CEO, Hugh Hamilton Wines
Executive Program for Growing Companies, Stanford University, 2018
Mary Hamilton is the CEO of Hugh Hamilton Wines and the 6th generation of Australia’s oldest wine family. She is the great, great, great granddaughter of Richard Hamilton, who planted the first grape vines in South Australia and made the first wine in the fledgling colony after discovering his new homeland was devoid of wine.
Mary describes Hugh Hamilton Wines as “a heritage wine brand with attitude!” Makers of wines with personality, their luxury level products stand out from the flock with irreverent names, quirky varietals, bizarre blends, stunning packaging and charismatic stories. Their moniker is not a coat of arms, but a wild black sheep, which is a nod to the family DNA of making their own footprints, rather than following others.
Here’s how Mary used the ideas from her fortnight at Stanford University to navigate a pathway through two challenging years that are transforming their family business.
“In March 2020, descending into a whirlpool, the question on my mind was ‘how do we not fail?’
Tip #1: DEFINE THE GAME YOU WANT TO WIN
We had done this years earlier, where other wine businesses were all zigging down the same pathway to retail sales, we had zagged with a vision to be the best direct to consumer (DtC) wine brand in the county, underpinned by our Black Sheep wine subscription club. Our big concern was that our DtC model was reliant on face-to-face interactions for growth, and with visitation off the table we needed a new way to be relevant. We re-imagined the vision without bricks-and-mortar underpinning the model.
Tip #2: HOW STRATEGY COMPLIMENTS INTUITION AND VISION
Intuition → Vision → Works? → Why? → Luck or Competence? → Learning = the basis of strategy (Robert Burgelman, Stanford Graduate School of Business)
Intuition shouldn’t be discounted as part of business strategy. Our vision was to sprinkle a little magic into the lives of customers during the difficult period caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The DtC vision was tweaked to Our Flock – Isolated Together. We would understand their fears, frustrations and loneliness, and be with them, despite being locked away. Using our understanding of our customers and their mood around being trapped at home, we designed a range of care packages and gift boxes (the Iso Pack, Stimulus Package, Shack Pack) to keep people entertained. This quickly got taken up by customers wanting to nurture others. That left us with an execution issue – both systems and people. At that point we had a weak online capacity to reach existing customers and generate new leads. We were also not geared up to be a fulfilment business. Overnight we had to become an e-commerce business. Our team were unprepared for what was coming and had not been tested with rapid change. It showed that strategy and culture need to both be in play.
Tip #3: STRATEGY WITHOUT CULTURE IS POWERLESS, BUT CULTURE WITHOUT STRATEGY IS AIMLESS (Robert Burgelman, Stanford Graduate School of Business)
We were forced to rapidly change the culture in some areas: from a long sales cycle to a short one; from a slower, detailed approach to a faster approach; from a longer format communication tone to a pitchy transactional tone; from a set structure to a flexible one. This required strategic leadership and some of our employees didn’t like change or pressure, so it was going to be an interesting ride. Most of them soon got the drift that they were going to like unemployment a lot less. People often nod their heads and get on with things, but what’s below the waterline of the iceberg is more significant than what is seen on the surface.
Tip #4: WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE PEOPLE OR WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE PEOPLE (Mary Barra, CEO General Motors)
It has changed the way we recruit and enabled us to gain a clear perspective of the personal characteristics our business requires – a premise that now appears on all recruitment briefs and job descriptions. Some of our people rose to the challenge and advanced their careers in ways that would not have been possible without the pressure, and others buckled and ultimately left.
On a side note, no trip to a major US university would be complete without acquiring some varsity merchandise. We repurposed the traditional logo into our own little university – The Black Sheep Uni. This was part of our Isolated Together initiative to find a way of sharing our expertise from a distance and included weekly online live tastings and education, as well as the sweater
