Brand new approach
Tenfold uses interior design to build on a company’s culture
When ESPN anchor Stuart Scott died three years ago, a wall just outside the SportsCenter studio became an unintended tribute area, thanks to the efforts of Columbus-based interior design firm Tenfold.
Months before, Tenfold had festooned the wall with 100 notable catchphrases from ESPN anchors — including Scott’s familiar “Boo-yah!” — as part of its efforts to reflect and reinforce company culture through interior design. When Scott died, employees and visitors began placing flowers beneath his catchphrase.
In recognition of the spontaneous tribute, ESPN asked
Tenfold to come up with an enhancement to the wall. Four months later, during an emotional ceremony at the studio, Tenfold unveiled a high-gloss background to Scott’s phrase that subtly highlights the word.
It was all part of Tenfold’s work in its unique business niche, said Rachel Friedman, founder and CEO of the company.
“I’ve always been fascinated by corporate cultures,”
she said. “Working with companies on their office designs, you could sense pretty easily whether the culture was good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. But everyone struggles with what and why — how many times do people say, ‘Culture is our secret sauce,’ but can’t articulate why. That’s been a huge curiosity of mine for some time.”
Early in her professional life, Friedman had spent more than a decade working at interior design firms helping companies create offices that were functional and beautiful, “and I thought, what a missed opportunity,” she said. “They’re not leveraging design to convey the brand.”
That experience, along with her background — a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and a master’s degree in business strategy — made Friedman realize that she was perfectly suited to answering this unmet need.
“So, in 2014, I resigned (from a corporate gig) to start Tenfold,” she said. “I thought this kind of approach needed an entrepreneurial setting to succeed.”
Since launching the firm, Friedman has quickly assembled a team that has applied its approach to some prominent local companies, including Big Lots, Cardinal Health, Homage, Hot Chicken Takeover and Huntington Bancshares, in addition to national names such as ESPN.
Their approach involves doing extensive research and interviewing clients to “uncover the magic” of what makes a company’s culture unique and successful, knowing that even organizations with great concepts have struggled because of poor culture, while others thrive thanks to great culture.
“You have to have a senior leader who believes culture matters,” Friedman said. “It’s not just about attraction and retention of employees. It is a way to differentiate a company in the marketplace ... and protect and reinforce what they’ve got.”
A prime example of Tenfold’s approach is in Huntington’s Gateway operations. The project is in a repurposed Meijer store off Cleveland Avenue on the Northeast Side, and “Tenfold thoughtfully and strategically embedded our ‘Welcome’ culture throughout our Gateway Center,” said Huntington CEO Steve Steinour.
The big building is “Huntington walking the talk, investing in a vacant store,” Friedman said.
To emphasize that point, Tenfold erected huge, lifesize photo murals of neighborhoods in Columbus that Huntington is helping to revitalize. The murals also provide an easy way for employees and visitors to differentiate locations within the sprawling building — so employees can say they work in the Short North, Merion Village, Franklinton, Olde Town East, the Hilltop or North Linden.
“The neighborhood murals are a tremendous point of pride for us,” Steinour said.
Another simple yet effective design element is a large “Welcome” sign that was created out of hundreds of Huntington’s familiar green pens.
“The pens are all hanging by ball chains, symbolic of the fact that they don’t tether them and kind of thumbing our noses at banks that do,” Friedman said, chuckling.
The atmosphere created by the murals and all the other touches are “unique and engaging,” said Julie Tutkovics, Huntington’s chief marketing and communications officer.
“Our colleagues look forward to coming to work, and where they feel welcome,” Tutkovics said.
At other companies, Tenfold has been equally clever in uncovering a company’s culture.
The new headquarters of Plaskolite, for example, includes some touches that reflect the plastic company’s “very old school, very authentic” culture, Friedman said. The cafeteria — the “10th Mountain Division Cafe” — features a giant map of Italy showing the mountain where company founder Donald Dunn led his soldiers to victory during a World War II battle.
And Big Lots’ sparkling new headquarters incorporates the discount retailer’s ubiquitous exclamation point emblem, as well as inspirational quotes.
“They’ve been on such a culture journey and how it gets results,” Friedman said. “So we wanted to take all those things and bake them into their environment.”
When Friedman launched Tenfold it was only one employee — herself. Today there are 14 employees, and Friedman expects to double that number in the next two years. But the new employees will be hired with as much care as Tenfold applies to all its projects.
“We know what makes us special,” she said. “I feel we do have lightning in a bottle. But we’ve laid down the gauntlet to keep this culture even as we scale up.”