Jack Truong on Building a Robust Business Model by Creating Consensus

For nearly 30 years, maverick CEO Jack Truong’s uncanny knack for reimagining old products in new ways has been a catalyst for accomplishment. However, it’s his ability to combine visionary problem-solving skills with a deep understanding of both workforce and marketplace conditions that has led to his unprecedented success as a leader lauded for transforming underperforming product lines and corporations into dynamic market leaders.

It was the application of his own particular brand of savvy that helped Truong revive the dwindling profits of 3M’s office products line with a revolutionary rebranding of the then near-extinct Post-it note. It was with that same focus he ushered in a renaissance at the helm of Electrolux’s North American appliance division, launching its once-languishing sales figures to unheralded heights by creating a new consumer demand for sleek design paired with dependable performance (a legacy that continues to this day).

Thanks to this unparalleled skill set paired with close to three decades of in-the-trenches experience, Jack Truong has a uniquely clear sightline into the underlying issues that keep businesses from achieving their full potential, as well as the necessary steps that must be taken if they hope to create the kind of thriving environment that leads to an engaged workforce and burgeoning profit margins.

“Throughout my career, I have been the face of change at companies,” he explained. “It has not always been easy, but I suspect I have a slightly different perspective that enabled my success.”

The Pitfalls of a Siloed Workforce

While Truong concedes it’s the nature of marketplace competitors to make things tough for fledgling or floundering corporations, that’s only to be expected. Ironically however, time and again, Truong has seen how some ill-advised corporate leaders become their own worst enemies. One huge problem he cites is refusing to relinquish a “silo mentality,” resulting in the inability to foster collaboration and communication across teams.

As noted in an article by Forbes contributors Brent Gleeson and Megan Rozo: “The Silo mentality … is a mindset present when certain departments or sectors do not wish to share information with others in the same company. This type of mentality will reduce efficiency in the overall operation, reduce morale, and may contribute to the demise of a productive company culture.”

On his website, Truong remarked, “Siloed workplaces may be the biggest detriment to building a culture of success. They are inefficient, deter collaboration, and prevent the company from understanding and then responding quickly to market changes and shifts in demand.”

In fact, Jack Truong maintains that in corporate culture, there are few things more counterproductive than an “us versus them” mentality in which teams vie to outdo one another rather than working together toward a common goal that benefits everyone.

“Having led several businesses in publicly traded companies over the past 20 years, I’ve seen and experienced firsthand the long-term impact of corporate culture on company performance,” Truong shared. “A strong corporate culture is at the heart of every business success story. But achieving such a culture is often more challenging than the business results that follow.”

Getting Everyone On Board

While it’s the leader’s role to ultimately provide direction to reporting teams, unless that leader is willing to actively engage their workforce, any benchmarks they hope to achieve may ultimately be unrealistic and therefore, unattainable. “You’ve got to have a strategy that really takes into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of your business, and then be able to drive there,” Truong reports. “But then, you’ve got to put the execution together to get the whole company, the [whole] organization, aligned to execute toward that direction.”

If corporate culture is the environment in which an enterprise either flourishes or falters, Jack Truong believes it’s incumbent on leadership to provide the vital nutrients and conditions to nurture and sustain that environment. Should those elements be lacking, even a visionary venture or innovative product line may be doomed to failure.

“Above all, it’s crucial to lead by example and empower employees to take ownership, as well as accountability. This will foster a positive company culture,” he explained. “It’s also equally important that leaders make the tough decisions at the right time to ensure the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. When employees buy into the vision, align with corporate values, and understand the end goal, the future possibilities are endless.”

How Empowering Workers Reinforces Leadership

According to Truong, the most essential element to a business’s potential for dramatic growth and profits — the very water, air, and sunlight required to sustain and nurture that business, if you will — is consensus. For some CEOs it’s “my way or the highway,” but truly effective leaders such as Jack Truong understand prioritizing ego over informed decision-making can lead to myriad bad calls and missed opportunities. On the other hand, leaders who are attentive to workforce concerns and open to new ideas have rightly realized plugging employee input into the equation doesn’t diminish their power, but rather strengthens focus and allows everyone to pull together.

Establishing an open and robust model of communication (a tactic Truong has dubbed, “The foreman and Norman”) in which all cohorts within a company are offered a chance to have their say prior to the incoming CEO issuing new marching orders as well as later, when such directives have been implemented is an indispensable prerequisite to a healthy bottom line. This vital conduit provides an open forum that encourages goodwill up and down the food chain by setting a positive precedent, while also instilling trust and confidence in the CEO among direct reports and employees.

“You want to create the environment at the beginning where all people voice their opinions and voice their questions, concerns, and then so that you get everything out,” Truong said. “You’ve got to allow people to have the opportunity to voice their concerns, [and] their opinions. But then at the end of that period, the CEO has to make the final decision.”

However, opening lines of communication isn’t enough. Once established, those channels must be monitored and encouraged because, Truong asserted, a unified vision drives connectivity and connectivity drives productivity. “As a CEO, you have got to make sure that you directly communicate with the leaders of each one of these critical functions and ensure they come together in saying: ‘This is our strategy, and this is how we are connected and how we are going to execute it together.’”