Founder’s Values Are Part of The Strategy

Recently I designed and facilitated a strategic planning process for an engineering company in the Northwest. The company had started in 2001 during the height of the dot.com bust and the recession had not slowed them down; they had had seven years of continuous growth.

This relatively new company wanted to expand their planning timeframe — from an annual budgeting cycle to one with a longer view. Part of the approach to developing their strategy was obvious. Determine the source of this past success and build upon it.

What did they have going for them that caused this seemingly recession-proof increase?

A look at their history provides part of the answer. Not only had the firm secured a couple of high-profile and cash-cow contracts, they also had become a talent magnet. Their founder’s philosophy is “Develop a culture where talented people want to work.” When they seized a business opportunity, they matched it with their strong suit – their employees.

This new strategic planning process started with their first facilitated event. Their initial exercise was a warm-up for the idea-generation and decision-making that they would use throughout the strategic planning process. The founder’s values were so fully integrated into the company’s culture so when the group was asked to create ground rules for their own process, their response was a blend of both content and culture.

I call that “Moving Forward Together.”

We reviewed the company’s history looking at “How did we get here?” It’s a different question than “Where have we been?” The distinction is important because we were looking at the past to identify the ingredients of their success.

This strategic planning event included not only executives who had been raised in the company’s culture, but also division leaders who had been recently acquired. The meeting process gave them clear expectations about how to integrate their businesses with the existing divisions and how to lead so that their cultures would be compatible.

Another part of the strategic planning process was the formation of different work groups – blending new with the old and the geographically dispersed with those at HQ. This mixing kept modeling the culture of using each other for innovation and collaboration.

During the strategic planning process, we often practiced “gallery.” This gave participants time to walk around to view the walls of work from other groups and allowed everyone to see common themes and responses to upcoming challenges. The interactive and visual nature of this exercise lends itself to the company’s expansion and diversification — two new buildings, two new states, two new divisions.

This project provided not only a customized strategic planning process, it also gave them ways to keep the culture expanding from the founder to the rest of the company.

“You better treat your people better than anybody else.”