The Key to Campbell Soup’s Turnaround? Civility.

The best way to truly win the hearts and minds of people, and generate huge returns for your organization and its stakeholders, is by leading with civility. This means spending a considerable amount of effort acknowledging people’s contributions, listening better, respecting others’ time, and making people feel valued. Research has shown that prioritizing civility can lead to big payoffs. It increases performance and creativity; allows for early mistake detection and the initiative to take corrective action; and reduces emotional exhaustion. Most of all, it makes employees feel respected. Yet the majority of people polled report that they don’t regularly receive the respect they seek. Whatever your leadership role in your company, you can begin to close the respect gap by infusing more respectful behaviors into your work. A turnaround at Campbell Soup Company shows three things leaders can do to be successful: set expectations, identify practices to bring those expectations to life, and then measure and reinforce your civility initiative.