Food Protection Trends - June 2010 - 332

from your president
n mid-April I attended an off-site Kraft Foods business meeting called the Quality Round Table (QRT). As a company, we hold this roundtable meeting roughly every other year; in my business unit, Cheese and Dairy, we attend them twice a year. The core attendees are employees from the company’s quality, corporate and manufacturing divisions. Other groups or representatives within the company are occasionally invited to give updates and other relevant presentations. Last week, the QRT audience was more broad-based than usual, including staff from the microbiology/food safety, regulatory, sanitation, operations, and auditing business units, as well as key representatives from marketing, sales and the senior leadership teams. One of the reasons for the larger group of roundtable participants was the overarching theme of the meeting: Indispensable Business Partners. Throughout the meeting, we discussed what it means to be an indispenable (i.e., essential, absolutely or vitally necessary) partner. We considered how each and every function of the business, no matter how directly or indirectly related to food quality, needs to become an indispensable business partner to each other and to the company in order for the overall business to be successful. Success, in our company’s case, means going to market with delicious, high-quality, safe products that delight consumers. So, how does a department or an individual become an indispensable partner? At Kraft, we are guided by seven principles. An indispensable partner inspires trust and acts like an owner of the organization. An indispensable partner demonstrates strategic agility by anticipating future consequences

“vickie's view”

By VICKIE LEWANDOWSKI
PRESIDENT

“We agreed that a strategic plan would put the tools in place to drive the organization forward”

and reacting appropriately. An indispensable partner demonstrates broad knowledge and perspective, typically gained with experience. An indispensable partner is fully engaged at all times, and as an “owner,” is aware of the company’s strategic plan and works toward accomplishing the goals outlined in that plan. A week after the QRT meeting, I had the opportunity to use what I learned about the concept of indispensable partnering at the IAFP Executive Board’s spring meeting. As I mentioned in a previous column,

during this meeting we revisited, revived and renewed the association’s three-year strategic plan. We had an excellent facilitator, Doug Whittle, who led us through this important task. Doug was quite skilled at listening to our very vocal group of 11 (often all of us at the same time!) and interpreting our needs, wants and goals for the present and future success of the association. We began with some basic questions: What is a strategic plan, and why do we need one? A strategic plan is a roadmap, which essentially helps an organization determine where it is going over the next few years, how it’s going to get there, and how it will know if it got there or not. We considered whether IAFP, as a nonprofit organization, really needs a strategic plan. Why not keep doing what we are already doing? There’s an old saying that if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got. This adage has been updated to include the phrase “or less” at its conclusion. As stewards of IAFP, the Executive Board members and staff decided that we want to make sure that the association doesn’t stay in the same place, or worse, lose ground. We agreed that a strategic plan would put the tools in place to drive the organization forward and help IAFP grow from a good association into a great one. Next, we pinpointed the Key Result Areas (KRAs) that support our mission statement: “To provide food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting the food supply.” We did this by asking three questions: 1. What should IAFP continue to do? In other words, what are we proud of, what do we need more of?

332 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | JUNE 2010

Food Protection Trends - June 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - June 2010