Leadership
Looking up
How Tim Lindgren helps make Sunkist Growers the pick of the market
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business Los Angeles | November 2007
Everybody has stopped by to spend a dime or two at his or her
local lemonade stand, but Sunkist Growers Inc., to use a citrus
pun, puts a special twist on it.
The fruit and vegetable cooperative has been running a program
for several years now where a child, ages 7 to 12, can use a special
Sunkist lemonade stand to raise money for his or her favorite charity.
To Sunkist President and CEO Tim J. Lindgren, it’s the perfect
way to do some charity work while also building on an international brand.
“We build on the fact that Sunkist has a long tradition of wholesomeness and that reinforces that,” he says. “We provide them
with a lemonade stand in front of public events or stores, and they
serve lemonade with the Sunkist brand on it, so we get associated
with some real wholesome activities, and I think we probably have
now 20,000 of these stands, so every time you see one, it’s around
some wholesome activity; that’s the image we’re building on.”
If it seems pretty basic that a household name like Sunkist has an
image based on wholesomeness, then the brand work done behind
the curtain has been successful. But that doesn’t mean that it does-n’t take a heavy dose of leadership to grow a successful organization. In addition to taking the reins for one of the largest brand
names in the world, Lindgren is charged with leading more than 400
employees between Sunkist’s office and manufacturing facility, as
well as working with the 6,000 grower members in California and
Arizona. Lindgren has been aggressive with his leadership and has
moved Sunkist forward, pushing it to $1.1 billion in revenue for its
growers in 2006, up from $1 billion last year.
Here’s how Lindgren has continued to raise the bar at the largest
fruit and vegetable co-op in the world.
Give your employees a basic vision
With more than 6,000 growers in the co-op, Lindgren will be the
first to tell you that there are many, many babies to kiss and hands
to shake along the path to building buy-in.
“I would tell a new CEO that probably the single most important
thing you can do is to get a basic vision that is a composite and get
it out in front, and then march ahead with it,” Lindgren says.
“Because when you get a vision out there, it allows everybody to
participate. Different people have different talents and a different
frame of reference, but if you can get them all going under one
vision and orchestrate it so all the product that comes out is a really one, single product, where everyone knows that is the goal,
that’s the best thing you can do.”
That single vision becomes the cornerstone of every initiative in
the company. For Sunkist, it’s based around being the best brand
in the market. From that simple idea, Lindgren can get everyone
on board and then start to work out the specifics for the rest of his
strategic plan. That’s when he hits that long road of trying to get
ideas and feedback from those 6,000 members.
“It’s extremely important to have a defined vision out there; it’s
important for your team and staff to participate in developing the
aspects of it and that they participate in the modification of the
plan as you go forward,” Lindgren says. “We’ve had amazingly positive response from our growers, and we are really revisiting all
areas of our company operations, everything that we do.”
Once you’ve set up the basic vision, you can go back and really
focus on the details by doing something else that is simple: asking
for feedback.
“We’ve gone to the growers and said, ‘We want to create a new
vision and what do you see as far as priorities,’ and it’s been an
amazingly satisfying prospect,” Lindgren says.
It’s in that mode that face-to-face meetings become important.
Though he can’t realistically get to everyone, he does his best to
organize ways to get feedback from as many growers as possible.
He takes time on the road to see people and get as many people as
possible involved — even if he can’t fit their idea into the updated
version of the vision.
“There’s no substitute for that, going to their home or grove and
talking to them,” Lindgren says. “We have grower meetings, we go
to areas and have luncheons and have conversations with them
about what is happening at Sunkist.
“It’s very important to see what they’re feeling out there and also
communicate what you’re trying to do. It has to be done in a somewhat organized manner because obviously with 6,000 growers,
you’re going to get 6,000 different points of view, so it takes experience to filter through it to make sure what you’re hearing, what
you’re passing on, what you’re taking action on is done within an
organized framework. But it is extremely important both from an
information-gathering standpoint and for making them feel
involved.”
Build a company around a brand
Lindgren wants you to know that whether you’re aware of it or
not, the Sunkist brand is all around you.
Don’t be scared, it’s part of the plan. With Sunkist, building up
and protecting the brand is on top of the organization’s to-do list.
So, while it has lent its name to more than 600 products, ranging
from soft drinks and juice to candy, in 50 different countries, there
is a method to the madness.
“It’s a real sacred trust, it’s a brand that’s been built up over more
than 100 years, it is one of the most recognized food brands, so it’s
something we take very seriously, and our quality control and service levels have to be maintained and stay high,” Lindgren says. “My
role as CEO is to be certain that when someone has a Sunkist
brand they know they have a good, quality product, so we have a
pretty rigid system of quality enforcement. Beyond that, we are
always promoting our brand.”
That promotion, like the lemonade stands, is centered on keeping
the brand tied to its strongest and best-known elements. The basic
thing Lindgren wants to do is to keep that profile regardless of
where the brand moves. Therefore, Sunkist has implemented a
snack program where it provides sliced fruits as an alternative to
vending machine snacks. Sunkist also turned its focus to organic
fruits for the first time in 2007, a strategy that took years to plan out
but that keeps consistent with the idea of building goodwill around
the brand.
“Our main thrust was to get out and establish identity,” Lindgren
says. “The product lends itself to that; there’s nothing more wholesome than a citrus product, so you start with that, we maintain
high quality, we have a staff that’s dedicated to promoting that, and
they are constantly taking that out into the public.”
Not only does Sunkist want the consumer to see the brand as the
label of success, but Lindgren uses it as something like a company
flag to fly outside the office.
“The brand is central to everything,” he says. “We take great pride
in it, and it’s developed a great culture for us. The brand gives you
a rallying point. When you have something to build on, it’s not like
you’re starting from scratch. It’s important to understand that the
brand is sort of the banner out there to combine the emotions and
efforts of people. It becomes a really good rally point for combining people who have been in the system for a long time and the
new people coming in who can immediately attach to a pride and
a continuity.”
The idea of hanging a brand flag can work as an energizer on both
ends, too. While building a successful brand will give employees
something to believe in when times are rough, it can also act as a
starting point for upping the ante when times are good.
“It’s important that when you talk about the brand and the vision
that it isn’t just something that you do when you’re down or in
trouble,” Lindgren says. “We came off one of our best years, but we
decided to take on a major new vision wrapped around our
Sunkist brand even though we’re on top. You always need to be
improving and looking ahead, and it’s better to do that when you’re
on top than when you’re fighting from behind, so you can use that
to motivate them to keep upping the brand.”
Lead without fear
Lindgren has learned plenty about leadership in his time at
Sunkist, but there’s one business lesson that he takes with him
that comes from outside of the business world.
“I had a friend who was a great athlete, and I asked him one
time, ‘How do you do this?’” Lindgren says. “He had all this
national claim and attention, and he told me, ‘My motto is that
I hate to lose, but I never let the fear of losing interfere with
how I play the game.’”
That fearlessness is something that Lindgren has applied to
his leadership tactics ever since. And while he appreciates the
consensus he builds at Sunkist, he knows it’s not worth anything if he can’t push final decisions out the door.
“One of the things that I’ve learned is that you are the leader
for a reason, and you’ve been selected to do that,” he says. “So the buck stops here, and the final decisions have to be made by
you.”
That’s not his way of saying forget the team, but he knows
that there are times that you simply can’t get a final move from
a larger group, and when push comes to shove, you have to be
willing to make the big decision and present it to your people.
“I consider myself to have a very participative style of management, so I like to build up consensus, but I guess the only
regrets I’ve had over the years are when I have not ended up
using my own individual judgment,” Lindgren says. “At the end
of the day, you’ve got to sort everything out and make the decision. I’ve had ventures that I’ve not gotten involved in that I
maybe should have because I got overly cautious advice or
times where I was pushed by advisers to do something I wasn’t sure about. Over the years, my experience has been that my
judgment, combined with the best advice I have available, is
the thing that I have to lead with. At the end of the day, you
have to go with your judgment, and you’re going to win more
than you lose.”
HOW TO REACH: Sunkist Growers Inc. (818) 986-4800 or www.sunkist.com
