Note: This is part of an ongoing series of articles that mine the Be Epic Podcast for lessons and insights that students and practitioners can apply to their lives as business leaders.
As the CEO of Nielson-Massey Vanillas, Jonathan Thompson knows a thing or two about the importance of quality ingredients, and not just when it comes to high-end culinary products. Thompson’s journey in leadership also has helped him develop a recipe for innovation, whether it’s with a global brand in need of a turnaround or a century-old family business.
Thompson, who graduated from the Walton College MBA program in 2005, has worked in a variety of roles with major consumer package goods companies like Mars Petcare, Dannon, and Glanbia Performance Nutrition, but always with a leadership style that fosters an entrepreneurial culture.
In fact, as he told Matt Waller on the BeEpic podcast, the opportunity to innovate was one of the things that attracted Thompson to Nielson-Massey, where he became CEO in 2020.
What could be innovative about a third-generation company that’s been around since 1907 and sells products that are as vanilla as, well, vanilla? Plenty, it turns out.
In Nielsen-Massey, Thompson saw a company with a great product and fantastic brand reputation that was positioned to expand into new markets and pursue new opportunities.
“So for me,” he said, “it was all about the growth and the chance to actually take a CEO role and place a bet on myself.”
In addition to building its existing distribution channels and developing new ones (including expansions in its e-commerce business and into more international markets), Nielsen-Massey is exploring new ways to use its proven processes to develop a line of organic natural food products beyond vanilla.
In his interview with Waller, the dean of the Walton College, Thompson hit on two key ingredients for developing an innovation-oriented culture.
Listen to understand. Recalling all the times he regretted not paying closer attention to what other people were telling him helped Thompson realize the value of listening to understand. When he worked at Dannon, Thompson had a mentor who lived out this principle extraordinarily well.
“[He was at] the epicenter of our sales strategy department, lots coming at him all day long, but the minute you would ask him a question, he would turn to you and give you the full extent of his attention,” Thompson said. “And that always struck me. How was he able to actually dedicate his full attention and be so patient? So, I've tried to emulate … (his) listening skills throughout the length of my career.”
By asking questions that dig deep into the issues and listening with the intention of understanding, leaders create a culture where curiosity is the norm. Collaboration and innovation become noticeable byproducts.
“Creating a culture where no one feels that there’s a taboo that you can’t ask a question is immensely vital,” he said, “particularly if you’re an innovation business.”
As a general manager for Glanbia Performance Nutrition, for instance, Thompson was responsible for helping turn around Isopure, a brand that began to struggle as it was being integrated into the Glanbia family of products. He recalled walking into a meeting and feeling like there was no spirit of innovation in the air.
“People were working on things (and) they didn’t really know why,” he said. “And it was just simply, as a leader, asking some basic questions and inviting people that normally didn’t have a voice around the table to weigh in on it, even though it wasn’t in their lane.”
After a few meetings with questions and listening as the focus, he said, a culture of collaboration began to take root and the team produced more innovative ideas about how to move the business forward.
Balance processes with creativity. Developing effective, efficient processes is hugely important to growing a business, Thompson points out, but as a company gets bigger and bigger, over-relying on those practices can blind leaders to innovation opportunities.
There’s value in functional expertise that’s been cultivated over the years, he said, “but there’s also a lot of entrenchment in that, where if we’ve always done it this way, and we continue to do it that way, we will never get the breakthroughs. … There has to be a healthy tension between having too much process or the right amount of process and having enough slack in the business so you can be creative and you can evolve.”
Leaders have to be intentional about providing clarity of purpose and rooting out fears that keep people from taking risks or bringing up new ideas so that you have a culture that rewards what he calls sensible risk-taking.
“If you reward risk-taking,” he said, “then you can actually have a healthy blend of people that are taking those risks and pushing the business forward. And then a whole other set of people that, quite frankly, whether it’s personality, disposition or whatever it may be, are going be much better at running the algorithm, so to speak. And you need a blend of both in your business.”
