Set the tone
Mallory asked the top 35 managers — his direct reports and their direct reports — to join in the decision-making process.
“I would expect the academics would tell us that 35 people is way too many; they like to have about eight or 10 people in the room,” Mallory says. “The fact of the matter is those people have a vital interest in what’s going to happen. If they’re just sitting there paying lip service or they haven’t had a role in it, they’re just going to sit back and say, ‘This too will pass. All of those crazy guys at the top of the company are at it again.’
“That happens every day across this country in a whole lot of organizations, and it’s why, very often, things don’t get done. I wanted there to be a sufficient number of people who actually bought in to what we were identifying as our goal.”
When it comes to developing a goal for your company, it’s also best to commit to a time frame and hold yourself accountable to doing what you set out to accomplish.
“We said, ‘We’re going to spend a day and a half working on this,’” Mallory says. “‘We’re going to run through the steps of this process we identified ourselves and what comes out of the pipeline at the end of the day and a half is going to be it. And we’re all going to agree to pursue it. If we need to improve it in the future based on what we later learn, we’ll improve it.’”
The danger in not following through with your commitment is the possibility of chasing perfection.
“At various times in the past, we’ve had these kinds of exercises — and the perfect is the enemy of the possible — and people would be sitting at the table or in the room genuinely, passionately debating these points of views and would say to themselves, ‘This isn’t perfect,’ and would literally at some point in time walk away or conclude the process and say, ‘Well, we couldn’t get there. It’s not perfect, so we’re not going to do it.’
“If you set perfection as your standard, you will never do anything.”
Along with a time limit, Mallory stood in front of his team on day one and outlined his expectations.
“You set the expectation and the tone,” he says. “‘When we leave here, we’re going to have a statement of strategic intent that is going to drive the business of this company for the next five years. We are going to do it in a collegial process. You are going to have the opportunity to be heard, and it is your obligation to participate and be heard. If you think you are squelched in the process, that I am not giving you the opportunity, it is your obligation to stand up and say so. If I am not a good enough person to take that appropriately, then shame on me, but if you sit there and just keep your mouth shut and don’t participate and then complain about it afterward, shame on you. Then it’s your fault. It’s your fault completely at that point in time. Don’t let that happen.’”
Mallory decided against using an outside facilitator and walked the group through the process of creating the statement of strategic intent. The fact that he was recently named CEO and was leading Baker in a new direction carried weight in his decision, because he was trying to establish validity with his management team. Mallory says that if you have a larger group and need to break into subgroups to accomplish the task at hand, you may want to use an independent facilitator. But even if Baker goes through the process again in another 10 years, he expects he’ll lead the process.
“I have a lot of respect for professional facilitation and have seen it used very, very efficiently in some very difficult situations,” Mallory says. “At the end of the day, the CEO’s job is simply to lead. If you can sum it up in one word, that would be it. You’re either going to lead or you’re not. We oftentimes let circumstance and coincidence divert us from that fundamental truth.”
