I looked at my own business to assess what is necessary for leaders to flourish and, in turn, deliver an excellent experience for those around them. What I found is that it’s about having a clear strategy, building the right team, building communication and, finally, building a sense of community within an organization through community outreach.
Let’s start with the strategy.
Some time ago, a strategy was described to me as a journey with a specific destination in mind. While there may be several ways to get there, the final destination must be very clear to those responsible for making it happen. Think of strategy in the same way you may approach a trip. Someone must declare where you are going on the trip, why you want to go there and what you intend to get out of the trip before you can make plans and start to execute them.
To give you a sense of what I mean, I would like to relay my personal journey with our company strategy.
In 2007, I took over as president and CEO of FedEx Custom Critical and immediately saw a need to get our leadership team focused and working toward one goal. While we already had a strategy in place, I witnessed leaders who loosely interpreted it or took it in their own personal direction. In addition, our business environment was changing and I saw my change in leadership as perfect timing to re-evaluate our company strategy and get everyone headed in one focused direction.
Over the course of three days in 2007, our top-level leaders looked at the many inputs that would shape our future course: our customers, our independent contractor drivers and sales professionals, our competitors, and our goals for future growth. We developed a statement of strategic intent and ended up with six strategic outcomes that would guide our future decisions on marketing, sales and — of course — resource deployments (capital or people). In the weeks to follow, we shared the statement with our managers, and they gave us feedback that would refine the statement and outcomes even further. From there, we unveiled the strategy and outcomes to our entire work force.
Based on the way we developed the strategy, I was 100 percent sure that every leader understood it and could be — and would be — held accountable to the results. We were also able to speak clearly in meetings about where we were going and where we were not going. The latter has been used on several occasions when great ideas arise that would take us off our agreed-upon path. While we are open to adjustments, we have all agreed that we need to stay the course and not take up ideas that take us in a totally new direction.
Our strategy work has proven to be invaluable over the past three years. Even as we experienced the recent economic downturn, our team was focused on our journey and did not waiver. With everyone focused, we used our strategy as our North Star during the storm.
I have seen the power of a clear strategy play out in so many ways. Our profits are good and our leaders have been able to go out with one clear message to guide people. With the confidence of knowing where we are going and how we will get there, team members are engaged, have the freedom to perform their jobs and are empowered to deliver the results. So when you look at your business, ask yourself, “Does everyone know our destination?”
Virginia Albanese is president and CEO of FedEx Custom Critical, North America’s largest critical-shipment carrier. The company provides 24/7 service throughout the United States, Canada and internationally, delivering hundreds of thousands of critical shipments each year. She is also the chairwoman of the Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce and serves on a number of other boards to benefit the Northeast Ohio community, including Akron Children’s Hospital and The Boys and Girls Club of the Western Reserve.