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Profiles of Trail Blazing Women

Continued from July Issue

Lynn Power

WOMANIMPLEMENTINGMODERN PROCEDURESAT65-YEAR-OLDTOOL COMPANYDESPITERESISTANCE FROMSENIORINDUSTRIALSTAFF.

BY JANE MCCORMICK CEO AT ORMOND INDUSTRIAL TOOLS

Despite the challenges, it is possible for a female CEO, operating in the industrial tool sector, to work against resistance from senior staff and management, overcome decades of established low-tech habits and effectively modernize, update and add efficiencies that produce an increase in the bottom line.

Storytelling Body:

I had been working as an occasional consultant with Ormond Industrial Tools, a 65-year-old company that serves some of the largest industrial companies in the world, for over 20 years when I was asked to come in full time as the CEO The business had suffered the passing of the owner and manager, and his spouse had been trying to keep it going despite a cancer diagnosis of her own. The senior staff had been effectively running the business without control or management for nearly a decade – and had managed to keep it profitable!

This presented an interesting double-edged challenge

The staff had developed systems and processes that they believed were working well, largely based on paper and involving many inefficiencies, and did not see the need to update the methods They were losing ground slowly to competitors, had no on-line presence, and did no advertising at all relying heavily on the large steel mills for business. There was only one outside salesperson, and he was serving and maintaining our existing customers, but had no interest in expanding the customer base. In fact, if we received an email from a customer he didn’t recognize, he would very often ignore it. The business was in desperate need of modernization, and automation. On the other hand, you had to admire and recognize the skills and customer service know-how, to say nothing of the industry expertise, that was involved in keeping the firm on basically solid ground, even if there were signs that the ground was being slowly eroded away.

I encountered a great deal of resistance from the employees, who, as skilled workers who had been taking on all the responsibilities of the company, did not want or see the need for automation On one occasion I remember an inside salesperson having a triumphant ‘gotcha’ moment because after only 40 minutes of searching he had found a written note from a customer regarding a request for a quote. They were so used to doing things the old way that they had to be convinced there was even any value to looking at different methods The resistance was passive for the most part: the “smile and nod, and then go and do things the old way” type, although there was a certain amount of eye-rolling and huffing and puffing at some points. My being a woman may have exacerbated the issue on a subconscious level: in one meeting with a VP from one of our largest vendors I was called a ‘good girl’, and on another occasion was told that they were ‘talking about tensioning, so I didn’t need to listen”, but overall, I think anyone would have had challenges. In their opinion, they were doing just fine – and the customers they did serve were predominantly happy

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Conclusion:

My first realization was that I had to recognize some of the truth in what they were saying The business may not have been as strong as it once was, but they were doing their jobs and getting things done. I was working with top-notch people who knew the industry and knew their jobs. This may have made them more resistant to change, but it also meant they were a strong, knowledgeable team, and the company was in good standing. So, with the help of our office admin, who had come from a corporate background and understood workflow and automation, we had each staff member walk through their jobs, sales, repairs and rental procedures, fulfilment, shipping and so on, and used their descriptions to map out the flow as it was. Then rather than make sudden leaps, we automated those tasks in increments.

This made the procedure more exciting and gave the feeling that we were moving forward, but not making massive changes. We involved every staff member in designing the new procedures according to what they needed As well as streamlining our process for setting up orders, rentals and repairs, we moved our old mail server to Gmail, and began to take advantage of the cross-communication, group management and document storage functions.

We created a new, responsive website, just static content to begin, and added a contact form. Then we commissioned a basic leads application software which put website requests into a database and allowed them to be assigned to or claimed by a user

We trained a new employee to use and monitor that system and allowed her to respond herself to many of the leads and only pass on the items that needed more experience This meant we were following up on every lead, not just the ones our sales team recognized. We started some small advertising campaigns and hired a consultant to help us with a marketing plan. Along the way, we lost three employees, but the increases in efficiency have meant we only needed to hire one replacement

Every step has been met with some resistance, but increasingly less so as we have moved forward. Our next phase (in early September 2022) includes launching our webstore, which will be the first in our area to sell thousands of industrial tools and supplies, increasing our advertising and implementing our new marketing plan.So far, the combination of efficiencies, proper lead management and a small amount of advertising have allowed us to increase our annual sales by 40% over last year and our bottom line by over 100% over last year in the first quarter

Offer final thoughts in form of tips

I have some tips that can help people facing similar challenges keep their perspective and get through it successfully.

Recognize and celebrate the ideas and contributions of the people who are already doing the work. Allow and encourage them to be a part of the solutions and changes. Let them know they are valued and that you are there to capitalize on their skills, not to replace them.

Here will be times that you have to hold your ground, and effectively say “I appreciate your contribution, but we are going to do it my way ” I have not needed to resort to this often, but it will likely happen more than once in any significant project.

For younger women: just being a woman in an industrial setting can be challenging. I have found it best not to call out older gentlemen for minor infractions of a new way of life. Right or wrong, reacting emotionally to being called ‘my dear’ or to being somewhat dismissed in an inconsequential conversation will not help, and you may end up being taken even less seriously. If you have a persistent issue with an individual not understanding your position, speak to them candidly and privately first In my experience, that is usually all that is needed

Allow changes to be incremental to give time for adjustment and engender some excitement and movement in the culture of the company. Massive, sweeping changes can be overwhelming and promote anxiety and even further resistance. Frequent but incremental changes are less stressful, more inclusive, and can be more easily tested. An incremental approach can often get you to the results faster! (Tip 4 ½ - don’t be afraid to revise or replace a process that doesn’t work well in testing. Sometimes things that look good in a plan don’t function as well in practice).

Where possible, prioritize the simple automation of the initial tasks in existing processes. (In our case that was to have staff immediately set up a work-order for a tool repair in our new system, rather than hand-writing a tag that would need to be entered by a different staff member later. Use of a barcode font on the tag then allowed each task in the process to be linked back to the initial workorder.) The time savings will be seen immediately by all the staff who have a hand in that process, which again will promote more enthusiasm (or less resistance) to subsequent changes.