Don’t stop
Change has to start at the top. But Fimiano says the biggest mistake would be assuming that you could just set the change in motion and walk away, expecting it to transpire unassisted.
Executive involvement is key throughout the entire process. You have to stay persistent and committed until your employees reach the goal.
“You can’t take a step back,” Fimiano says. “A lot of people tried me along the way: ‘Do we have to do it in three years? Can we do it in three and a half years? Can we do it this way?’
“You’ve got to be really steadfast. You’ve got to be black and white. And you’ve got to say, ‘No, this is what we’re doing. We’re going to help you get there, but this is what we’re doing. We’re not going to change the goal.’”
Fimiano set the pace by cracking down on the company’s project selection. He gave employees time to phase out of plan-and-spec projects in progress, but then took a disciplined approach to future plans. Working against the goal simply wasn’t allowed because the company stopped accepting plan-and-spec projects.
Even after the company stopped doing plan-and-spec work in 2005, Fimiano continued watching metrics to illustrate the progress.
“The best [monitoring tool] for a lot of people is metrics,” he says. “When they start to see the metrics, it’s hard for them to fight that we’re doing the right things.”
From 2003 to 2008, for example, Southland’s net income rocketed from just more than $600,000 to $44.6 million, and its gross profit margin grew from $27.6 million to nearly $98 million. In the same time frame, return on equity increased from 3 percent to 67 percent. And last September, Southland ended fiscal 2008 with $471.6 million in revenue.
“Because we pushed so hard,” Fimiano says, “we were able to actually change the market and change the way they looked at things.”
How to reach: Southland Industries, (949) 440-5000 or www.southlandind.com