Client Success Story: Storehouse Furniture
Since its opening in 1969 Storehouse Furniture has been committed to one thing: bringing their customers the best in contemporary furniture design and craftsmanship from sources here at home and around the world. The new management team at the Atlanta headquarters building was so focused on achieving this goal that they couldn’t take the time to pull together their new strategic plan. What a nice problem to have!
Christina Delouchry, Vice President and CFO, and her management team believe in the importance of solid strategic plans. She knew they faced several obstacles. First, they had lots of data in hand, all in different formats. They also faced a resource crunch – how could they take time away from their team to create a strategic plan now? And could the session be managed in such a way that the time was used constructively, that they all walked away calling the session a “success?” She quickly realized that it was time to bring in outside help.
Michael Wilkinson, Managing Director, and Andre Williams, Senior Manager with Leadership Strategies, helped them take their raw data and redefine it into a standardized structure that was easy for them to work with. This was really key to their success. Christina and her team thought they already had a firm handle on their mission, vision and goals. They came to realize that, in the past, they hadn’t used these terms correctly. They ended up clearly defining not only these areas, but identifying their critical success factors and barriers as well. This allowed them to formulate their key strategies – precise activities that will make them reach their goals. And, amazingly, they walked away from the session with all of these things clearly diagrammed out – on a single sheet of paper.
When asked what was most impressive about the whole process, Christina answered this way: “Michael and Andre did a fabulous job in using all the information we already had on hand. They really listened to what we were communicating to them during the management briefing. They put our data in a format that was easy for us to see and navigate our way through. The most important thing they did was to ask all the right questions – the great questions.”
“We were also very concerned that each of our key management team executives understood what information was being presented, and that each of them had an equal opportunity to voice their ideas. Michael and Andre facilitated us through a wonderful process, and it only took us two half-day sessions. We ended up with a great three-year strategic plan. Everyone was in agreement and we had complete buy-in with our new direction. And that’s not always an easy task with this group. I will definitely recommend using Leadership Strategies again. This was a great process for us!”
