The Company Meeting

"Under my new leadership, at this new dawn, we are going to do something innovative.”

Randy McMillen is the new CEO who is known for leading change and brought in to drive one. Not that the company is in such bad shape. It just needs to improve the market cap to please the investors and reposition itself. The company is in good shape. There is much to work with to improve the company. Much that is going well, and there is much capital stock in the company. Some believe that it would be best left alone, no need to right a ship sailing the correct course in the first place.

“We will move strategic development away from the planners and give it back to the business leaders. The leaders of each business unit will instigate a rigorous process by which they will review long-term strategy, near term operations, budget, and human resource plans looking into development and succession plans. To keep the rank and file involved and the executives in touch with each of their business units, we will start holding Mêlées. These will be two-day sessions where employees will brainstorm better ways of accomplishing their work, design better processes, find efficiencies, and innovate ways to optimize customer satisfaction, then report the findings to their managers. We will realign, sell, or close any unit or satellite that is not either one or two in its market."

Randy pauses for a moment from recording his address for the company meeting. The cameras stop recording as he finishes the passage. Due to the pandemic, the meeting, which is in three days, will be presented over a video feed and conducted through virtual meetings.

Randy’s phone rings. “Hi, Myra.”

“Randy, your son is missing you. He’s not happy because he can’t be with his friends. The move has been pretty hard on him. Without going to school yet, he can’t make any new friends. Is there any way that you can spend some time with him?”

“Myra, I don’t know. You know I would love to. We have the meeting in a couple of days. I only just recorded the opening of my presentation. There’s a lot more work to do. I’ll have to get back to you. Right now, it is looking like it will be a late night. Maybe I’ll have time to spend with Jake after the meeting. Next week.”

The auditorium is almost empty. There is only the tech crew responsible for recording and editing the presentations plus a couple of presenters, such as the COO and the CFO, who will be recorded for the meeting.

“How much is this plan going to cost? What is it going to tax the talent we have while keeping them from focusing on the real business,” Jeff Donald is the COO. He was passed over for the CEO position in favor of new blood to take the company in a different direction. “You know, I have been with this company for 30 years. It has never been in a better position either in the marketplace or financially. We need to respect that, not throw everything out the window.”

Gruden Donaldson (GD) was founded about a century ago. In one hundred years, the company grew from a single product domestic manufacturer to a multinational conglomerate that operates in 114 countries and offers thousands of products. Over the last fifty years, the company has been one of the top performers listed on the NYSE. The argument that change is not needed has a home with many stock analysts and investors. Yet many of GD's mergers and acquisitions have failed to be profitable. The corporate structure has become cumbersome. Response to customer needs and market forces is not ideal. And there are many efficiencies not being realized. The company looks good on paper, but in reality, it is a failure waiting to happen.

Nathan Alexander is the chairman of the Board of Directors. In response to Jeff, “Our path ahead will be founded upon our strengths today. This company meeting is perhaps the most important in our history. We must get it right. And for just the reasons, Jeff, that you mention. We need to capture the audience and make sure that all of the workforce commits to our new program. It is not easy to make a change when there is no pressing matter driving it. We are in a good position. Our culture is strong. Our values make us a better company. Only, we feel that we are not positioned well for the future. We must transform now. We would much prefer to act upstream, before there is a problem, then to react downstream after a problem has overtaken us.”

Jeff digested Nathan's proposal for a few seconds, "This company has a strong culture of long-serving, dedicated employees who know what is expected and know how to produce. I have dedicated my whole life to this company. I put aside family to ensure the success of this company. I sent my family on vacations without me so I could stay at the office and work. I skipped my kid’s events. I made personal sacrifices. We are a company of like individuals. We should appreciate them for what they have accomplished. Don’t tell them it was not good enough, and now has to be changed."

Jeff was always a consummate performer. He put his career and the business before everything else. He made providing for his family a priority associated with success at work. His kids went to the best schools, were involved in the best recreation clubs, and social societies, but personal commitment to family always came second. He was rarely there for his family. His dedication to work propelled him through the ranks and into the executive suite early in his career. Yet as the company matured with the rest of society, GD has come to value a work-life balance that escapes Jeff.

Randy’s phone rings again. It is Myra. “Randy, Jake is crying. He never cries. I know you are extremely busy, but please, is there any way you can spend time with him. It hurts me to see him unhappy like this. He asked for you to be with him.”

Randy hung up the phone, "It seems to me that to you, Jeff, the transformation itself is the threat. Some of us find change difficult. Some of us are stimulated by it and embrace it enthusiastically. Look at what we are proposing. Is it really that big a threat? We are bringing strategy closer to the business units and empowering employees. Who doesn't have pride in themselves? Who isn’t stimulated by the opportunity to excel and exhibit their skills? Our staff should be motivated by our proposal, not insulted by it.”

Randy has a track record as a transformational leader and has successfully exercised the steps necessary to implement change in organizations. He turned the last company he was with from a low margin, ineffective firm into a high performing, efficient leader in its field. Randy knows that to be successful, he must build a guiding coalition. Perhaps there is nobody more important to this coalition than the companies COO. As the chief operating officer and president, Jeff will play an essential role in leading the organization's people through the process. He must be Randy's first success at unfreezing the organization.

“Through stimulating the staff, we will unfreeze the organization allowing for us to implement the change, and then we will refreeze the organization in the new model. It is the Lewin change model. We also have to establish a sense of urgency for the need for this change. Jeff, you will be the leader of this unfreezing effort and of creating this sense of urgency. You know the strength of the organization. You know the people. It will be your task to bring them to feel the need to modify our business model to better position ourselves for the future - not as a slap in the face of their accomplishments, but as a compliment and belief in their abilities to be even better. We need you to step up to this challenge. I believe in you. You need to convince yourself now so you can convince the rest.”

Randy knew there is no time to waste. Jeff either has to be on board, or he has to find another home. No change effort can survive when its leadership is divided over the need for it and when its leaders are not one hundred percent committed to it. Randy's only way to ensure that Jeff is one hundred percent committed is to assign him the task of motivating the organization in favor of the change. It is now up to Jeff to commit to the change effort, to convince himself so that he can convince others of the need for it.

This point seems like a good transition point to Randy. The upcoming company meeting is looming large over him, but his heart at this moment is elsewhere. There are only three days until the meeting, but that means there are STILL three days until the meeting. There is plenty of work to be done by everyone. Multiple speakers have yet to be recorded, and the schedule in which they are recorded is not important. Anyone can be recorded at any time. The team has already prepared to the point that they are all ready for their final presentations.

“Team, I will have to finish up my recording session tomorrow. I have a matter at home that I have to attend to. I will have to step out for the rest of the day.”

Jeff did not respond to either the statement about being in charge of unfreezing the organization or to the one about Randy leaving to spend time with family. He looked as though he was not sure that he approved of either of them but was not sure what to say. There is not much he could say.

Randy took the CEO position at the first of the year just as the COVID-19 pandemic started to spread across the globe. The family moved to meet Randy in Boston in March at the end of the school semester just before the lockdowns began. Church and school meetings were canceled just after the family moved. That made it difficult for the family to integrate into the community. It is hard to make new friends when the only contact you can have with people is from six feet away at the grocery store. Although Randy has been busy and active with many other people, both Myra and Jake have been struggling with isolation.

Randy got home before too long and met Jake in his room. “Hey, buddy?”

“Hey, dad! What are you doing home?”

“I thought I would come home and spend time with you.”

“Really, dad? Did mom tell you I was being bad?”

“You weren’t being bad. You were being … sure of yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you were letting yourself feel the way you felt without hiding it from anybody. It’s good, not bad.”

“OK, dad.”

Randy reaches over and tickles Jake. Jake starts laughing, “I’m going to tickle you back, dad!”

“Get your shoes on. We’ll go play some ball.”

Laughing, “I can’t! You’re tickling me!”

Before they get outside, Randy and Jake stop in the kitchen for a small glass of lemonade. Randy is concerned about Jake. He cannot be there for Jake every day. Somehow he needs to find a solution. Jake is too young for a social media account. He's also too young for a video chat account.

Sitting at the table in the bay window with their baseball mitts on the tabletop and their lemonade in hand, Randy speaks to Jake, "How about I reach out to Billy's and Jeremiah's parents and see if they can come visit?"

“Can you, Dad?! That would be great! But, can you with the distancing?”

“How about your mom and I set up a Zoom account and have their parents do the same so you can meet once a day online to chat? How does that sound? Then when the time is right, they can come visit.”

“I’ve never done that. Can we talk to each other?”

“Yes. Over the internet. Like watching a video except it is live, and you are the one in it. I’ll tell you what. I will call Billy’s parents today and see if they can set up a Zoom meeting with us tonight so you can talk to Billy. How about that?”

Jake finishes his lemonade and reaches out to Randy, “I’m tickling you, dad. I told you I would get you.”

"Yeah, but I'm not laughing." Randy reaches out to tickle Jake, and Jake starts laughing hysterically.

Myra walks in the room, “Stop kidding around!”

During the melee, Randy’s phone rings. It is Nathan. “Hello, Randy. You know how important this meeting is?”

“Of course.”

“So are our company values. We do not see how we can transform the company unless our leaders exemplify our values. The world has changed in the last forty years. No longer do we expect one to live and die the company. We respect the environment. We respect our human capital. We expect our people to strike a work-life balance that makes us all successful. We do not believe in being successful at work without being successful at home. Let me know if there is anything that I can do for your family. The Board respects your decision to put your family first this afternoon.”

Randy did not expect any less. If Nathan had received Randy's leaving today any differently, Randy would have felt that he had taken on the wrong position with the wrong company. Randy knew exactly where he stood before he decided to leave today and understood it was the best choice to make to be both successful at home and at work, as Nathan had mentioned.

“Thank you, Nathan, for the support. My son has been alone since the move with the pandemic and not being able to make new friends. We are going to spend the day together. It is very important to me. I should have anticipated that he would need some more personal attention due to the move and the isolation. We are going to make sure that he can connect online with his old friends from now on. But today, I am all his. I am so very grateful that the Board supports me.”