The Mistake You Ignore Becomes The New Normal—Lessons From Radio Flyer

In the 1990s, Robert Pasin was a young CEO of Radio Flyer, the iconic brand of red wagons which were an integral part of our childhood. He walked around the plant, talked to the employees, and stopped by the restroom. He saw a puddle on the floor near the toilet and looked to see if there was a leak. He could not find one. He looked closer and realized it was urine. He could not imagine why there would be urine on the floor near the toilet. He stopped by the next day and saw it again.

Pasin called the plant manager over and inquired. He quickly learned that a disgruntled employee was upset about being demoted a decade earlier and took out his frustrations on the company in this crude way. When Pasin asked the plant manager why he didn’t confront the disrespectful employee, his response baffled the young CEO. “The employee does as he’s told but needs a way to vent.”

In her autobiography, A Higher Standard, General Ann Dunwoody, America’s first female four-star general, stated emphatically that if you walk by a mistake, it becomes the new normal. It becomes what is acceptable. By letting the urine on the floor incident pass, the manager told the employee that it was acceptable behavior.

Well, it was not acceptable to Robert Pasin. He realized he had a team “infected with entitlement and mediocrity and were disengaged.” He wasn’t having it and refused to accept this behavior. He quickly realized that the employees who had gotten the company to that point were not going to be able to get to the new heights Pasin was envisioning for Radio Flyer.

Over the next fifteen years, Pasin and his trusted team brought in new employees as the former regime retired. Creativity, trying, and even failing were encouraged. When Robert Pasin meets with new employees at Wagon University, he tells them about his brilliant ideas, which later failed, at times miserably. But the good ideas will come if you deliver an environment that values trying and makes it safe to do so. The company formed internships, and a new culture was percolating. Today, one in four Red Flyer employees came from their internship program.

Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Robert Pasin desperately wanted to change the culture at Radio Flyer. He wanted to expand the product line and reach new people. But that had to start with changing the culture so that creativity could ensue. “We don’t make wagons. We make memories,” Pasin proclaimed.

He clearly was on to something. Since taking over as CEO of Radio Flyer, sales grew by a factor of ten, and the product line expanded to include tricycles, scooters, and electric vehicles. Radio Flyer is voted as one of the top places to vote by all the official ranks, and Pasin won Glassdoor’s Top CEO of 2021. But where he beams with pride, it is not the Emmy Award he won for producing an animated short film about Radio Flyer; instead, it’s the work the company is doing with hospitals.

Over the years, Radio Flyer partnered with the Starlight Foundation and donated over

15,000 Radio Flyer wagons to hospitals for the children to play with, transport, and overall make their hospital experience more joyful. As the thank you letters and photos came in, the Radio Flyer team saw how the hospital staff was affixing IV poles to the wagons with whatever they had available. The Radio Flyer team realized they could do it better and nicer, so they did. They are now called Hero Wagons and are in hospitals around the country.

Creativity and productivity, such as the desire to create nicer wagons for children in hospitals, happen when employees are engaged, intrigued, and motivated to do good work. They feel like they are part of a team and an integral part of a greater mission. They need to be able to feel safe to take chances and try something new. That culture starts at the top.