How to Think Like Your CEO as You Develop Your ERG Strategy

Do you know what your executive team’s top 3 priorities are for the next five years? If you don’t, you should.
 

I’m glad to have had the chance to speak with many of you in the past few months, and what stands out from those conversations is unrelenting change, uncertainty and exhaustion.

I feel it too.

How do you create clarity as a leader during critical moments like this?

Being in sync with the company’s priorities is a key driver to becoming a valued resource rather than being seen only as the source for “history month” celebrations throughout the year. It’s even more important in a time of uncertainty. If you haven’t already, now could be a time to pitch your value proposition. We’ve guided ERGs from being seen as cost centers to thinking and operating like growth engines for the future.

Example 1:
At a consumer products company we worked with for 10 years, the 10 ERG’s were each given a yearly budget for programming, but no one had expected them to do much more than “celebration events.” One leader confessed: “To be honest, we were happy the company allowed us to celebrate our holidays. It wasn’t done before, so we were grateful.”

But frankly, the ERGS were not encouraged to think any differently.That is, until the CEO & head of a Global Business Unit deputized them to generate new ideas for the business, and asked Hyun & Associates to guide their strategy development. The leaders launched a plan into action.

Because the initiatives made a positive impact on the bottom line and opened up future revenue sources, it was a no-brainer for the sponsor to secure funding for leadership training sessions for the ERG leaders, who often fell under the radar of high-potential programs.

Think about it: your community has knowledge, capabilities, cultural insights and networks that others in your organization don’t. You’re a direct link to the marketplace. How could you activate those connections to solve problems and help the business in a tangible way?

You bring:

• Cultural knowledge and language of your community – You bring nuance and practical insight
• Untapped networks  – Important links to the products and services that your company wants to sell in the future
• Unique, real-world knowledge about the market (you operate in your community every day)
• Insights that are unknown to your senior leaders and that can be helpful to the future strategic direction of the company.

Even if you don’t have direct P&L responsibility (not everyone works in sales/marketing), your role could still add value in ways that positively impact the future of your business and industry. 

Example 2: In Leadership Toolkit for Asians, I featured Michael Gonzales at  Hallmark, who catalyzed the ERGS to forge stronger relationships with the Marketing and Creative groups. Those collaborations produced several new product lines which became central to the company’s growth strategy. Hallmark had been a leader for many years in culturally specific products, but they had not explored the Asian or LGBT market, nor the strength of their ERGs as a growth engine.

The Bottom Line
When you start to consider the priorities of your CEO and the direction of the company, your ERGs can evolve into strategic assets that contribute to growth and innovation.

What is one thing you can do to move to a new level of engagement at your organization?

We’d love to hear your story! We’ll be featuring global stories in future issues.

#ERG #BRG #GrowthEngine, #Hallmark, #CulturalCapital