what they
Speaker 2: think is good humor versus bad humor and why, and
Speaker 2: we can find what are the kind of culture ads
Speaker 2: or the humor ads of the people that will potentially
Speaker 2: join the team.
Speaker 1: So when you're recruiting for any role. Will that be
Speaker 1: a prerequisite that people I don't know, how do you
Speaker 1: learn if someone's funny and they're willing to have fun
Speaker 1: at work through a recruitment process.
Speaker 2: This is something we think a lot about in some
Speaker 2: of the more serious functions as well. So finance is
Speaker 2: a great example of this, where we need people in
Speaker 2: that function who can take really serious concepts and break
Speaker 2: them down into bite sized chunks that relate to their team.
Speaker 2: Then if someone in finance can insert humor into what
Speaker 2: they're doing, then for us, that's just like a huge
Speaker 2: win because it's a function that has a terrible reputation
Speaker 2: for being stale and boring, and if we can change
Speaker 2: that within our business and make it more fun, then
Speaker 2: that's a real in for us in terms of how
Speaker 2: we're building a culture that rewards the right things and
Speaker 2: helps engage our team in what some people perceive as
Speaker 2: being less exciting parts of the business. But personally, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a big finance fan, so I'd never say that
Speaker 2: out loud.
Speaker 1: I'd say, we like, when you're recruiting a finance person,
Speaker 1: how would you find out if they can do these things,
Speaker 1: if they can communicate complex concepts clearly and maybe with
Speaker 1: a bit of humor as well.
Speaker 2: So again, homework assignments here is so important, and so
Speaker 2: I no brief for our homework assignments. We encourage people
Speaker 2: to use jokes and gifts and emojis and allow them
Speaker 2: to start bringing out their own personality through what they're
Speaker 2: presenting back to the team. And so it becomes a
Speaker 2: real moment of allowing someone to get access to our
Speaker 2: brand guidelines, interpret them, and then use them to create
Speaker 2: a presentation that for a finance person would typically be
Speaker 2: quite boring and straight. And if they can turn that
Speaker 2: into something that it's the right brand notes even a
Speaker 2: little bit, then it gives us an indication or a
Speaker 2: glimpse into what might be possible for that individual.
Speaker 1: That is it for today's show. If you are enjoying
Speaker 1: how I work, you might want to follow me on
Speaker 1: the social channels. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me
Speaker 1: at Amantha Imba. I think I'm the only one on
Speaker 1: the called Amantha Imba, and you can also find me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Amantha I and on Twitter at Amantha
Speaker 1: I'd love to connect with you, so drop me a
Speaker 1: nighte let me know you listen to the Show How
Speaker 1: I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from
Speaker 1: Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Imba who
Speaker 1: does the audio mix and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise.