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David Perry

Sealy CEO shows leadership in admitting ActivLink error

What kind of CEO will Larry Rogers be at Sealy? That’s a question a number of industry players have asked me in the past several weeks, following Rogers’ elevation in late July to the top job at the world’s largest bedding producer.

I’ve offered a few tentative thoughts, but I think all of us got some significant clues in Sealy’s recent decision to abandon a sales model that it touted with much fanfare just over a year ago.
Brief recap: In July 2007, Rogers said Sealy was outsourcing its service to smaller dealers. Rather than serve about 1,200 dealers with sales reps calling on those dealers in their stores, Sealy switched to a telephone-based service center in which call center employees serviced the retailers through phone, fax and e-mail. At the time, Rogers described the program, called ActivLink, as an industry-leading, proactive sales program.
But, as it turns out, the program didn’t provide the level of service Sealy felt it should, Rogers told me a few weeks ago. “Our industry is unique,” he said. “It requires that human touch.”
So Sealy is discontinuing the ActivLink program and going back to more traditional service to those dealers, Rogers said. He also said something that is surprising, coming as it does from Sealy’s top executive: “I believe we made an error. There is no point in hiding from the truth.”
Frankly, that is not the sort of candid confession that past Sealy leaders would have made. As I think back to how Sealy responded to the introduction of single-sided mattresses several years ago, I can’t recall any top Sealy official ever admitting that Sealy made a mistake in its aggressive fight against single-sided beds, even when it was clear that retailers were embracing the single-sided beds. It just hasn’t been the practice of top Sealy officials to publicly acknowledge errors.
That, I think, has been an even bigger error. It has reflected an arrogant attitude that does not benefit Sealy.
It is refreshing to see Rogers break from that past when he publicly says that Sealy made a mistake in outsourcing its service to smaller dealers. He didn’t hide that fact in a fancy press release full of corporate spin.
It takes a big man to admit a mistake. And a wise man, too, because everyone makes mistakes, and people are usually forgiving of others who admit their mistakes.
Larry Rogers’ ability to revisit a program that didn’t work out shows that he has been able to learn on the job. That is a sign of his leadership abilities.
Companies that don’t make mistakes aren’t trying very hard to be successful.

Playing not to fail is a guarantee that failure is coming. When companies do fail, they should learn from those mistakes, acknowledge them, and move on with a new strategy. That is what Sealy is doing now.

Good work, Larry.