Denise Morrison always thinks strategically. Her success is a testament to her strategic plan. She had a personal mission to run a national company. She implemented the plan and reached her goal. When Denise Morrison joined Campbell Soup as CEO in 2011, she had a another strategic plan, and that plan was to create a new innovative culture that would address the changes in the marketplace, get better results, and deliver shareholder value.
It’s not easy to change the culture of a 145 year old company. But Denise had a clear vision of what Campbell Soup CPB -0.26% could be. With that vision in mind, she created a plan to implement the necessary changes to turn then traditional stagnant culture to one that embraces creativity and flexibility.
I sat down with Denise last week after her keynote at the Simmons Leadership Conference in Boston, and asked her about her challenges changing the culture at Campbell Soup.
In her keynote, Denise outlined the four basic principles that she believes are vital to help companies become innovators. These four principles are the foundation of her strategic plan to create cultural change at Campbell Soup.
- A Laser Focus on Consumers. “The consumer is our boss”. This requires a clear up to the minute understanding of consumers in order to create more relevant products. The challenge for Campbell Soup has been to keep up with the generational changes and learning the needs of a new market, the millennials. The challenge is to adapt, evolve, and innovate to new consumer demands.
- Leadership Courage to Enable Cultural Transformation. Creating an environment of accountability while rewarding innovation and encouraging risk taking required a new leadership model. The goal is to engage the people and empower them to be creative.
- Structuring Teams and People to Unshackle Creativity and Foster Bold Decision Making. Cross functional teams were created and an open innovative mindset is encouraged with partners and customers. The leadership team was trained in effective decision making.
- A Company Wide Sense of Urgency. The company wide strategic plan is to think bigger and act bolder, streamline decision making, respond faster to consumer needs.
Bonnie Marcus: Where do you think that companies need to start to create cultural change?
Morrison: The first step in changing a culture, I believe, starts with the senior leadership team, and with the CEO. You need to set a tone at the top that inspires trust and encourages open and honest, 2-way communication. So you hear the brutal facts, and you listen to the good news and the bad news so that, in the spirit of continuous improvement, you can make changes. When the senior leadership team embraces that change, all of the people in the company will embrace that change. So it can cascade. Now we survey. We get data, and that data gives us information that we can convert into action so that we can start to improve the things that we need to improve. But I do think it starts with the tone at the top.
Marcus: Did you need to make changes in your leadership team?
Morrison: Yes. I did make changes in my leadership team, for that to happen. I have a leadership team now that has new people in new roles. Some of them have been with the company for a long time, but they are in new roles. I have recruited a couple positions from the outside, where I had to bring in new skillsets, because with a new strategy, one of your first assessments is do I have the talent to execute this strategy? For example, in the areas of a Chief Marketing Officer, or President of International and a new Head of R&D, I needed different skillsets, and so, I recruited them from the outside. But I do believe that I now have a team of very capable, competent, professionals that are driven by a mission.
Marcus: What can leaders do to foster this innovation and creativity?
Morrison: There are a number of things that you have to do. First of all, you need to walk the talk, because you can’t expect your organization to behave a certain way that you’re not willing to behave. So, for example, my company made three acquisitions last year, and did two strategic alliances, and that’s after not having done that for a decade. I was front and center on those acquisitions; demonstrating to the organization how important they were to respond to consumers’ needs, and that these were great brands for our company. So that would be one example. I spend a lot of time with the innovation teams, with the presidents of my divisions calling out the importance of what I call the “bold moves, innovation, international expansion, package fresh, and availability,” so there’s real clarity of direction in terms of where we need to go to grow. So I think those are 2 areas where I’ve been personally out in front on these issues.
Marcus: Your personal mission and strategic plan resulted in you becoming CEO of Campbell Soup. What is the next step in your plan?
Morrison: Well, it’s interesting, because I do believe in having a personal mission, and also having a strategic approach to your career. Because, if you can set a final destination – and I did as CEO and then figure out, “What skills and competencies do you need along the way to be great at that?” You will make different decisions about the assignments you take, and it’s not all about titles and ladders and layers. It’s about skills and experiences. So I did take that approach, and what I’ve realized is that, becoming CEO was achieving a life goal but now, I’m all about building something great. And I’m very inspired by building a great company. And this is a great company, and it’s got great people and great brands. I am very honored to have this position.
Date: April 25, 2014