“Do something, even if it’s wrong!”  My grandpa would yell this to me from time to time when I was on his farm.  There I was, a city kid visiting his farm, trying to help him with weekend projects.  I remember Grandpa’s odd instructions like, “Fetch me the grub hoe.  It’s in the small shed, five rods northwest of the hay barn!”  While I could usually figure out “northwest,” and “hay barn,” I had NO idea what a “rod” was, or what a “grub hoe” looked like!  If I hesitated too long in uncertainty about his command, the words would most certainly fly, “Do something, even if it’s wrong!”

His point was simple—I could stand there bewildered, or I could “do something” and bring him a tool.  It took me years to see the brilliance in his simple optimism.  If I froze, nothing good happened, but if I acted, good things might happen!   Maybe I would bring him the tool he wanted.  Maybe we both would get lucky and I would bring him a better tool than he thought to ask for!   Maybe I would learn something, because if I brought him the wrong tool, I would at least learn what a “grub hoe” didn’t look like!

A Case For “Do Something…”

In the fall of 2016, I needed to tackle a challenge.  My Senior Team consisted of 11 members; joint senior staff meetings had become unwieldy and inefficient, especially as we hopped through different strategic subjects.  I began holding smaller ad-hoc meetings, but other senior team members felt left out, and I struggled keeping everyone in the loop.

I thought that smaller, more focused senior teams might make us more effective, nimble and productive.  So, I created three new senior leadership teams at Wolverine:

  1. Executive Team – Focused on Strategy (Where should we go?)
  2. Culture Team – Focused on Culture (How should we behave?)
  3. Implementation Team – Focused on carrying out the Mission (How do we get there?)

We definitely saw immediate progress as Senior Team members spent time focused on clearer objectives, and less time in interminable meetings.  Meetings were easier to arrange, we stayed focused on the proper things, and the teams got some really good work done.

The Executive Team “brought the tool asked for.”  It did what we hoped—we stayed focused on strategy, and we developed and refined specific growth ideas that I think will create future Wolverine opportunities.

The Culture Team provided the example of “bringing a better tool.” They delivered a better product than I originally imagined possible.  They created the concept for a Culture Survey that allowed every Wolverine employee to define the culture you wanted and provide feedback that helped us identify gaps where we need to improve our culture.   They created a specific set of objectives for 2018 to target the areas for improvement you identified.

We didn’t know exactly what would happen last year when we tried this new senior team structure.  I am thrilled we took the chance, because Wolverine is better because we dared to try something new.  We took the chance to do “something.”

Tune in next week, and I will discuss the other side of the story, where a third idea didn’t work as we expected, and how the “even if it’s wrong” scenario created value for Wolverine.