Stay focused on the basics
When leading your company through a time of change, first you need to identify the areas that aren’t going to change — namely, your core values and operating strategy. Then you have to align your senior leadership on the values and strategy. Leadership team members need alignment first since they are the ones who will carry those foundational cultural principles to the rest of the company.
“I look at (core values and strategy) in kind of two different ways,” Rivers says. “They’re very connected but very different. To relate to the strategy, you need to first get your leadership team very clear and aligned on that strategy. That takes time. It takes a lot of debate and a lot of challenging on what that should be and what that is. But you need to make sure everyone on your team is absolutely aligned.
“From there, you go out and start talking with your stakeholders and constituencies, and really get input from them.”
A focused strategic plan should also be free from distractions that might encroach from the periphery of the business. You and your leadership team should comb through the fibers of your business to see if there are any units or initiatives that don’t fit with your overall direction. A streamlined business is able to adapt to change more effectively and, as a result, is better able to weather the challenges that the market and economy can pose.
“Take all of the other distractions away,” Rivers says. “Get rid of ancillary businesses, ancillary and unimportant initiatives, things that are taking away from the core, uniform strategy that you’re trying to deploy. It’s an ongoing effort. It’s an evolution, and you keep working through it. You keep building momentum over time, and eventually it does pick up.
“Doing that is a lot about assessment and analysis financially. How those businesses or products or channels are either contributing or not contributing to the overall business. You need to understand it, figure out what it is doing and make a case to the organization as to why it doesn’t make sense to play in this arena anymore.”
On the core values side, your task is to engage the company as a whole, creating a dialogue with employees from all levels. You can tell them what you think the company stands for, but they also need to tell you what they think the company stands for.
“The values are so personal for employees, and you really want to get them to buy in to those values,” Rivers says. “But there is also a point in time when you’re never going to get consensus, so you get input and you pick core values, and you start to build those values into the organization and the culture.”
