You’ve gotta have a plan!

I’ve worked for 20+ years as a professional communicator. In 2005, I took a job as the Communications Manager at Tree Top, Inc. As I started my third week, I was invited to attend a meeting of an internal team that had been tasked with reviewing all of the company’s assets and determining if any should be sold or closed, or reinvested in.  As it turned out, business conditions at the time indicated that one of our more distant plants should be closed.

From a purely business perspective — focused on logistics, dollars, and cents — it made sense to close this particular plant. It was located in northeastern Oregon, several hours from our headquarters location in central Washington, which was also where the bulk of our raw product, apples, pears, and cherries, were grown. At the time, if you remember, gas prices increased dramatically and all forecasting indicated that the cost of fuel would not be dropping, again, any time soon. So, the apples, pears, and cherries would be harvested in central Washington, shipped to Milton-Freewater, Oregon (MFO), several hours away, to be processed, then shipped back to central Washington for packaging and distribution. Couple this with the fact that other existing plants, in central Washington, had enough excess capacity to take on the processing handled by MFO. Again, from a business perspective, considering the time in transit and cost of moving it back and forth, it didn’t make sense to keep that plant.

From a people perspective, it was a difficult decision. The people managing and operating the MFO plant were top notch; they consistently did a high-quality job. In addition, this plant was one of the larger employers in this remote area, so there would be a significant impact on the local economy.

My task, develop a strategic communication plan to announce the closure decision to all affected audiences: Employees, community leaders, local grower-owners, and the media. Our goal was to multi-faceted: We needed to retain those key employees to ensure the plant continued to operate at high levels through the closure; we needed to assure the community we would do everything in our power to sell the facility to a person or organization that would operate it in some fashion — retaining some jobs and an economic base in the community; we needed to assure the local grower-owners that our field reps would continue to serve them well and they still had a home for their culls (essentially, fruit that wasn’t “beautiful” enough to be sold fresh); and we needed to address the media’s concerns that the decision might have been made hastily or because of performance issues at the plant.

I crafted a plan that addressed all of those issues and concerns. We prepared all the internal key players to ensure they were well informed and could communicate the rationale behind the decision and the long-term impact on the company had the decision not been made. We were proactive in informing everyone, and we did this in waves to ensure plant employees learned of the plan first, then the rest of the company’s employees (at several other plants in central Washington), then we went out separately to address community leaders, grower-owners, and the media. Within a few hours, we had met in person with all the key stakeholders, and we did it nearly nine months before the closure would actually take place.

While it wasn’t the announcement anyone wanted to hear, once the rationale was explained they all understood. We retained the key employees we needed to ensure the plant operated at high levels through the closure. We relocated some of the equipment and all of the processing. We sold the remaining equipment. We sold the building to a company that began operations within a couple of months of our closure. All in all, the whole process went smoothly.

The whole concept-to-execution steps of this communication plan took place over about six weeks, so I had been in my job approximately eight weeks at the time we carried it out. My boss came to me to apologize that my first assignment was a plant closure. I appreciated his concern, but actually grateful for the opportunity. It gave me a chance to, very quickly, demonstrate my value to the organization.

I don’t tell you this story to blow my own horn and give you the impression I am a “super hero” communicator. I share it with you to demonstrate the value of a well-considered strategy. We had a task at hand to carry out, coupled with clear objectives, and defined resources in place with which to work. As a strategic communicator, it was the kind of situation I thrive in.

I can easily contrast this experience to communication positions I’ve held with other organizations. I have been directed to put together communication messages, using specific vehicles, as a reaction to a change in certain metrics tracked by the company. When I asked about the objective we were attempting to achieve through the directed action, and how the tactic fit in with any strategy, I was told to “just do it.” In fact, one leader I worked for has said I was too strategic and needed to simply focus on the tactics and get things done.

I could do this, I suppose; technically, I am capable of it. It simply doesn’t make sense to me, though. I prefer to understand the key objectives and develop a strategy to address them…I’m not one to just take action for the sake of saying I took action; I want it to make sense and drive the organization closer to a stated objective, but that’s just me!

So, what are the core strategies of your organization or team?

Are they clearly defined?

Do you have simple ways of measuring your progress towards the objectives?

How closely are you following the strategies?