Lay it all out there
Remaking your organization, even if it’s not obviously broken, still requires participation and buy-in from all levels. This internal support is infinitely more important than any outside help you might enlist for the effort.
“You never turn it over to a consultant,” Restrepo says. “You lose credibility with the organization. You lose engagement. You lose good ideas. More often than not, all you’re going to get is somebody else’s regurgitated ideas of what might be good as opposed to what’s in the best interest of your organization and what’s consistent with your company’s corporate culture, both current and where you want to be.”
Restrepo, who is also chairman and president, did call on some limited external resources to help shape parts of the restructuring at State Auto. But the bulk of the decisions on this plan would be made by the people who came to work there each and every day.
He spent about six weeks giving presentations to everyone in the company in groups of about 20 or 30 people at a time.
“I was reminding them of what the strategy was, where we were well-positioned to achieve the strategy and where we were not well-positioned,” Restrepo says. “It was really focusing on poor productivity and our cost structure. We had never had a layoff before and that’s what people are most concerned about.
“I prepared them by saying, ‘Look, I can tell you right now where I think we’re overstaffed and where I think we’re understaffed. But this process is going to validate that. It’s not just about what I think. It’s about what you think. You at the front lines know where we’re not productive or where we’re underinvested. I need you to be involved in helping us do what’s best for the company, regardless of the impact on us individually.’ So it’s very candid.”
When you lay your initial plan out there, you need to provide time for questions and feedback.
“You have to be very candid, very transparent, very open and very nondefensive,” Restrepo says. “But people are still going to hear what they want to hear. You have to steel yourself to not get distracted and get defensive. Nobody is ever 100 percent bought in.”
You just need to keep working to engage people and get them on board with you as their leader.
“I wanted a process that would engage the organization and develop the information we needed, not only to implement the ideas but to monitor the success in executing to that implementation,” Restrepo says. “We told them this was going to be an opportunity for them to develop as individuals as well as make a big contribution to the company. It’s looking for opportunities for alignment where an individual says, ‘I’m excited about this. I’m going to get better out of this with an opportunity to make the organization better.’ My personal experience has always been the best things that have happened to me in my career were areas where I could make a big contribution.”
