A "chilling" tale about growth
The other day, a walk around the block turned into a trip to check out a new ice cream store in my neighborhood, The Social. Excited to check it out, I quickly though, hmmm, this seems an awful lot like a knock-off of Ample Hills Creamery, a local-turned-national ice cream sensation my family has been enjoying for years.
A sign on the wall shared the story of the company - the owners of The Social actually WERE the original founders of Ample Hills, but had to declare bankruptcy right before the pandemic.
I sat down to enjoy my ice-cream (Chocolate Fudge and Ooeyer and Gooeyer for those who might be curious) and to google on my phone... what the hell happened????!
I read a few articles but this one (The Shocking Meltdown of Ample Hills — Brooklyn’s Hottest Ice Cream Company) was the most in depth and chilling (haha to the pun) account.
Ooooof.
I don't know why this hit me quite so much in the gut (probably because it's a local brand I know and love and also... it's ice cream!) but it feels like a good cautionary tale of a company caught up in what we might call "vanity metrics" that look amazing and might feel like phenomenal growth and success but were actually part of the company's undoing. We can all dream about an Oprah mention or a Disney endorsement or whatever the equivalent in our field is but if we're not practicing the fundamentals of good business management, if we let egos, greed, capitalism or in this case, I feel like it might have been excitement, good intentions, passion, heart and a misconception about "creativity" run the show, heartbreak can ensue.
What does this have to do with DEI?
Well, on the surface of it, not much.
But when I thought about it more deeply, well, to me everything is about DEI, and DEI is not just about diversity, but it's also about equity and inclusion.
What if this company had fostered a culture of inclusion and listened not just to celebrity endorsers and the fairy tale of massive growth, but to their employees who were on the ground, scooping ice cream to customers, and privy to the vulnerabilities of basic operations?
The employees knew.
"It’s hard to pinpoint when the company culture began to shift, but according to multiple employees who spoke with Marker, it started back in 2014, after the opening of the Gowanus flagship. They say Ample Hills began a pattern of aggressively opening new shops while the old ones languished."
Listen, it's easy to be a "creative" and a "visionary" and believe that passion and determination by themselves can get you through. It's easy to feel that no one else can see the vision and they're just trying to crush your dreams.
The truth is - I've done that in the past, and I still lean that way sometimes.
I'm not perfect at diversity, equity and inclusion either. Some of my biggest mistakes are to do with not making expectations clear, assuming everyone sees what I see, not articulating my underlying values, beliefs or assumptions, not asking what others are seeing.
It's hard to find out that others don't see things the way you do.
But it's important information to have, and feedback is a gift.
Sometimes it means that values aren't in alignment. But sometimes it means the vision and the strategy needs adjusting.
DEI isn't just about hiring more BIPOC, doing the right thing, or helping others. It means truly believing, and knowing, from experience, that decisions made with the feedback and input from those impacted by those decisions are better decisions. And that DEI makes us better leaders.
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