When his kids were young, Stern would say, “OK, it’s 9 o’clock, time to go to bed.” They’d complain, ask for another half an hour and there would be a struggle.
Then, he changed his approach. At 7:30 p.m., he’d say, “Don’t forget, you’ve got to go to bed in an hour and a half.” At 8 and 8:30 p.m., he’d remind them again how much time they had left.
When it was actually time for bed at 9 p.m., there’d be no argument.
“So, it’s the same way with employees, as you develop tools for change,” Stern says. “Make sure that you start out in the future. ‘In the future, this is going to happen.’ Make sure they get it, so that when you do actually make the change, it happens a little bit easier.”
Working on your behalf
Paris is known for its innovation, and Stern says that comes from a partnering approach with both customers and vendors.
Like many companies, Paris asks its customers what’s important to them, and then determines how to use its resources to achieve those goals.
But Paris also asks to be held accountable. Stern says they ask for rewards if they overachieve, which is then passed along to the employees, and consequences if they fall short.
He follows the same partnering approach with his vendors. Paris wants its vendors to share their knowledge to help the company succeed — and that matters more to Stern than the price.
“They know more about the product and services that they are providing me than I do,” he says.
He doesn’t care how much money vendors make; he cares how they can improve the service that they provide. And that’s the same thing he tells his customers.
“They always say ‘What is your profit?’ I say ‘Don’t worry about that. You should hope that I want to make a lot of money so that I’m successful, but here’s what I can do for you.’”
A partnering approach also can mean educating your customers.
When Paris first got into health care linens, Stern noticed that you might lose a $500,000 contract if your product cost a half a cent higher, but at the customer level, there was a lot of waste.
A nurse would never bring three trays of food into a room and say, ‘If you get really hungry, here’s some more food.’ But he or she might go in with extra blankets or an extra pillowcase and once it’s in the room, of course, it’s considered used, he says.
To better serve its customers, Paris taught health care providers how to order better and add internal controls, in order to use less of its product.
“My industry thought that was the dumbest thing in the world,” Stern says. “Why would you want to teach (that to) your customers? And I say, ‘Look I’m about partnering. I want to build trust.’ If I build trust, I’m going to keep these customers forever.”
Takeaways:
- To prepare for the future, decrease the noise from the present.
- Create continuous improvement by focusing on the exceptions.
- Partner with accountability in order to create innovation.
The Stern File:
Name: David Stern
Title: CEO
Company: Paris Cos.
Born: DuBois, Pa.
Education: Bachelor’s in management, Duquesne University
What was your first job and what did you learn from it? We used to work, when we were eight, nine years old basically, at my father’s dry cleaners, which became Paris Cos. We always had a job there. I can remember — I always tell this story to my kids — my goal early on in life was to make $1 an hour.
We’d do monotonous things; you might have to pull pockets, put things on a hanger so pants can hang or sweep the floors. I think he was more interested not in what we were doing, but that we were there.
Probably the biggest attribute I learned is discipline — the discipline of making sure you go to work every day, making sure you do your best — because I find that trait has stuck with me. When you’re a kid, you’ve got a million things that you’d rather do. He taught me to prioritize this for this period of time, and then do what you want.
What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received? A business consultant was the one who taught me: Nothing can be managed until it’s measured. If you want to manage something, start by measuring it.
When you’re not working, where do you like to spend your time? I have a great work/life balance. I play golf. I ride motorcycles. I have an airplane. I like to bicycle. I like to travel.
If you weren’t a CEO, is there another job you’d like to try? I’d probably be a teacher. I think the internal rewards, the human rewards, of being a teacher would be fantastic.
