Leadership Akron

How Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens is Reinventing Itself and Delivering Results

By Adam O’Donnell and Marissa Zilch

 

Our Goodyear CLI class had the pleasure of visiting Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens (SHH&G) on Tuesday November 1, 2011 where we were provided a unique opportunity to hear how SHH&G is using strategic planning to reinvent the organization. Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens is the former estate of Franklin “F.A” Seiberling and his family, including his influential wife, Gertrude. The, now, 70 acre estate was donated to a non-profit organization for public enjoyment, encompassing the Seiberling family motto of “Not for Us Alone”. 

SHH&G has a history of delivering results. In 1898 F.A. and his brother, Charles “C.W.” co-founded The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company with a $3,500 loan from F.A.’s father in-law. By the turn of the 20^th century the success of the Seiberling brothers had transformed the rubber industry and turned a land-locked town with little rail transportation into the “Rubber Capital of the World”. It is fair to say that the Seiberling brothers took that small loan and delivered results.

Currently, SHH&G worked to redefine their mission, vision, values, and goals with an inclusive team of board members, executive leadership, staff, and volunteers. This allowed all levels of participants at SHH&G to become engaged members in the focus of the organization. The results are:

Vision is to make Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens a nationally recognized destination.

Mission is “Sharing our Legacy to Enrich Lives”.

Values are leadership, passion, integrity, honesty, collaboration, quality, respect, diversity, initiative, responsibility, and fun.

Goals are to ensure the organization has a distinct presence in the community by preserving and sharing history with future generations.

Once Stan Hywet Hall & Garden’s had redefined the organization’s focus, a five year strategic plan was created. As the CFO, Sean Joyce, said “its not what you do, but how you do it.” Therefore the plan focuses on the fundamentals to ensure that every aspect of programming aligns with the Seiberling’s stories and yields a return on investment to bring value to the overall mission. Based on what the resources of the estate are and what the mission of the organization is, eight key results areas, each with there own core objectives, were developed to ensure the plan delivers its intended value.

Even most for-profit organizations could have felt satisfied with a plan that can be measured against a set of objectives, but the team’s planning did not stop there. To ensure each area could consistently execute against the plan the team identified five key activities that would ensure the success and sustainability of each key result area.

1. Planning - for each key results area, planning is done by the managers, active volunteers, and key committees to create ownership of the plan and ensure buy-in of the core objectives.
2. Accountability – accountability is created by everyone taking part in creating the plan for the organization and the objectives of the key results area.
3. Restorations & Operations – to ensure the successful restoration and operations of each area the organization’s volunteers and donors are engaged in the entire decision making process.
4. Support – the executive leadership team plays a support role in ensuring the success of each key results area’s objectives.
5. Earned Income – each key results area has to make good investments that will create earned income and ensure each key results area and the organization is sustainable.

Since the collaboration of this super team began, the process to reinvent SHH&G has delivered hard results showing increases in earned income, total assets have increased while total liabilities have decreased, and best of all attendance figures increased!  These results are partially due to creative thinking and a fresh line up of events. Although volunteerism is nothing new, the organization can now boast that more than 450 volunteers keep the estate operating by contributing over 50,000 hours of service. In a feat no less impressive than the original building of the estate, this professional team of volunteers, staff, executive leadership, and board members are reinventing a local icon into a nationally recognized museum.