Callaway Visit Observations and Reflections

Callaway Reflections: 

Harry: 

• Culture is best defined as how you manage change, specifically: how you come together under stress. 
• Culture is not defined when everything is smooth sailing. 
• Value-based innovation must be your culture in a marketing team. 
• Learning must be the gasoline of your operation. People must have curious minds when things are changing so dynamically. 
• Change: started at the top; Chip (CEO) set the agenda of what is important to Callaway and went with it. 
• It is always important to allow your employees to try new things. “Give them the freedom to fail”
• Individuals worst enemy is self-filters. 
• So when management gives people space and safety they thrive. 
• When someone has a new idea “Yes, and” is an important motto to manage by. It allows for ideas but also sets the agenda. 
• Paradigm of innovation
• When things aren’t going well or creatives have fun out: just start somewhere: similar to curing writer’s block. 
• Challenges: how do we get consumers excited about our products. Leading continuation of being on top. 
• Fear: Noncreativity
• Personal tip: try to find your happiness and maximize on it. 

With Harry, I feel like he is really committed to the vision of each individual. I think that he continuously approaches individuals with a challenge to make each person better. Ultimately, I think he wants people to love what they do because they are passionate about it. He does not force individuals to love Callaway or working but rather encourages his employees to find what they are passionate about and incorperate it into their work. My next questions for Harry will be more geared toward how he has come to understand awareness and leading a team with these mindsets. 

AJ and Chad: 

• These two never work in long-form. Always short term operatives. Short term mindset allows them to work on a whim… 
• Things that they love most about Callaway: allowing for creative freedom. A Long kept promise from Harry and has stayed true to it forever. 
• Their biggest challenge: expectations and pressures. The workload is immense. Although the work is a ton they are both highly ambitious individuals and value efficiency. They must be efficient though or nothing would ever get done. 
• Most important team skills: communication and awareness of others. Everyone on the team is a major contributor and you must acknowledge that. 
• Challenges: small/nimble team and they must always be fast paced. 
• Something they didn’t use to like: stopping for meetings or team check-ins. 
  • But now realize it is critically important to stop and regroup because you can collectively identify weaknesses and connect through group work. 
• Phobia: surrounded by people who aren’t interested in learning. Learning must be a continuous mindset for the whole team. 
• Good things about Callaway: they are set up to find their problems themselves. Building a team around high performance. 
• 12-month challenge: the expansion and need to hire new people and adapting to those new people and new changes. Not taking change personally or to heart because they have been so tight-knit. 
• AJ: Past five years was easy to root for us. But now how do we keep people on our side.
• Short-term vs. long-term: when you satisfy those short-term needs in their roles you gain a bigger and better result. Upper management deals with the long-term path. 
• The real-time social world is all they deal with.  
• Finding the content to post on social, they must stay aware. 

My observations with AJ and Chad is that they are both really focused on their individual roles rather than the group objectives, maybe because in their jobs their landscape is constantly changing. I want to ask them questions about the ever changing landscapes and how to deal with it. I also want to someone probe about how they feel about teams and how they work in teams.

Kirsten:

• Sales and marketing: dealing with their relationship. 
• This position is ever changing. We don’t directly control the message. So we deal with the communication between the outside and the inside. 
• Accountability, sizabliity, turn-over 
• Culture: sales-led organization: you get results and change business directly because of that. Reactionary environment. A lot of trickle down results. Interesting dynamic but you must lead the change. 
• A small group who wears a lot of hats. 
• You must own that and know it at the end of the day. 
• Role of learning: learning must come from within 
• Trial by fire
• Online space is a challenge
• 12 months: sociability/ focus 
• So much to do what do we focus on? Takes a lot of planning. Setting time aside to focus on the future is crucial. Holding people accountable. 
• Permanent fixturing
• Push yourself 

Kirsten deals mostly with the communication with the outside of Callaway. She seems to be the middleman and it appears to be one of the hardest jobs. She also seems like she has to take the repercussions of any lash back that Callaway receives. I want to ask her questions about dealing with repercussions and controlling the messages. 

Alexis: 

• Culture: valued work environment
• Corporate landscape: people who are just as excited to work on a product/team as you are. 
• Beauracracy has changed a lot which can cause major growing pains. But communication can fix this issue. 
• Learning: learning about co-workers, humanizing each other, can help you manage the changes. 
• Some self-sufficiency is crucial. 
• Feedback must be handled and given well. 
  • Probably didn’t do the best job that I could have the mindset
• I talk to people to solve problems. Communication. 
• Don’t beat around the bush. A lot more talk about maintaining their current position, make sure they don’t begin declining. 
• Starting to create a new role for herself. 
• It is always clear you’ve had a future here at Callaway. 
• Job autonomy
• You could waste a lot of time doing a shit job and you don’t have to. 
• Leaders are essential in this journey. 
• Being vulnerable within your team.

Alexis seems like she has a leadership mindset, although she works as an individual she has created her own team and her own initiatives within the company. Because she is paving her own way, I want to ask her questions about taking charge of your position within a corporation. 

Dave:

• Help the organization set straight its message. 
• Create his own set of values. 
• We have a doer philosophy. 
• A very clear strategy, no shooting from the hip.
• How you react when things change. Not being afraid to do something even at the last minute. 
• A public company runs risk with board of directors being unsatisfied even in results to sales.
• Short term: market share, allocating time 
• Connecting with others
• Getting out of comfort zone. 
• Sustaining vs. launching products. 
• Story arcs: bridging the gap 
• Learning: a lot of social media emphasis. 

Dave appears to be in a senior position but must face the challenge of sustaining a product past its launch until the next product launches while also working on successfully planning the next launch. Because he is constantly being pulled in two different directions I want to ask him more questions about dealing with consistency and continuation without burnout.