Sharing personal problems spurs success at work

The Pandas are in an affectionate mood. Seventy-one Panda Express managers are gathered in the banquet room of the Dynasty Restaurant in San Jose, California, waiting in line to make a commitment in front of their colleagues to improve themselves — and the business.

They are wearing orange T-shirts advertising their newest entrée, Kobari Beef. “I’m feeling saucy,” the shirts read.

They call themselves “Pandas” because they are employees of Panda Restaurant Group (PRG), a privately owned, 1,350-location “fast casual” Asian restaurant chain with $1.4 billion in annual sales.

Part of being a successful Panda is buying into a process that founder and co-chief executive officer Andrew Cherng, 62, calls “a continuous commitment to sharpening yourself.”

That means standing before your fellow Pandas and speaking honestly and openly about your personal and business failings.

It also means a lot of hugging. Here is a typical share by Tina, who is from store 538: “I didn’t have a good relationship with my dad.

We didn’t talk, and he treated me unfairly, I always thought. If he called, I wouldn’t pick up. I wouldn’t call him back .”

Tina begins crying, her voice faltering.

“I didn’t realise that I was hurting myself by holding on to what happened in the past. I needed to let that go. I can’t keep this anger inside me because it just hurts me, it keeps me a prisoner. I have to let that go to go forward. That’s the commitment I am making.”

When she is done and returns to her seat, she is embraced by a half-dozen fellow Pandas, including Cherng, who nods at the progress she is making.

Cherng is an avid consumer of self-improvement programmes.

He urges his Pandas to maintain healthy lifestyles and eat a well-rounded diet; he recently challenged the Pandas to run three miles in under 36 minutes.

He has since 2003 been a participant in Life Academy, a Taiwanese organisation that follows a “life manual” dedicated to the “advancement of the human spirit.”

He is a devotee of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, and Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements.

Recently, Cherng has become passionate about the Landmark Forum, a programme that utilises Werner Erhard’s EST methodology, which Psychology Today described as one that, “tore you down and put you back together.”