Create alignment
So what’s a guy with an undergraduate degree from Brown
University and an MBA from Harvard doing in the salad business?
“Originally, my partner and I got into the restaurant business
because we wanted to become entrepreneurs in an industry where
the competitive barrier was not technology,” Mack says. “We wanted to be in a business where the competitive advantage came from
people.”
It’s important to understand Mack’s motivation because it’s an
integral part to his change-management philosophy. Mack says
that during his consulting days, he noticed that when leaders failed
to guide their organizations successfully through a change
process, it was generally because their employees no longer felt
aligned with the personal goals of the CEO and the organization’s
mission and vision.
Providing clarity in direction and gaining support from employees about proposed changes keeps everyone’s efforts unified
toward the goal and prevents uncertainty, which can lead to execution failure.
The scope of Mack’s communications challenge has grown along
with the company as it now employs more than 5,000 workers, but
his personal goals have not wavered during his tenure. Much of his
motivation for change has been to adapt to changing conditions in
order to sustain growth.
As an example, Mack says that after expanding to 33 locations,
he opted to take Garden Fresh public in 1995. At the time, his goal
was to use the public offering as a way to finance expansion. He
says that a common misconception shared by employees is that a
public offering is the ultimate financial prize sought by founders,and it’s often part of a founder’s exit strategy. In fact, there are
numerous restrictions that prevent management from exercising
large blocks of stock after going public, and exiting the company
wasn’t his plan. So he communicated his goals, intentions and
vision for the company with employees and got his team on board
with the change.
“As they go through the change process, people will draw
strength from knowing that everyone on the team shares the same
priorities and reasons for being here,” Mack says. “As the CEO, you
should ask yourself a few questions to clarify your intentions before
beginning the change process, such as, ‘What is it I personally want
from the change, and what are the business goals that will result
from the change?’ Then clarify your intentions with the employees.
Without clarity of intentions, everyone will just flounder and flop
around.”
Then in 2004, after adding 44 additional units in 10 states, Mack
engineered Garden Fresh’s return to private status because the
company was having difficulty generating revenue and earnings to
match Wall Street’s expectations, and the costs and complexities
of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance were diverting funds that could be
better used for growth. He informed the staff of his decision six
months prior to his return-to-private-status goal date, which gave
them ample time to ask questions and digest the change.
“The next step is to articulate your plan to the executive team
and let them communicate it down through the organization,”
Mack says. “Many leaders think once they’ve communicated their
intentions, that’s it. In fact, you have to communicate your intentions and goals over a long period of time because if you graph the
way people actually jump on board with change, you’d see the
adoption rate is actually shaped like a bell curve. Some people get
on board right away and contribute to the change process, some
come along as they hear more and start to understand, and then at
the other extreme, you have the dissenters.”
Mack says he welcomes open dissenters and says it’s important
for CEOs to listen to them and understand their concerns because
silent dissenters can become plan saboteurs, unless they are
heard. And if saboteurs emerge, Mack favors firing them.
