Matching People to Strategy

What is the strategy we want to pursue

There should be a strong match in any company that wants to be successful between the human resources that are needed to achieve a certain goal and strategy. I’ll give you an example. I felt very strongly back in 1993 that to resurrect Gucci Group we needed to take more of a “fashion” course to make sure that the consumers understood what we were trying to do with Gucci—rejuvenating it, making it more exciting and repositioning the brand.

In deciding the strategy to follow, it was obviously very much in my mind that we had the right firepower to make the strategy work. The reality is that the real power is the brand. Obviously, having a strong person who drives the brand inspires the brand. Every time we acquire a new brand we always try to find out, “What is the strategy we want to pursue?” Once we’ve decided the strategy, it becomes very important to purse the appropriate people, to say, “Who do we need?” You want to hire the superstar, that is true, but by the same token you have to make sure that the superstars fit within the strategy of the brand.

ACTION POINT: For any company to be successful, a strong match must exist between the strategy and the human resources needed to achieve the goal.