Brave. Trustworthy. Grateful. Fun.
As we revamp our company culture for speed and agility, we’re opening the door to new types of leadership
In March, I told you a little about the history of Flight School, a leadership development program we have at MegaFood. It began as a small, informal book club for my top directors and me in 2011. We read Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, a classic business book that focused on the role of self-awareness in decision making, team building and other executive functions.
In the following years, the club blossomed into a completely different animal, with tiers and certification levels geared for people at various levels of responsibility. The levels included leaders of leaders (vice presidents and directors), leaders of others (managers and project leads), and leaders of self (high-performing individual contributors). We introduced new books and writing assignments, but in general the program involved learning by doing, i.e., trying out what you learn in your actual job.
In 2018, we want to offer it to every one of the 200+ people who work at MegaFood.
This a pretty cool story and maybe unique. But as I look back at where we’ve been and where we’re going, I’m struck by an awareness that Flight School is far less about preparing a leadership cohort to “run the future company” than it is about creating a certain kind of culture — a culture we need to support our company’s journey through today’s rapidly changing marketplace.
I wrote a while back about my efforts to come to grips with the pace of change being driven by exponential technological advances. At MegaFood, this means replacing our rigid, multi-year business planning and slow decision-making processes with a sense of urgency and the ability to anticipate and respond to opportunities quickly and flexibly. We’ve come to the realization, I think, that we can only ever be as decisive as our people — up and down and across the company, and beyond to our partners, suppliers, and even customers — allow us. And now we find ourselves asking, “What mindsets and behaviors define leadership in people with responsibilities as varied as vice president and third-shift maintenance?”
We’ve actually come up with an answer: our culture, something we call The MegaFood Way.
You can read more about The MegaFood Way at our blog, but basically it establishes the values that guide how we work together. The “way” consists of several key attributes: brave, trustworthy, grateful, and fun. These attributes also establish the ground rules for how we work with our various stakeholders, so they know what to expect from us. This culture isn’t being developed randomly, but rather as a necessary framework for becoming an “exponential” organization. It has already enabled us to identify new leaders as we grow, set expectations for different levels of leadership, and tap into some incredible energy from within the ranks.
Here are three examples of what I mean:
- The operator of one of our refractance window dryers in our manufacturing area was inspired by seeing the way a dryer transforms beautiful whole foods into nutrient-packed powders. He wanted to tell the important story of what he did every day, so he started taking his camera to work and photographing cranberries and other foods and then posted them online, proving that storytelling can come from anywhere in our company.
- A member of our Strategic Business Group team felt our industry’s biggest event, Expo West, offered a not-to-be-missed opportunity to reach out to our natural retail customers, who are fighting for their survival in the age of Amazon Prime. The employee organized a breakfast with a group of major retail customers and me. We talked about the incredible pace of change and challenges facing our industry and how retailers can compete with e-commerce. The breakfast also served to reassure our retail customers that we hadn’t forgotten about them, an important message given the need for brands like MegaFood to pivot to a more consumer-facing position.
- Last year, our brand team recruited a group of consumers to do something we’d never tried: co-develop a new line of products — gummy supplements. How did we know they wanted gummies? We knew because they told us, and our team was listening. Our consumer “MegaFoodies” were with us from product development through testing, and were on hand with us to receive our industry award for the best new supplement delivery format.
These may not seem like Earth-shattering acts of initiative, but I get really psyched by this stuff because they start to express a level of accountability and ownership every true leader ought to have. What do you think?
We like to structure our year around themes, and one of ours for 2018 is “conscious leadership,” the name of an organization and a program devoted to helping emerging leaders face down their fears and become members of courageous and empathetic teams. We’ve worked with the Conscious Leadership Group before and will use Flight School to tackle their 15 commitments over the coming months. The commitments are kind of like Covey’s seven habits, but with a strong dose of emotional intelligence added to the mix.
How are you supporting your company’s culture, and how does it contribute to your business success? We’re always looking to learn about new and exciting ways we can take our leadership to the next level.
Robert U. Craven, MegaFood CEO
PS: All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on June 6, 2018.
