Maintain a unified culture
While one of Cypress’ strengths is its entrepreneurial culture
and its structure of multiple subsidiaries, Rodgers is the first to
acknowledge that it’s been hard to find the balance between
maintaining a culture that’s open to innovation and achieving
consistency.
As the company grew, Rodgers says there have been times
when not only innovation lagged but, at one point during the
downturn of 1992, business results were extremely poor, partly because the company was having an identity crisis. To remedy the situation, Rodgers relied on the teachings of Jim
Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, “Built to Last:
Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.”
“One thing that I’ve learned is that in order to continue to
drive growth and maintain innovation, the main thing is that
you have to keep everybody on the same page philosophically,” Rodgers says. “It doesn’t matter that you have different
structures or businesses, what matters is that everyone maintains the same set of values. That’s what holds everyone
together.
“As you get larger and start acquiring other companies, it’s
important to continue to think about who you are as a company
because you can become a crazy quilt of different cultures. Once
you achieve philosophical continuity, the technical work product
flows from there.”
When Rodgers accepted the fact that his company was in the
midst of a crisis seemingly from a lack of a singular vision, he
traveled to each location, sat down with employees and talked to each group about what makes Cypress different. Their
answers would be the key to reclaiming the company’s universal philosophy and values, a critical step to putting Cypress
back on a growth track.
“I essentially put my butt in an airplane seat for six months
and traveled around to 25 different locations asking each
group of employees what makes Cypress different,” Rodgers
says. “I was using them to write a new corporate vision, and
what I found is that they frequently mentioned the same things.
All I did was repeat back to them the things that they already
believed about the company.
“For six months, I gathered this data, and then I reviewed it
for commonalities and divided it into five categories. From
there, I put the data in front of the VPs and managers for discussion, and then we rolled it out. Going through the process
helped to get everybody on the same page because people who
thought they were in an identity crisis, suddenly felt like they
had a great deal in common with their co-workers.”
The results of the effort helped unify the company.
“Now, we have a statement of core values, a unified statement of purpose, a mission statement, and we’ve stated specifically how we were going to take each business component
and move it from its old position to a new posture that continues to drive revenue and profit growth,” Rodgers says. “We
have one page of information that ties everyone together, and
we’re out fighting the enemy — not each other.”
Since the crisis, Rodgers says that he has learned his lesson.
To keep the situation from repeating, he frequently meets with
employees, gathers feedback and has rewritten the company’s
statement of purpose 40 times. It’s the single tool that he relies
on to keep everyone on the same page.