Give your employees a basic vision
With more than 6,000 growers in the co-op, Lindgren will be the
first to tell you that there are many, many babies to kiss and hands
to shake along the path to building buy-in.
“I would tell a new CEO that probably the single most important
thing you can do is to get a basic vision that is a composite and get
it out in front, and then march ahead with it,” Lindgren says.
“Because when you get a vision out there, it allows everybody to
participate. Different people have different talents and a different
frame of reference, but if you can get them all going under one
vision and orchestrate it so all the product that comes out is a really one, single product, where everyone knows that is the goal,
that’s the best thing you can do.”
That single vision becomes the cornerstone of every initiative in
the company. For Sunkist, it’s based around being the best brand
in the market. From that simple idea, Lindgren can get everyone
on board and then start to work out the specifics for the rest of his
strategic plan. That’s when he hits that long road of trying to get
ideas and feedback from those 6,000 members.
“It’s extremely important to have a defined vision out there; it’s
important for your team and staff to participate in developing the
aspects of it and that they participate in the modification of the
plan as you go forward,” Lindgren says. “We’ve had amazingly positive response from our growers, and we are really revisiting all
areas of our company operations, everything that we do.”
Once you’ve set up the basic vision, you can go back and really
focus on the details by doing something else that is simple: asking
for feedback.
“We’ve gone to the growers and said, ‘We want to create a new
vision and what do you see as far as priorities,’ and it’s been an
amazingly satisfying prospect,” Lindgren says.
It’s in that mode that face-to-face meetings become important.
Though he can’t realistically get to everyone, he does his best to
organize ways to get feedback from as many growers as possible.
He takes time on the road to see people and get as many people as
possible involved — even if he can’t fit their idea into the updated
version of the vision.
“There’s no substitute for that, going to their home or grove and
talking to them,” Lindgren says. “We have grower meetings, we go
to areas and have luncheons and have conversations with them
about what is happening at Sunkist.
“It’s very important to see what they’re feeling out there and also
communicate what you’re trying to do. It has to be done in a somewhat organized manner because obviously with 6,000 growers,
you’re going to get 6,000 different points of view, so it takes experience to filter through it to make sure what you’re hearing, what
you’re passing on, what you’re taking action on is done within an
organized framework. But it is extremely important both from an
information-gathering standpoint and for making them feel
involved.”