I was presented an opportunity to be the President of the International subsidiary. Sounds like a big deal, right! It was, except maybe not in the way you would think. I wasn’t leading and managing a large number of employees, huge financial assets, multiple company functions or companies in exotic international locations. I was leading and managing me! In fact, many of my colleagues thought, “this is one you should reject”.
You see, it was the President of an international company, but I was the first employee. My job was to figure out how to take our company International; by developing a vision, strategies, culture and all company operations suited to becoming a global company. There was no company experience in the international arena, no track to run on, no direction on how to do it, or where to do it; just the overall dream of the CEO who felt it was important for the long-term success of the organization to become a global company. This is the same CEO who also made a huge positive impact company-wide by building an art collection that adorned virtually every wall of the 5 buildings on our campus. Not solely for their beauty or his love of art, or as a growing investment; but because he felt art, particularly contemporary art, left it open to the viewer for interpretation, and he felt this was just one of many ways to encourage creativity and innovation. I “engaged” where others wouldn’t have because I trusted the CEO, his vision and his commitment to supporting me and seeing it through. Many might call it a leap of faith. To me it was just going the extra mile for a CEO and company that had shown me over the years, they cared about their people, they cared about me and they trusted me and my ability to succeed.
The point of all this is to say, to me, this was a great opportunity, but it took me way out of my comfort zone. I had learned all the technical skills and leadership skills to run domestic operations with a highly “engaged” and geographically dispersed team, but I had no idea how that might work internationally. The one thing I knew for sure was that I was going to need the “Power of all the People” I brought into this new international company, to succeed. And, the way we achieved it would mean taking all we knew about developing people, managing people and caring for people; and reapplying it in different cultures and contexts. It required all those I brought on board to “engage” based on their trust in me, the commitment of the CEO and the nobleness of our purpose. Our small initial team needed to rethink how we attracted and hired people that would have the talents and fit in a young and growing U.S. company, now trying to go international. We had to rethink how we applied our principles in every aspect of our business including how we led, trained, developed and created an “engagement” culture. That’s true experience in the trenches that included a lot of failure, but fortunately, much more success; and it required everyone to go the extra mile.
Fast-forwarding, over 10 years our team built a fully operational international company with companies in 8 countries, in excess of 1000 employees. That company today generates over $9 billion dollars in annual income. That wouldn’t have happened without a leadership team that was fully “engaged” and also knew how to “engage” the vast number of employees that worked with us around the world.
As happy as I was, I couldn’t resist the next opportunity that was brought to me. The one bad thing about it - it wasn’t with the company and people I loved; the company and people that had treated me so well for 23 years. But it was the opportunity to lead another company, as CEO. It was an opportunity to apply all I had learned, this time rebuilding, instead of building, a 100 year-old company.
While putting out the urgent fires, our team began by architecting a new culture with values more in tune with those needed to build the trust that was broken, transition the leadership team that lacked vision or direction, into a more diversified team that was focused and “engaged”. We also “engaged” our team of 1200 employees in the process of re-engineering about every function of the company. This was not with the thought of cutting people, but with the focus of improving performance and making all of their lives better. Again, a challenge that many felt I had a screw loose to accept, but it hit right in my sweet spot – my passion for the “Power of People”, and building trust throughout the organization where it didn’t exist; and, inspiring them to believe in themselves and leadership again. We had to do that first, before we could change the performance and the financial losses the company had endured for the prior 4 years.
Actionable item:
Try starting your annual visioning and strategic planning work with a blue sky (visioning) session. Consider including more people than your senior leadership so you get the benefit of the additional creativity that exists in your organization.
Many times it is useful for this part of the process to be led by someone outside the organization that is not perceived to have any particular biases. Such a person can open with a tough question to put people in the right frame of mind for the rest of the visioning session.
Here is the question:
Why are you here? Not why are you in the room, but why have you chosen to be a part of the organization.
It is an extremely important question to be thought through as they move into the visioning discussion, and will highly influence the outcome. It is not something they have to say out loud, but it is important they reconcile it within themselves. If they work for the company or organization and are in the meeting because they have a passion for their work and for what the organization stands for and does, they want it to succeed beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and they are committed to doing whatever they can do to make it happen; then the results of what follows in the visioning discussion will be entirely different than if they work for the organization and are in the meeting simply because they needed a job and the paycheck, and are committed, but only in the extent that they want it to get to the point where the organization continues to exist. In many organizations, regardless of which camp you are in, you are probably tired, feel the lack of resources and feel stuck on where to go from here.
Let’s start with some simple but important thoughts;
Nothing happens until it happens in someone’s mind first.
Vision without a plan is just a dream!
Plans without a vision is drudgery!
A vision with a plan can change the world!
What is a vision? I think it is the big picture of the way things ought-to-be. It is your billboard image of what you are working toward. You might also call it your purpose. I’ve found it is much easier for stakeholders (employees, customers, and board members) to align with a purpose than a vision. For me, visions tend to be more inward looking, while a purpose just feels more service driven and outward looking. It may be just semantics, but I’ve found it makes a difference, if for no other reason, than vision gets tossed around so much that people just discount it as another part of planning that needs to be checked off the list.
A vision/purpose provides the foundation for us to lead and be proactive, rather than following what gets thrown at us; reacting, fighting fires and always feeling like we are just sticking our finger in the dyke to stop the next leak. A well thought out and well-constructed vision/purpose is the foundation because it gives us resolve in where we are headed and provides a way to communicate where we are headed with others which gives us a much better chance of bringing them on board and creating engagement. It also is the guiding light for the plans we build to get us to our vision/purpose and the resources and budget we need to accomplish our plans.
But how do we start? Again, taking a play from my first company’s playbook I started by creating a statement of the future state and giving employees the permission to dream about what the company might look like 5 or 10 years from now. Get it all down on paper in some level of detail through a wide-open brain storming session (nothing is off the table, but try to come to some level of agreement) by responding to some rather open ended but unusual questions like those below. Then, develop a creative story with a vivid picture of your future state. Use this vivid and somewhat detailed story to back into your vision/ and values which will also lead you into the kind of culture and environment you want to create. Ultimately, your vision/purpose will provide the direction and priorities for an aligned strategy, plans and budget.
You now have a way of concisely communicating what employees need and most want, to engage in a way that they can truly make a difference.
Sample Future State Questions:
If you as an employee are standing in the center of the company what is you experience – lights, temperature, movement in the air, sound, smells… Who is there? What’s happening? What does the new space look like? What kind of technology?
What do you value as an employee, customer, Board member? What are your values?
Why do we exist? For example: make the largest profits possible, serve our customers the way we want to be served, help our employees lead more fulfilled lives, maximize shareholder value… What is the real why of our organization?
People in the organization: who is working in the organization? All the smartest people on the planet, all the most positive people on the planet, all the best team contributors on the planet… What do they look like demographically? Are they diverse? What is their educational background? What is their experience level?
Is creativity or the ability to plan and execute the most important?
What is the company “vibe”?
What kind of training exists? What tools do employees have available to them? What else is a resource?
What does the world outside the company know about us? What and how much do we want them to know?
What is our position on pay and benefit levels?
Internal collaboration: How are people working together internally? What is the feeling/tone of that work? How are teams working with one another across their respective boundaries? What’s new and different? Why is it working so well? What are the specific structures and practices that are making this new level of collaboration so successful?
Looking back from where you are now, what are the breakthroughs in the past 5 years that launched the organization into a whole new level of wild success? What happened? Who helped make it happen? What was different?
Allies: Are there new or unusual allies that contributed to the success?
Our niche: How are we unique compared to other companies of similar products or services?
No-go zones: What are some of the things we won’t do going forward?
Fast forwarding over 6 years this time. We redefined our vision to a more purpose driven vision, and values to those more suitable for our new culture of “heightened employee engagement”. We then hammered out strategies and plans more consistent with our vision and values. All were developed with involvement from all levels of the organization, and communicated company-wide through a comprehensive but simple communication plan. Also, essential to creating greater “employee engagement” was the development of extensive training where none existed when I arrived, a complete change in the talent acquisition and on-boarding process that provided greater ability to attract key talent from all over. Prior to my arrival there was belief that they couldn’t attract anyone from outside the state. Coupled with talent acquisition we revitalized a broken employee development system, starting with a comprehensive on-boarding program and participation in a new University program aimed at urging and rewarding continuous learning. This all led to improve personal and business performance. We improved profitability over $20 million and made money the last 4 years I was there. Oh, and did I mention this was also an international company with operations in 6 Central American countries, as well as, 42 states, so we had to be very cognizant of cultural differences, the complexities of international communication, and maintaining consistencies of the planning process and efficient implementation while still allowing freedom to explore creative solutions that worked for them.
I have tried to condense this trip down memory lane to one useful to all of you wondering whether I am a person who can add value to you or your organization. I have additional experience beyond this which includes building my own small (very small) business, but I don’t think it adds anything to what I have already told you.
Since I sold my little business, I’ve continued to look for ways I could utilize my passion and experience to help others, and I’ve continually looked for ways I could expand my knowledge base to enhance what I already know from the years of very challenging experience I’ve shared with you. As a result, I’ve talked to hundreds of employees about their experiences in their places of work, and I’ve followed the work of people leading the companies that often fall on the Forbes Most Admired companies list. Along the way, I have researched engagement extensively, tested successful and unsuccessful engagement practices, and studied best practices to improve employee engagement and magnify the performance that comes from the resulting “Power of People”.
That has led me to this blog. Experience, continued research, talking to leaders and employees first hand - they all fuel my passion, but they don’t help anyone. I’ve come to the conclusion that my best course of action is to share what I’ve learned, experienced and done through this blog and consulting practice. I am hopeful I can make a difference in many more people’s lives. And, through the Power of those People, perhaps, we can all help our employees and companies live up to their potential, and begin making some positive changes in this wonderful world of ours!!
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