Yesterday I was speaking with a frustrated product developer from one of our accounts. It all stems from from a meeting with this company's marketing team about addressing sluggish or faltering sales revenue. We had identified several areas of opportunities, and over the past year we have collectively worked on eight new or improved products for their line.

From the beginning much of our focus was on cleaner labels, sodium levels, possibl better or bolder flavors, as well as new innovative creations that might help spark and drive new business to the company both in-store and through e-commerce. Several iterations and tweaks to various products, refinements to packaging, clean decks as well as a reduction in sodium levels have happened. But still, no movement to pull the trigger. Total frustration on their team’s part. It’s as if all projects have hit a brick wall. After multiple calls and some forensic investigating, it appears the bottle neck is one individual, on an upper management level, that is blocking ALL change. And I mean everything!

My perspective comes from a few vantage points — a very old school corporate structure that I was "raised in," as well as a “time to let go, evolve, change and go with the flow…better yet, you make the flow” attitude. Perhaps this block simply comes from generational differences, a new guard vs. old guard, "kids today” kinda thing.

I am truly sensitive to an aging demographic as I now find myself in this category. I am trying to figure out how to address and/or circumvent this hurdle. Should younger management leap-frog this individual? That would certainly be a leap of faith that could conclude in the end of one’s career or at the least place a black mark on one’s progression up the corporate ladder. For us, obviously you need to spend money to make money and like all businesses we all look at the ROI for the larger picture. In this case the direct cost of time, energy, repetitive tweaks, ingredient cost as well as shipping amount to diminishing returns. These costs start to create an imbalance. At the end of the day, I believe good products will stand on their own and am hopeful that this particular individual will see the light and move forward instead of opposing change.

This could be a huge job and truly move this client’s company forward. What would you do? Should their group go over this hurdle, or around this person?

I know I have a wide range of readers, so I am extremely curious to hear your feedback and truly appreciate your insight on this week’s query. Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Live well…

Changing of the guard

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