Craig Fuller
Founder & CEO, FreightWaves
Tell us about a companywide change you’ve implemented.
We went fully remote in 2020, then we had to decide whether we would embrace remote work. We had to figure out how to keep our company culture, which is full of creativity and intellectual energy, while also opening ourselves up to a nationwide pool of talent that could take our team to the next level.
How can leaders mitigate risks during companywide changes?
The biggest risk is that if senior leadership and middle management don’t follow through with ‘change management,’ it won’t truly be a companywide change. You risk losing the great aspects of what you had before the change without fully capitalizing on the advantages of doing things in the new way. Employees can tell when changes are handed down half-heartedly and then neglected or forgotten about, and it’s demoralizing. Senior leaders owe it to everyone at the company to fully commit themselves, stay engaged, work through the whole process, and demonstrate that they truly care about the people they’re asking to change.
How do you know when a change has been successful?
How you know whether a change has been successful greatly depends on the specific change you’re trying to make, but in general, the criteria for success should be defined at the very beginning of the process, and indeed it should be part of the reason for making the change in the first place. In other words, if we’re making a change to accomplish x, y, and z, then we have to track progress toward x, y, and z continually.
The criteria for success are bound up with the reasons for making the changes in the first place, but how you get there – the new solutions, ways of working, and initiatives that are necessary to realize that success – may not be obvious to leadership at the beginning of the process.
How do you navigate unforeseen roadblocks during change?
Unforeseen roadblocks and obstacles will always emerge, and the more ambitious and thorough the change you have in mind is, the more time you will spend grappling with unexpected challenges. It’s key to have processes in place – whether those are regularly scheduled meetings, or dedicated teams with defined goals, or a repeating cadence of measurement and evaluation – so when these things occur, there are people waiting and ready for them. Companywide changes are ongoing, iterative processes, and you have to have people in position who can adapt and overcome as the process unfolds.
Do you have any form of support system in place that allows you to do what you do?
From the start, I have relied on business growth through word of mouth and building relationships rather than from a marketing or online approach. It takes more time, but generally has kept my schedule filled with the work I love to do and the people I love to work for.