For those unfamiliar with Heath Ceramics, it is the echt purveyor of beautiful artisan ceramic dinnerware, tile and accessories — pieces that are as functional and durable as they are visually appealing and sensuous to hold.  A California institution since 1948 (according to the Heath Ceramics logo) or 1949 (according to the website copy), for at least half a century Heath ceramics has fired clay in Sausalito to grace tables as modest as our own and as grand as those of  Chez Panisse and the Four Seasons.

After much deliberation selecting an array of items ranging from salad bowls to bud vases we thought were closely aligned in type and hue for our intended recipients, we happily arrived at the register with nine separate gifts to be purchased and packed.  It was there that we were informed that it was Heath Ceramics policy to provide one box for every $200 in purchases; because our total purchase was “only” about $1,100, we would receive five boxes and could purchase additional packaging for $5 each.  We protested to the sales associate that surely she could find it in her holiday heart to throw in four more boxes gratis — representing a value of 2% of our overall purchase.  Our entreaty was met not with a “yes, absolutely,” a “sure” or even a begrudging “ok,” but by a question of whether we would try to negotiate something for free if we were shopping at Crate & Barrel (an incoherent comparison to us insofar as Crate & Barrel provides free gift boxes with all purchases). We then appealed to the store manager, who reiterated the policy with equal intransigence and informed us that they were “really being more than fair” in providing five free boxes, and that we could imagine “how crazy it would get” if they wrapped up all our purchases for free (a puzzling assertion too as we were the only customers in the store).  The policy was particularly inexplicable because the company’s website currently (through December 31, 2009) offers “Free Shipping” on any order over $75 — which by definition would include a box and packaging!

The Heath Ceramics wrapping policy is isn’t just bad business, it’s bad branding.  Of course we wanted our gifts to arrive in one piece and wanted them packed properly.  And though it is always the thought that counts in gift-giving, presentation matters too.  Besides, we also wanted our recipients to know where the gifts came from and how we had come to select them — how we had attempted to find gifts somewhat more personal than Starbucks Gift Cards while at the same time attempting in some small to support a California economy currently suffering from a 12.5% unemployment rate.   The right wrapping and packaging can add immeasurably to a gift’s impact, and indeed, the practice of wrapping gifts first came into widespread use during the Great Depression during the 1930s when the gifts themselves were by necessity more modest.

Most retailers understand these motivations — and their brand-building potential — implicitly.  Free wrapping isn’t limited to high-end retailers like Barney’s, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, but also at your quotidian Barnes & Noble and Borders.  Whether purchasing a $95 silver key fob or a $1,000,000 engagement ring, every customer receives a complimentary, iconic Tiffany & Co. blue box, tied with a bow that miraculously has no knot (it would wrinkle the ribbon) that takes intensive training and hours of practice to master.

The Heath Ceramics $200 Per Box Policy is the precise opposite of the spirit of giving:  if you’re too cheap (or impecunious) to spend at least $200 a gift, you don’t deserve to have it beautifully presented –  or even protected from breaking on the ride home.  Now Tiffany’s gross margins are 57% (!), allowing considerable room to provide free boxes and ribbons.  But don’t forget, Tiffany sells diamonds; Heath Ceramics sells dirt (albeit very pretty baked and glazed dirt); both come from the ground, but the former by any calculus offers a considerably higher cost of goods sold.  Heath Ceramics is a private company and we can’t find out their margins, but we presume that there might be some room in the overall budget to provide a box for a $150 bowl, even if it fails to meet the $200 threshold.

And in the end, of course it wasn’t the extra $20 that mattered, it was the utter lack of reciprocity we felt from everyone we encountered at Heath Ceramics during the purchase process — that they didn’t care a whit about losing a $1,100 sale over four cardboard boxes and some string.  But just because Heath Ceramics didn’t care about our business doesn’t mean that we were entirely without alternatives.  We left our bowls and bud vases on the counter and ended up across town at Design Within Reach.  Brittany (who had an MS in Decorative Art from Parsons) helped us find some perfect gifts, including some fantastic cutting boards very similar to some we’d eyed hanging on the wall at Heath Ceramics.  And she wrapped and packaged each gift with alacrity . . . gratis.  From now on, we’ll leave Heath Ceramics to their myriad fans from The Slanted Door and Auberge du Soleil, inter alia.  Next year we’ll start our holiday search at DWR.

“The only way that real change is made is from the bottom up,” he said. “You can mandate change from the top … but the only way an organization really changes is from the roots up; that’s much more powerful. So what you’ll see is different with me is I’m going to concentrate on the roots of the organization.”

We can neither confirm nor deny that Deputy Chief Beck is an avid reader of BrandCultureTalk, but he’s certainly a kindred spirit of ours. Whether you’re trying to reform a police department or to align your business and your employees around a new promise to the market, your challenge is the same: if you don’t convince the rank and file, you don’t stand a chance of success.

It has to do with the roots of Google’s culture – roots that go beyond the quirky perks that usually get so much press. (Or at least they did before snack service was cut back in the Chelsea office)

When it comes to Google, some might think of search, some might think of advertising, some might think of algorithms, and those in a particularly grandiose mood might think of the democratization of knowledge. But at a high level, let’s agree that Google’s brand has a lot to do with data.

This article illustrates the symbiotic and symmetrical relationships among Google’s brand, its business, and its culture. The brand is about data, business processes are driven by data, and people (like Mr. Bowman) who question the almighty datum are free to self-select out.

We’re not recommending Google never change, though things seem to have worked well so far. But we urge all organizations to strive for the same unity of brand, business, and culture. It isn’t easy, and it might not make your share price hit $714.87, but it will help you solidify your brand, align organizational performance, and drive long-term operational and financial results.

It was a week where symbolic leadership was under assault. President Obama was criticized for an appearance on the Tonight Show

as a frivolous distraction from his real job of addressing the current economic calamity. A client expressed concern over lack of meaningful management participation in her company-wide gathering promoting employee benefit programs. Simultaneously, the entire nation became further unraveled with the realization of the magnitude of AIG executive and strategic partner bonuses. In BrandCultureTalk’s neighborhood, a fifty-something painter knocked on doors attempting to drum up business in the wake of the Homeowner’s Association’s recent request that community members consider voluntary new painting before homes were tagged for non-compliance of HOA standards.

The country continues to grind through a gut-wrenching recession – the likes of which no one working today has any true comprehension. When this same neighborhood painter mentions three households on his afternoon circuit losing jobs, it is clear these are extraordinarily trying times. It’s no wonder we are sensitive to the symbolic actions of our leaders.

While our troops fighting in Iraq and other war veterans were inspired at the time, it was one of President George W. Bush’s greatest gaffes to land an S-3B Viking on an aircraft carrier with a banner hanging over entitled “Mission Accomplished.”

There is no doubt that President Obama is one of most effective multi-taskers on the planet, with a prodigious intellect to back up his ability to shift gears so adroitly. Nonetheless, for the President to cavalierly dismiss questions concerning the appropriateness of his appearing on the Tonight Show – and then commit an unfortunate faux pas during the interview – is not the optimal symbolic leadership that our country or the organizations that undergird it need right now.

In fact, it’s often better for a leader to refrain from participating rather than be seen participating in a symbolic gesture that is insensitive to the uneasiness and concern felt by many these days. While we understand that everyone needs to relax after the relentless slog of doing more with less, these tough times require leadership that is measured, considered, and disciplined in every action. And while organizations should not abandon celebration, these times require team building not for self-congratulation, but to build a culture of intensity, vigilance, commitment and performance demanded by reality we currently confront.

To help counteract the isolation of the office, president Obama has surrounded himself with folks notable for adroitly taking the pulse of the American public, including the silver-tongued Millennial speechwriter Jon “Favs” Favreau, who reputedly coined the Obama campaign’s signature incantation “Yes we can.”

Yet ultroneous interaction is pert’ near impossible inside the bubble of the West Wing. The experience as a White House insider couldn’t be more foreign from that of “regular Americans.” The Presidential entourage doesn’t wait with the rest of us in traffic, get haircuts “worth” $200 aboard Air Force One, pump their own gasoline, or pad in stocking feet with 3 oz. bottles of shampoo in hand through magnetometers for the TSA.

Although isolation is most acute for President Obama and his staff, leaders at businesses can fall prey to a limited perspective managed and served up by “direct reports.” Corporate executives don’t deliberately set out to limit their sources of information and insight, nor are the people who work for them sycophants parroting what they think their bosses want to hear. Nevertheless, it is shockingly easy to lose connection with what people actually think and what they’re doing day to day. It’s like the childhood game of telephone where various intermediaries garble what they hear until the message ultimately delivered has no meaningful relationship to the original communicative intent. And all too often the interests of executives trying to find out what’s really going on diverge from those of intervening layers of management intent on proving their value and effectiveness.

Whether a President, a CEO, or a mid-level executive, there’s really no substitute for listening and doing the legwork. It does little good for management to interact with front-line employees if everyone has been hand-picked for a photo op, or the visit has been sufficiently forecast to allow time to clean up and showcase what can be little more than a Potemkin Village.

That’s why Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts – an organization renowned for its customer service and cohesive workplace culture – has a ““direct line committee,” where the most senior person in each hotel sits down with the most junior people every month. To augment this feedback, the company conducts annual opinion surveys among its 34,000 employees.

Some leaders like the CEO and COO of shoe juggernaut Zappos take employee input so seriously that they try to meet with every employee in a town hall format. Still, not everyone is comfortable asking the CEO an impertinent question in front of hundreds of coworkers.

The Home Depot thinks real, individual, spontaneous feedback is so essential to operating and governing its business that every member of the board of directors is required to visit at least 20 stores a year, not to catch employees doing something wrong, but to put themselves in the shoes of a regular customers.

On arrival at any Marriott hotel, CEO and patriarch Bill Marriott immediately heads to the loading dock. He’s found a strong correlation between a tidy loading dock and a well-run hotel – and something that’s hard to fake when a VIP visitor shows up.

Disney pioneered the idea of helping its top brass better understand the issues of front line employees by having executives don sweltering Disney character costumes and work the theme parts for a couple of days a year as part of its “Disney Dimensions” executive leadership development program.

Kidney dialysis leader DaVita runs a program for executives and managers called “Reality 101″ that places leaders in clinics for three days to help them understand the technical, physical, and emotional demands of the job. Cynics deride such programs as meaningless pandering, but in many cases the experiences and insights from such immersion make their way back to the corner office.

Speaking informally to employees, fielding customer service calls or working the factory floor for a day won’t fully bridge the divide between the leaders and the led. The key is to remove the layers of opacity that prevent leaders from understanding the actual state of affairs when they are endeavoring to render crucial decisions. A first step: have leaders demonstrate not only that they’ll shut up and listen, but that they’re actually interested in and prepared to act upon what front line employees have to say. Workers just may tell the truth, and the truth will set all of us free.