Alternative Apparel

Facilitator

From adolescent t-shirt company to successful lifestyle apparel brand

SITUATION

In 2005, Alternative Apparel was a young, hip, B2B company, supplying blank t-shirts and other sportswear to retailers and wholesalers. But in its own youthful hip-ness, the company had become a challenge to wrangle. The actions of the workforce rarely aligned with the vision of management.  In fact, they often moved in distinctly opposite directions. And although Alternative Apparel was growing, it lacked a brand vision, well-defined culture, and basic standardized processes that everyone could understand and embrace. To compound matters, management was highly frustrated by the even greater success that American Apparel, their major competitor, was enjoying.

OPPORTUNITY

Help define the brand’s Reason for Being, give the business heart, give employees the answer to “Why come to work today?”, and re-focus the entire organization on moving in one, collaborative direction. To accomplish this, it was also necessary to shift the decision- and culture-influencing focus from solely the people who “paid the bills” (wholesalers, department stores and decorators) to the people who actually used the products.

SOLUTION

First we helped them uncover and tell their brand story, first to themselves and then to their customers.

The process included a series of exercises, beginning with a whole-group intervention, followed quickly by breakout sessions of smaller teams of employees. These teams explored dozens of different options with implications on both current and future business. Each person was given the opportunity to think through how their professional role would be affected by any changes. The breakout teams were then brought back together for group discussion and validation.

With management’s wholehearted endorsement, each person who was part of the project had different books to read, homework to prepare, observations to make, conversations to have and detailed reactions to provide. This organized, methodical process gave employees the sense of involvement and empowerment, and gradually migrated them from a “me” attitude to a “we” attitude. Slowly they began to work together toward a common goal, one that they came to believe they could only achieve collectively, not as individuals.

These efforts ultimately resulted in new corporate governing principles, definition of emotional outcomes, and a Roles and Accountabilities design.

RESULTS

As part of this evolving process, Alternative Apparel has had four engagements with Mike between 2005 and 2010. The brand and the company are dramatically different then they were five years ago. They’ve excised themselves of employees who didn’t fit the new culture, and they’ve changed their hiring protocol to find—and keep—the people who do fit. People are staying with the company longer, and contributing more quickly. Employees feel much more comfortable and proud in their roles, and the opportunity to promote from within has increased immensely.

More importantly, sales have grown 40% the past two years in a declining market, and profit is up significantly. The company has also branched into the B2C marketplace through online, retail and alternative means of distribution. Today Alternative Apparel no longer considers itself a t-shirt company. They are proud to call themselves a lifestyle firm with an emphasis on individual expression and comfort.