If you’re driven by purpose and showing people how they relate to it, you’re going to create a lot of momentum. Growth is the result, not the reason.
– Carrie Barclay, CEO
Asset Strategies Group (ASG) is a purpose-driven, employee-owned company of people working together with purpose across an intentionally designed ecosystem. ASG and all of its practices and companies (Chute Gerdeman, The Robin Report, ASGEdge) operate in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industry. They’ve worked with more than 227 clients since their founding in 2002, including some of the world’s most-loved and best-known brands.
FORGE: From financial acquisition to purposeful transformation
Since its founding, ASG was a financially driven company with strong values. Its primary focus was on performance and growth. So when ASG acquired Chute Gerdeman, the deal made perfect sense on paper. The due diligence was done. The business case was solid. But what seemed like a straightforward acquisition quickly became something else entirely.
Carrie remembers the moment she brought the idea to ASG founder Steve Morris:
I said, I think we need somebody to help transition this. This is a lot of change management… and Steve’s like, well, there’s only one person to call. I think you should call Haley. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
I’ve done a lot of turnaround work in my career. I’ve seen the failures. But I’ve also seen what it looks like when a culture is built to last. If you care about your company and want it to grow, you have to make that investment. You have to figure out how to combine those teams and cross-fertilize the ideas, or they’ll just fail. – Steve Morris, Founder
Initially, the team viewed integration as a project specifically for the acquired company, Chute Gerdeman. Storyforge was brought in to help fold them into ASG. But during the very first leadership workshop, it became clear that the real challenge was much bigger. Carrie Barclay explained to Haley Boehning, Storyforge CEO:
You were right. We were doing it wrong. It was within that first hour of the first workshop that I realized I was thinking way too small.
Before the acquisition of Chute, we weren’t a purpose-driven company. We were a financial company. We had good values, etc… but never took it past that point before the work with you.
This wasn’t about fixing a design studio. This was the opportunity for ASG as a whole to reevaluate what it was. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
Something entirely new was being formed. For months, they even referred to the combined company as “NewCo” to help reinforce that.
[Initially] We were trying to solve a people problem. And it wasn’t a people problem. The fundamental business was going to change. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
The transformation began with real human conversations. Storyforge conducted a series of 360-degree stakeholder interviews, with team members, clients, vendors, partners, competitors, and industry experts.
The stakeholder engagements are one of the most valuable things that Storyforge does, because people will tell other people the truth. And what you really need is the truth, right? We would not have the ecosystem we have today had we not spoken with those stakeholders. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
I’m a finance guy. I can be really smart about business processes. We knew we could deliver services better, cheaper, faster. But that’s not what the stakeholders said they valued. They said they appreciated that we connected the dots across those disciplines. That was an eye-opener. – Steve Morris, Founder
With Storyforge’s help, ASG-CG translated those stakeholder insights into a purpose and vision they could act on, grounded in who they already were and based on what they stood for.
We made that story our attribute for the brand, as opposed to Steve’s personal attribute or my personal attribute. That was the biggest switch. It was already there; it just wasn’t codified. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
The team defined a shared foundation that would guide everything to come, from internal culture to client relationships to long-term industry impact. At the center of that foundation was a new articulation of purpose: Empower change — for ourselves and our clients.
ALIGN: Creating company-wide clarity and buy-in
Bringing its newfound purpose to life across the organization meant alignment on two fronts. First, everyone — the full team, across both legacy companies — needed to understand and connect to the new story. Second, everything — the day-to-day decisions, processes, and goals — needed to reflect that story in action.
Storyforge served as a neutral, trusted intermediary between leadership teams, bridging internal divides and helping build shared momentum. This led to a full-team conversation, inviting people to engage with the newly codified purpose.
Through facilitated workshops and conversations, team members had the chance to understand the story and explore what it meant in the context of their roles and relationships.
At the same time, Storyforge worked closely with ASG-CG’s leadership in a series of focused working sessions to turn purpose into practice. Together, they created tools that helped connect strategy to everyday decisions, from priorities to messaging to how choices get made.
A clear purpose has given leadership the opportunity to make decisions because they can ground back to it constantly. “How does this fit within our belief system?” “How does this fit within our purpose?” It’s a filter for them to be able to make decisions. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
As the team continued to grow, ASG-CG built new rhythms to keep purpose front and center.
“Every quarter, we hold a quarterly share meeting. We’ve been expanding quite a bit, so we have new team members. They’re used to a starting point of, ‘Our goal this year is X.’ But the very first thing we tell them is, hey, we are a purpose-driven company. Here’s our purpose, and here’s why. It sets the right expectations going forward.” – Carrie Barclay, CEO
ACTIVATE: Turning a legal handbook into living culture
Once the story was forged and the team aligned, ASG-CG had to bring it to life, both inside and outside the organization.
One of the most visible changes internally came a few years later, in the form of the first employee handbook. Like many growing companies, ASG-CG had created a compliance-driven document to meet regulatory requirements, but it didn’t reflect who they were.
We were dealing with some SOC compliance issues, so as you can imagine, the handbook was very legal. It wasn’t who we were – it didn’t reflect any of our values, our beliefs, our purpose, what we’re about. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
Working with Storyforge, they reimagined the handbook as a culture book that reflected not just rules, but shared values, language, and aspirations.
The switch from the handbook to the culture book was really what I wanted to create. No one ever knew us intimately enough to write it. But I knew I could trust Storyforge on that. You would figure out how to make it symbiotic to what we were building inside the brand. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
“You have to have your story, understand it, and tell it in a way that connects — with your team and your customers. And if you don’t, go get help.” – Steve Morris, Founder
Storyforge also partnered with ASG’s HR and external legal teams to help them communicate with more clarity and connection, reflecting the company’s culture in ways standard legalese never could.
NAVIGATE: Purpose is the reason, growth is the result
Purpose is something a company has to live, revisit, and reinforce over time. That’s especially true in an industry as dynamic as retail real estate.
We’re in a very volatile industry. It’s critical to be aware of how your purpose aligns with where you sit. You may have to pivot, and a lot of companies miss the pivot. It’s like letting the house go unremodeled. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
To keep purpose active and relevant, ASG-CG built in ongoing practices of reflection and recalibration. Storyforge helped facilitate leadership offsites and ongoing coaching for their CEO: moments to push pause, reflect, and realign around what matters most.
These offsites are where the team asks hard questions, reconnects with their values, and pressure-tests decisions against the company’s deeper reason for existing. They also let go of work that doesn’t align with ASG-CG’s purpose, which creates space for new growth.
Finding your purpose is priceless, if you believe that your business is going to be transformed. We have clarity around who we are and what we’re about and why we exist. It drives every single thing in our business. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
Results
- All members of the ASG-CG team are on the same page
- All business units share one purpose and story
- The year following their engagement with Storyforge, ASG-CG’s revenue grew 33%.
- Since working with Storyforge, ASG-CG more than doubled their team — growing by 120% in just one year, with most new hires coming from organic growth, not the acquisition.
On working with Storyforge:
- Our purpose is bigger than us. It’s very simple, and it’s inclusive. It’s about ourselves, our clients, our families and the industry. It’s what we’re about. It is literally our second nature. It’s in our DNA. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
- Now you’re seeing a lot of consolidation, mergers and acquisitions. Storyforge’s unique talent is that you’re proactive: What is the opportunity ahead of you? As opposed to reactive: We’re going to cut these people, we’re going to move this department. How do you embrace what’s been triggered [by the M&A], and how do you really push forward with it? Storyforge is very adept at moving through that. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
- You really work through what the essence of your company is. When you know exactly where you are, you have a sense of alignment. – Carrie Barclay, CEO
To learn more about how Storyforge can help you forge your meaningful story and get everyone and everything in your business on the same page, contact us by clicking the button below.
