Lantmånnen Unibake.

It all started when…

With around 40 industrial bakery plants, employing 6000 people in 15 countries, Lantmånnen-Unibake already had a very strong international presence. In fact, it was already one of the biggest bakers in the world.

However, the chief executive very wisely concluded that this did not make Lantmånnen-Unibake a truly global bakery. And what was needed was a vision that pointed every colleague in the direction of a common goal: producing baked goods on an industrial scale all over the world.

Attempts had been made to articulate this ambition but they had resulted in statements that sounded like boardroom speak.

I have always believed that corporate vision comes from the top and that vision statements are all-too-often an attempt to ‘involve everybody’. Surely, visions are things to look up to.

For this reason, I decided to book a coffee with the CEO.

We sat down and I heard, first hand, what the captain of the ship felt was the long-term destination.

Then, I made things very difficult for myself. I introduced my specifications for a good vision:

1. It should be in language anyone in the company understands - no jargon or business language.

2. It should be short - 8 words or less. This number came from some desk research I’d done about memorability of vision statements.

3. It should enable a strategy that can lead to measurable results - the finance director should like this statement.

4. It should be clear about the value that the business brings to the customer by doing what it does - this is hard because it’s really two things in one.

So, how did I do?

1. My statement works in the boardroom and in the bakery just as well. ‘Tummies’ doesn’t translate literally but every country has its own version.

2. I did it in five.

3. Billions? I actually added up the populations of every country where Lantmånnen-Unibake had an office. The figure came to millions. The client asked for ‘billions’ because it was more ambitious. And the finance director approved this statement whole-heartedly.

4. I think ‘smiling tummies’ is a really nice customer-centric benefit.

Item 4 was particularly difficult in the case of Lantmånnen-Unibake because the business bakes both bread and cakes.

The benefit of bread is satiety - the feeling of fullness.

The benefit of cakes is pleasure - the smile that comes from sweetness.

‘Smiling tummies’ was my way of ticking both boxes.

This statement was underpinned by a mission statement.

(Please note that this client feels that my definition of mission and vision is the wrong way around…)

Mars Inc.

It all started when…

In 2013, Mars Incorporated completed the biggest change management initiative in corporate history, code-named Single Landscape Plus.

The change was necessary because the business had doubled in size over the previous ten years.

This huge growth was mainly due to acquisition, rather than organic growth. Mars had become a business made up of many, disparate parts.

Which resulted in two major, practical obstacles to future growth.

Firstly, there was no common way of describing a type of job throughout the various business units.

For example, a “V2 technician” in Wrigley UK might be an “R5 operative” in Mars Chocolate Cincinnati. Even though they, essentially, describe the same role.

This made it hard to spot where your next career move could be within the company. 

Secondly, there was no universal equation for fixing a fair level of local pay. Which was a problem when people in Slough could be applying for a job in Shanghai.

87,000 Associates (the term used to describe Mars employees) in over 60 countries were understandably confused and one consequence was that key people were leaving to join businesses that seemed fairer or easier to understand.

Over the course of 18 months, Mars engaged Towers Watson to implement a common way of describing jobs and defining remuneration and reward principles.

Following this, a task force of senior leaders from Mars briefed their global creative agencies to find a way of articulating the key change messages.

One of Mars’ UK agencies had experienced my key message workshops and asked me to design a programme that could deliver a result in just over twelve weeks.

My response: over the course of 40 workshops, each lasting 90 minutes, I worked with Mars experts to develop every single key message necessary for a global roll-out.

Messages were written on the spot at the flip chart in the UK and various locations in the USA.

Key point: instead of taking away the writing work, the message writing was done ‘live’. And, since the relevant experts were in the room, approval was pretty much instant. Give or take a bit of ‘adjustment’ from Legal.

The output was shared with Mars’ global agencies who developed presentations, videos and learning programmes for each country business unit, beginning with the UK and China.

The process was successful: Mars senior leaders commented that it would fundamentally change the way future initiatives would be communicated.

From ingredients to thingredients.

Ingredient manufacturers are the unsung heroes providing competitive advantage to many of the world’s best-known food brands.

The smoothness of the milkshake. The way the cake mix rises perfectly. The reason the tablet doesn’t taste chalky. It’s probably because of something tiny that makes a huge difference.

When I visit clients in this sector I see pretty much the same scene when the warehouse doors slide open: bags of powder or drums of liquid.

These anonymous looking, functional, unglamorous raw materials have an in-built superpower but, at this time, it is invisible. These are just commodities.

Smart ingredient companies understand this but they do more than supply demand.

Sure, they’ll send fifteen tonnes of whey protein to the energy drink plant. Or a truck load of emulsifier to the ice cream dairy. But, while all this is going on, they set to work in the background inventing new possibilities for their raw materials.

In other words, they drive innovation from the inside. They invent new products.

Developing new product concepts with the mindset of a warehouse owner is not easy but, to me, it is a process of convincing a new customer about a new idea.

New ideas are always difficult to sell because it can be difficult to put something tangible on the table.

However, these issues can be overcome using my concrete techniques.

By making abstract concepts more tangible, we can develop ‘things’. Or, in this case, ‘thingredients’.