Culture Club

I couldn't resist but to give an emphatic ‘yes’ as an answer.

He’s identified that he needed to do two things, start investing in people so they didn’t dread coming into work and switch out outmoded warehouse management technology.

He couldn’t afford to do both. Or so he thought. For in actual fact, investing in technology can be the thing that can shift perception and attitude and unlock aptitude.

Admittedly it takes a leap of faith. Especially for the finance director whose first reaction will be to say ‘show me how spending money on IT will bring quantifiable people benefits that I can show on the P&L'. It’s a fair question to ask and to be honest I would doubt any company that didn’t challenge itself to look at all the financial implications in detail.

But I believe it can be done - because I’ve seen it happen. Not just once but repeatedly, across a mix of scenarios, and it’s often been the positive impact to the culture that has surprised the financial directors most of all.

When I started to get under the skin of the problem, the bottom line was that he was missing out on business. His business was drifting not growing. He knew what he wanted; to replace outmoded spreadsheets to a system that could give him a real-time view of inventory, be able to take on more work confident his people would deliver, and meet more demanding SLAs associated to contracts that would grow their business.

I asked him what he would do if he had shiny technology, would he change the people in his team or did the team have potential? He paused for a while, and said actually the team probably have got what it takes. They aren’t underperforming because they are unskilled, they are let down by the tools to do the job and in turn they are disengaged. He was fighting an uphill battle to get people to do their jobs well, because they couldn’t - not because they didn’t want to.

Eureka! And there was the business case. He could boost productivity, morale and move his business on if he put technology in the hands of his team. The conversation rapidly moved on to how could he make it happen.

“The trick”, I said, “is to involve your team in the development, identify champions for change, and sell the future to them.” I added that the key to doing it well was to get the board to believe in what would be possible so that everyone bought into the plan.

Crack that and, dare I say it, the easy bit is then to map out the technology required and the roadmap for making it happen. By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that it is easy to change technology. It’s a process that takes time and money and it’s not an overnight process. But your ability to make a fast start is far greater when people are supportive. They have a stake in its success. Granted you may have opponents but do your PR well and the vast majority of people will see job security rather than threat - an ambitious company investing in its future is one to believe in.

“So I have homework to do then,” he said. Indeed he does, but I told him that my team would help him get it done. We look at the problem in its entirety and design a solution that can be phased according to business readiness, finances and capability. People, process and technology working together – it’s our mantra and soon it would be his.