20 WESTERN PALLET
NWPCA’s vision includes being a global thought leader in wood packaging. “That’s ambitious, but that’s what you want in your strategic plan,” McClendon said. “We call it a BHAG. A big, hairy, audacious goal. If you build your vision for your company from where you are today, it will be a limited vision because you are going to look at your resources as constraints."
“You have to start by asking where should we be, what do we want to do, what do we want to be? Once you put together that plan, then you are developing goals and objectives to achieve it. You can roll through them, and they all make sense. If you want to be a global thought leader, what does that mean?”
He noted that when he started at NWPCA they had 1.5 engineers. Now they have 5 engineers and 2 PhDs on staff. “If you are going to be a global thought leader, you better put your money where your mouth is,” he sad. “You are going to hire people and fund those projects.”