“Why do you cut the ends off the roast before putting it in the oven?”
Rebecca asked her mother. “I don’t know,” replied her mom. “That’s just how
we’ve always done it.”
That answer wasn’t good enough for Rebecca, so she went to her
grandmother and asked the same question. Her discovery: Grandma’s pan was too small to fit the whole roast—which was not an
issue with the pans at Rebecca’s house.
How often do we carry on with business practices that are less than
optimal just because that’s “how it’s
always been done”? We’re all guilty of this at some level.
A Larger Proverbial Pan
About 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to take over a failing
business. It was in a tightly held, private industry sector dominated by a
handful of large corporations and decades-old, family-owned enterprises. I was
not welcomed in as a newcomer, to say the least. And I was young—a punk kid of
just 30 years old who garnered zero
respect in the container management community. Yet I was convinced I could
dominate my marketplace. I just needed to look at this industry differently
than others had over the prior 60 years or so the industry, in its current form,
had existed.
Key #1: Vision
“That’s How We’ve Always Done It” could have been the theme song for
this industry. There was talk of innovation at the national conventions, but
all discussions seemed to lead back to a place of complacency and comfort. I knew
there were better ways. Using my lack of
knowledge of the industry as a point
of strength, I pictured how I believed things could be done better.
My vision consisted of 3 key
elements:
1. Dominate my service region
by providing a superior product, on time, and always as promised. (This was not
the norm in this industry.) When I saw this vision, it consisted of my company
being the preferred provider in the region. Ultimately, it resulted in running
two national competitors out of business in the region. Not bad.
2. Get my entire team to own
their roles. You can’t build a business powerhouse without a fully
dedicated team. And I’m not just talking about the management team. I’m talking
about every team member. I envisioned
a business in which everyone clearly understood and owned his or her role. This
was a far cry from where the company was. (More on this in Part 2 of this
series.)
3. Do away with “business as
usual” by innovating in our management practices, production processes,
product lines, and allied services we could add to our offerings. Nothing was
passively accepted as “the way we do it” as we moved forward. Everything
was questioned. Consistent tweaks
were made, and results measured. In
the end, we trimmed fat, increased output significantly, nearly eliminated
defects, and brought a new practice and service to the industry that would
prove to disrupt the status quo in a
way I could not have imagined—even with my aggressive vision. (In Part 3 of
this series, I’ll share how my innovations made my company seven times more profitable
than the industry average. Stay
tuned!)
In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” the following exchange
between Alice and the Cheshire Cat speaks
volumes as to the power of vision:
Alice:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
Cheshire Cat: "That depends a good deal on
where you want to get to."
Alice: "I don't much care where –"
Cheshire Cat: "Then it doesn't matter which
way you go.”
Vision matters. Without it,
our efforts cannot be maximized in reaching our desired outcome.
In my next installment of this series, I’ll share how I got
my team on the same page, and skyrocketed productivity, output, sales, and
on-time delivery of near-zero-defect products.
***
Note: My use of the term “most profitable” in the title of this piece
refers to the profits I achieved in this company as a percentage of revenues. I
can make this claim because the industry association to which we belonged
published industry average numbers for various benchmarks (and every company in
the industry in the United States belonged to the association). The highest
claims of profit margins of which I was aware were considerably lower than
ours—our profits being some seven times the industry average. I doubt my company was the most profitable in
terms of dollars, however, as some of our competitors produced more product
than we did, although at much lower profit margins.
