Jim Schultz admits there were nights
when he would lie in bed, wide awake,
wondering whether the money he was spending to convert his company from a traditional print company to an integrated marketing business would prove to be a wise
investment.
“There is no question, any time you are
going into virgin territory and new technology, you do sometimes question your business
sense,” Schultz says. “You ask yourself, ‘What
am I getting myself into?’”
Schultz was spending money to help Great
Lakes Lithograph Co., which was renamed
Great Lakes Integrated in 2004, develop a
new Internet-based solution known as
AKSESS that would create and manage marketing and brand-building resources.
The system would put clients in control of
the design, production, distribution and
inventory of their marketing materials.
And although he believed the changes
would benefit the company, he was aware
that changes in technology can generate fear
in employees that their jobs will be affected.
“They started seeing me spend money on
things they couldn’t see, touch or feel,” says
Schultz, president, chairman and CEO of the
160-employee company. “All of a sudden,
those capital resources were being pulled
from big iron presses into this new world of
technology. Obviously, that scares people
because they think that you are going to eliminate a service. It was to support and grow
that service. That was the vision.”
It is critical to address such concerns directly. The vision needs to be clearly communicated and requires a leader with strong conviction for the project, says Schultz.
“Your employees and your executive group
have to really believe the leader is truly committed to succeeding in the vision,” Schultz
says. “You cannot waver. Your employees
have to understand, and your customers,
eventually, obviously have to understand the
direction you are taking the company.”
To get its customers on board, Great Lakes
gathered some of its blue-chip clients and
formed focus groups. They met every two
months, and company officials gained input
as to how their customers felt about the project. As a result, Schultz discovered that a lot
of his clients had similar needs.
“It was from that standpoint that we started
coming back and designing a program and
hiring developers, programmers and analysts to start developing a product,” Schultz says.
One of the key reasons the focus groups
produced results was that nothing had been
written in stone before the groups convened.
“As we were developing, we were presenting,” Schultz says. “It wasn’t a case where
the clients had already bought in to it as
much as they were part of our development.
Our customers really were our development
team.”
Focus groups can also be an opportunity to
run demonstrations and test aspects of the
project along the way and gain instant feedback.
“It’s sort of like redoing a story board,”
Schultz says. “Let’s redesign this, or let’s do
this because they may have come up with
some great comments or concerns. … The
product, by the time it was launched, had
gone through a series of tests and development changes.”
Once a project is complete and the new
technology is in use, the maintenance effort
should not be discarded. Great Lakes maintains an online questionnaire, and Schultz visits select clients to gain feedback on their
experience with the new system.
“It becomes a point of review for how that
technology is working for that customer,”
Schultz says.
HOW TO REACH: Great Lakes Integrated, (216) 651-1500 or
www.glintegrated.com
Transforming a business
When big changes are made in a business, employee input is vital to ensuring
the change is a success.
But when that input starts to veer
from the consensus of the group, a
leader has two options, says Jim
Schultz, president, chairman and CEO
of Great Lakes Integrated.
“Either redirect the person to another
role in the organization, or you’re better
off to shake hands because they’re not
going to be happy, and you’re not going
to be happy,” Schultz says. “Say goodbye.”
As Schultz set out to transform Great
Lakes from a traditional print company
to an integrated marketing business, he
made sure there were plenty of opportunities for input from employees and
clients. But at some point, input ceases
to become the expression of valid concerns and starts to weigh down the
project.
“If they’re not happy and they don’t
believe in your direction, you lay there
in frustration that you don’t have everyone committed,” says Schultz. “The
CEO has got this rope around his waist
trying to pull a semi up a hill.”
A project will have a hard time succeeding if employees don’t share the
same belief in the plan that their leader
does.
“If you don’t have that, or you’ve got
people that don’t have the right attitude
and some conviction to what the leader
wants, the leader has got to act fast and
make certain that his team is all going in
the same direction and not working
against each other,” Schultz says.