‘Two Larrys’ Breakfast Recalls Dr Pepper Snapple Spinoff and Growth Strategies

The two Larrys have a camaraderie that seems to extend beyond their time working together at Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS).

Larry Young is president and CEO of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and Larry Solomon is a Naveen Jindal School of Management Executive MBA lecturer and 2002 Executive MBA graduate who is the former executive vice president of human resources at Dr Pepper Snapple.

At a recent breakfast at the Jindal School, the two men shared their affinity for the company that now makes, markets, sells and distributes Dr Pepper, Snapple, 7Up, A&W, Motts and more. They discussed how they helped steer one of America’s leading refreshment beverage company from its spinoff from Cadbury Schweppes in 2008 — soon followed by going public —to becoming the thriving organization it is today.

The conversation, moderated by DPS Group’s Vice President of Corporate Affairs Vicki Draughn, drew a 100-plus crowd of business professionals and students. Both Young and Solomon acknowledged there were serious challenges faced by Dr Pepper as it went through some major growing pains.

The company had to be entirely restructured during the spinoff and at the same time tackle layoffs, Young said. The financial market in 2008 was probably the worst time to go public, he said. “Our stock went from $25 a share in May 2008 to $12.50 in October of the same year. We went from $3 billion to $18 million [in market capitalization]…However, we put a team together, and not only survived but thrived.”

Understandably, keeping everyone motivated during this time was not easy. Confronting the messiness of change, is how Solomon describes it, in his new book, Translate Motivate Activate: A Leader’s Guide to Mobilizing Change (Dallas: Brown Books Publishing Group, 2016) Mobilizing leadership is key. [A leader “needs to inspire others to deliver sustained superior performance.”

“It starts with the heart,” he says. “As a leader, you have to define a preferred future — a goal — that is aspirational and inspirational. …People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.”

A leader, he says,”needs to translate the mission to the heads and hearts of the employee.”

At Cadbury, they accommodated resistance, hoping that over time things would change. But that didn’t work, Solomon said. “You have to be unequivocal with the message.”

“People don’t always interpret the ‘high road’ in the same way. When leaders go in different direction, you lose focus. You need all heads in the game. …You are either on the bus or off the bus…[You need to] identify strategic priorities in the realization of the end goal. A good leader then translates those strategies into the employee’s day-to-day job.”

At Dr Pepper, he said, “We created a large visual of five core strategies and then used them in our call-to-action workshops — small groups of 20 to 25 employees. We showed them how they could contribute.” All 19,000 staffers participated, creating a real alignment that helped break down old mindsets.

In the foreword to. Translate Motivate Activate,. Young says that Solomon’s human resource skills helped translate Young’s vision for the organization. “Larry effectively engaged our… employees and helped us manage wave upon wave of fundamental change. The innovative methods he developed and implemented helped align the team behind the right priorities, as well as efficiently and effectively build skill sets critical to our success.”

“In 2008, we were told that Coca-Cola and Pepsi would crush us,” Young says. “[But] we were small, fast and nimble. With great brands and great people, we deliver great results.”

Solomon is donating 100 percent of the sales of his book, Translate Motivate Activate: A Leader’s Guide to Mobilizing Change, to My Possibilities, a continuing education program for adults with special needs that was co-founded by his wife, Charmaine, a UT Dallas BS ’01 in Interdisciplinary Studies alumna,and two other mothers, all of whom had children with special needs.