The Rae Group, Inc. An example session with a client

An Inside Look at Launching a Project

A CEO's View
It started with a vague idea, more of a feeling really, that this organization I was about to take over had a lot more potential than it was exhibiting and that if I could get everyone pulling in the same direction it could be a lot more than it was. It ended with a tripling of sales and a quadrupling of net.

In my first speech to employees as the new CEO I described my impression of what the organization looked like. I said it was like a caterpillar that had somehow come apart. Each little body section was running off on its own set of legs, bumping into the other parts, fighting with them, struggling to be the market leader. I declared that my goal was to put the parts back together again so that the caterpillar could become a butterfly, a beautiful, integrated single entity. I was pleased that the image struck a responsive chord and equally glad no one asked for my plan.

It would have been difficult to explain to people that I did not have a plan and that I was not worried by that fact. I think in pictures and my experience was that if I got the picture right the steps to get there naturally followed. And, in fact, the first two steps toward the butterfly had already made their way to the surface. The company needed to change its mission and reposition itself for a changing marketplace.

The organization of course, had a mission statement when I took over. It was the usual pabulum. Not only did it not provide any guidance to employees - a touchstone for making decisions - it failed to mention the one division that produced 70% of the revenue and most of the net. In short, the old mission did not reflect marketplace realities. I rewrote it.

Before making it official I sent it to every employee for comment. Out of 800 employees 120 responded. I incorporated what I could and published it. Then the resistance hit. You see the new mission clearly said that our business was the division that produced most of the net and that the other 13 divisions were ancillary to and extensions of this primary focus. The folks in the other 13 groups said the new mission made them second-class citizens and denigrated their worth. I spent many hours in small group meetings explaining the difference between reality and perception.

This first step was absolutely critical. I had sat in innumerable meetings prior to becoming CEO where the debate was around the identity question. We needed to agree on who we were in the market before we could move forward cohesively.

Changing the mission provided the business focus needed to begin moving forward. However I knew that not everyone was on board yet and that I would have to drag some people along.

Fortuitously, at the same time, I was interviewing consultants to find a facilitator for our upcoming corporate planning meeting. I had run through the first four consultants and gotten the usual platitudes about great vision and the typical textbook approach about strengths and weaknesses, competition etc. You know the drill.

Dianna (The Rae Group's founder) was the fifth candidate. As I began the routine about where we had been and what I wanted to accomplish at the planning meeting she kept interrupting me with these really annoying questions. "I notice that you keep talking about 'worldwide' stuff. What does that mean?" That's annoying because I could not articulate what it meant beyond a vague picture in my head around the concept of a global something or other.

She also kept asking about the pictures in my head. That was almost the last straw. How did she know I had pictures in my head? As often as I tried to bring the conversation back to the finite objectives of the upcoming planning meeting she would push me right back to the picture questions. "When you visualize the impact you will be making in the market in a few years what does it look like? If you drew a picture of the perfect organization to pull it off what form and structure would it have? How does this new business you want to start (more about that later) fit into the picture in your head?"

I had to admit her questions were making me think hard. You have to remember that I had this picture in my head that resembled an Etch-A-Sketch that had been jostled - a few lines and a vague imprint of something else. She was forcing me to fill in some lines. But it was time for me to take the offensive.

"So describe your methodology to me." What she talked about was a series of 'huddles' where the appropriate people - those who controlled certain aspects of the organization, not necessarily senior management - would come together and through a series of conversations would get clearer about what it was they were going after. "But what about competition and strengths and weaknesses?" "Oh, yeah, that too," she said.

When I realized that we had just had a huddle and that it had helped me put into words my intent and fill in some of the picture I hired Dianna on the spot. Thus began a four-year cooperative relationship that truly achieved the kind of organizational transformation that many CEOs go after but never really get.

This was the beginning of an association that not only changed the market presence of the business but its structure, culture and systems as well. Along the way the company tripled sales and increased profits ten-fold.

To request information about the client featured in this transcript, or to direct questions to any of our clients about our approach, please contact the firm by emailing: info@theraegroup.com