LONGWOOD, FL - Recently I spoke to finding your way as a leader. Well, during my tenure as a Senior Director in strategic development for a Global Fortune 100 company, there was a management standard for growth and development in order to enter the executive team. This standard was known as the three A’s and has stayed with me for a long time.
The three A’s are accountable, adaptable, and assertive. All have been and continue to be extremely important dynamics for my personal growth, along with teams I’ve been with along many journeys. Sometimes the best lessons or drivers are the simplest ones.
Without accountability, leaders, teams, and companies lack responsibility in generating net value for stakeholders, stockholders, and partners. One learning point for me has been that without personal accountability as a father, brother, team leader, and executive, there is no one else to blame for alternate outcomes. Engage and be accountable for that engagement.
Without adaptability, organizations that don’t change and adapt will eventually fail. A great example of this would be buggy whips at the turn of the last century. This was a $100-million industry. Today they sell around $2 million.
In the produce industry, at one time, you could only sell items on a seasonal basis. However, organizations developed better farming, CEA (controlled environment agriculture) technology, logistical practices, and many items are now sold year-round on a global basis. Those sticking with seasonal items and not expanding mindsets will lose market share and vital profits for growth and expansion.
Being assertive is no different from communicating your ability to deliver and build as well as, if not better than, a competitor. It is advocating for yourself, your product, your team, and your company. The old term “no guts, no glory” comes to mind.
Although we live amid challenges, based on what seat you sit in, these are also exciting times.
From a historic perspective, there have always been challenges and opportunities. But, as a global body, we have many new technologies in agriculture, medicine, communication, education, and sustainability that allow for new engagement and partnerships for growth.
There is an old saying from the Peace Corps in the 1960s: “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
Engage and be part of the solution.
Doug Kling, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner, Kling Strategic Partners
Mr. Kling is an experienced executive leader who has been involved both on a board and senior management level with Cadbury Schweppes, Johanna Foods, Life Savers Inc., and other Fortune 500 consumer products companies, institutional associations, and government agencies on a national and global level for over 35 years. He just completed four years on the Board of Directors of the United Fresh Produce Association and served on the Fresh Summit Advisory Board of the Produce Marketing Association. He is currently on the Board of Directors of Black Gold Farms, one of the largest potato farming operations in North America and is President and Chief Executive Officer of Kling Strategic Partners LLC., a global strategic development partnership working primarily with companies in the food, CPG, and agricultural industries.
Mr. Kling holds a degree in Behavioral Science from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida; completed MBA studies in marketing management at Pace University in New York City; post-graduate work in Strategic Marketing at the Harvard Graduate School of Business; and post-graduate work in negotiation at Harvard Law School.
