Create continued support
for change
Despite the fact that the firm has achieved substantial growth,
Salontai says he knows some doubters of his vision still remain. But
he says the tipping point toward change occurred as the firm started
to achieve success under the new plan, and he used the results to
sway the majority of the holdouts. Showing that the company
achieved $301 million in fiscal 2008 revenue, up more than $120 million from just three years before, certainly helped with that process.
Salontai uses a formal communications plan to continually reinforce his vision and travels to more than half of the organization’s
16 regions each year to review the firm’s strategic plan with the
firm’s employee owners using a town-hall setting. Then, during the
course of the year, he conducts conference calls for employee
owners every six weeks that detail the company’s results and ties
them back to the firm’s progress toward its five-year strategic plan.
“Really the top tactics for driving growth and change are authoring a strong message, believing in it and then communicating it
over and over again,” Salontai says. “Then once you’ve achieved
success, be sure and point that out to people because they will
start to believe once they see that it will actually work.”
As an example, Salontai says that some employee owners were
initially concerned that marketing additional engineering and technical services to existing clients wouldn’t be backed up by seamless execution and that unhappy clients would defect. In fact, the
opposite happened. Marketing additional services to clients and
expanding the firm’s technical capabilities created synergies, referrals and additional business opportunities. By continually reinforcing the positive outcomes from increased teamwork and the
firm’s new cross-selling strategies, Salontai has engendered
greater levels of behavior change.
“People really fall into three categories when it comes to dealing
with change,” Salontai says. “There are those who are afraid of
change, the group in the middle who tend to be supportive but are
unsure, and those who are knocking down the door to initiate
change. It’s really the CEO’s job to bring the changes forward, bring
the middle group along and pacify the last group. But you have to do
that without letting the group that needs comforting bog you down.”
HOW TO REACH: The Kleinfelder Group Inc., (858) 320-2000 or www.kleinfelder.com
