Epic founder and CEO Judy Faulkner instructs employees not to be too “Midwest nice” in their dealings with customers.
It started after a Northeastern CEO called her upset that he unnecessarily hired a consultant after Epic warned him not to, she recalled in an Aug. 4 blog post.
“I was confused. I asked him why he was angry at us,” she wrote. “He said: ‘Because you didn’t argue enough!’”
So she explained to her employees at the Verona, Wis.-based EHR giant how people in other parts of the country might not understand “Midwest nice.”
“I likened it to driving in the Midwest versus driving in the big cities on the East Coast,” she wrote. “If you drive in New York City like you drive in Madison, Wis., people will honk their horns and shout at you.”
Ms. Faulkner said, having been born in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey before moving to Wisconsin for grad school, she is “Midwest nice” on the outside and East Coast on the inside. “It’s a nice mix,” she wrote.
At the company’s five-hour corporate philosophy classes for new employees, Ms. Faulkner polls them on how many were raised in the Midwest. Usually quite a few hands go up.
“Then I ask them ‘What’s our disability?’” she wrote. “They, of course, look confused. ‘Midwest nice.’ And we talk about the need to be very clear and firm, to explain the pain that will happen if the organization goes the wrong way, and to escalate to leadership at Epic if needed. I think the lesson has been working. I often hear that we are very strong and clear, which is a good thing.”
