In her first six months on the job, MaryAnn Rivers not only had to familiarize herself with the operations of Entertainment Publications
Inc. and transition through tenuous business decisions, she also had to develop a management team essentially from scratch. In
September 2006, when Rivers was named president and CEO of the $196.8 million company that produces the Entertainment coupon
book and handles other merchant promotions, only one person remained from the previous management team. While many would try to
fill the open positions in a hurry, creating opportunities to make mistakes, Rivers instead took her time to find a team that was diverse but
had the same common value system. Smart Business spoke with Rivers about how she drove change at Entertainment Publications Inc.
Get employee input. When I first came to the
company, I spent the first two or three
months on the road with salespeople and in
the field just sitting down and giving every
salesperson a half an hour to share what their
challenges were, what they thought should
change, and what were the problems and
opportunities they saw.
I took all of that information, boiled it all
down, and gave an overview to the folks back
here and to the sales organization, and then
we made decisions off those things. The turning point was when we did what we said we
were going to do. We actually put ideas into
action, as opposed to just paying lip service.
We put some key goals out and, for example, said, ‘By this date, you will have a new
compensation plan or key goals for the
upcoming year, three months earlier than you
did previously,’ then delivering on it.
It comes down to, ‘We heard what you said.
We can’t fix everything today, but here are the
things we are going to do.’ When you say you
are going to do something, you make darn
sure you do it, regardless of what obstacles
get in the way. That develops trust, and the
more trust you develop, the more they open
up and talk.
Know your shortcomings. I spontaneously
quiz people when I’m out talking to them
about, ‘Tell me about the vision of the company, and what are the three key goals?’ I can
almost tell immediately what is getting
through and what’s not.
When they can’t articulate back a certain
part of the vision or the goals or strategy, I
know we missed there, and we need to go
back to the drawing board and either reposition in a way they do understand it or
communicate by a different means. It’s sort
of a test period to see that they are picking
up on it.
I will go into a new-employee orientation
session, in which they may have heard
through the interview process or their first
couple of days in training on what the vision
is and what the strategies are. By that time,
they may have heard a few things or maybe
they haven’t heard much at all, but through the process, they should have been in touch
with vision and where we are headed.
I will address maybe a room of 30 people
and say, ‘Here’s the vision, but can you tell me
what that means or what the three goals are
for the year?’ When they can’t say that, I’ll
often turn that back around and say, ‘I really
missed on that and didn’t communicate it
clearly enough.’
That’s really the only reason it’s done. It’s
not to catch them not knowing. The onus is
on myself and the leadership team to make
sure that it is inspiring enough that they
understand it. If we can’t get our employees
to understand it, and the people that are in
our organization living and breathing it every
day, how are we going to change externally?
Reward excitement. You are dealing with
short-term challenges and with the long-term
challenges and balancing those two things.
Sometimes, the day isn’t long enough to handle the world we are living in today and create and dream about the world we want to
live in tomorrow.
It really comes down to keeping people
excited about it and energized enough. That’s
one of the things in change leadership is to
determine which people are really excited
and have the extra energy. A lot of times, it
comes down to employees thinking about
tomorrow at their kitchen table or while on a run and in off time. That needs to happen to
have enough people excited to generate that
excitement all the time.
You need to make sure you are recognizing
those achievements every day that people do.
Make sure they know that, even if it is a scenario where they made a mistake or where
they failed at something, you want to try to
encourage and reward people who are trying
new things and taking risks.
Changing is about a lot of risks, and some
go well and some don’t. In those cases, where
there are huge wins, make sure those people
get rewarded and recognized, and open up
those lines of communication. Make sure
they are hearing about the vision and focus in
the here and now but also thinking about
tomorrow.
Encourage different opinions. People are
generally fearful when there are times of
change to bring up that they don’t agree or
don’t buy in. We try to encourage people to
express their opinions.
I like to hear contradictory evidence and
debates because what makes an organization
healthy is that constant challenge and internal debate that makes us all smarter and
allows us to continue to learn. It’s not about
expressing an opinion that is counter to what
the thought is.
It’s more about attitude. Can you have that
debate in the room, and, at the end of the day,
can that team make a decision and move forward even if everyone doesn’t agree?
Here, it is people who have been here for a
long period of time, who are passionate and
enthusiastic and have the right attitude, integrated with people that have been here with
external perspective. They are both equally
important, and make sure people understand
that. You say it again and again that everyone
is valued as long as they take the right attitude, approach, openness, and willingness to
try and make mistakes, and respect each
other’s opinions, and get in alignment where
we need to go.
HOW TO REACH: Entertainment Publications Inc., (888) 231-SAVE or www.entertainment.com