Jay Harris, chief operating officer and executive vice president of Charles Komar & Sons, recently wrapped a children's book from 1959, Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and "pizza stress" parties into a lesson on the challenges of technology implementation.
The apparel
executive first recalled a children's book, Danny Dunn and the Homework
Machine, from his childhood that demonstrated how "imagination" drives
innovation. In the book, a professor puts Danny in charge of a computer
he's created, and Danny and his friends decide to turn it into a "homework
machine" to "free up time to do more productive things - such as
play ball, swim, fly kites..." Although countless hours are spent figuring
out how to input data, the boys get the machine to work and are rewarded
by the professor.
"What is interesting is that Professor Bullfinch knew he had created a machine capable of solving problems and formatting information but he really did not know what to do with it to make it useful," said Mr. Harris. "It was a child’s imagination who thought of a use. To dream the seemingly impossible and work to make it happen."
Mr. Harris was speaking at the Fashion Institute of Technology on behalf of CGS (Consumer Generated Solutions), which launched its BlueCherry Infinity enterprise software solution as a potential "homework machine" for the apparel industry.
But much of Mr. Harris' speech addressed frustrations around exploiting innovation. While Word and WordPerfect indeed became "homework machines" by making typewriters obsolete, Excel 3.0's arrival in the early nineties soon became "homework hell" as hours of manual data entry were required to fill those powerful spreadsheets.
Windows 2000 promised to eliminate much of that work. Mr. Harris said he was blown away while fortunately attending the launch event, which ended in "thunderous applause." But that mood quickly changed after a happenstance meeting afterwards with Mr. Ballmer, now Microsoft's CEO, in the bathroom. While Mr. Harris marveled at how Windows 2000 had revolutionized brokerage trading by linking real-time access to trades via Excel, Mr. Ballmer only lamented, "I cannot seem to get the message out."
Those "unsettling" remarks long resonated as Charles Komar continually found itself with "incredible tools with awesome potential yet user reluctance to change."
Mr. Harris attributed his organization's shortcomings to fear of change and time management challenges.
As a result, a section on "Coping with Change" was added to Charles Komar's mission statement. Team discussions were repeatedly held to underscore that "it is natural to feel stressed." Stress was "celebrated" as symptoms appeared with employees encouraged to ease each other's tensions. Pizza stress parties emphasized, "It's OK to make mistakes." Although such fears are never completely eliminated, Mr. Harris eventually "did not get the automatic push back" when asking employees to take on new challenges.
At the same time, employees were encouraged to reallocate their workday to participate in larger corporate goals of productivity. A metaphor, "Sand, Pebbles, Rocks and Boulders," symbolized the effort. "Sand" represents daily activities indistinguishable from other companies' efforts with the others representing a progression up to "Boulder," where significant time and money savings were realized.
"Once the concept of 'Sand, Pebbles, Rocks and Boulders' was in place, it is possible to ask an employee "How can you structure your job so the tiniest amount of the job is sand (day to day activities) while the rest is the pursuit of operational improvement opportunities?" said Mr. Harris.
Since incorporating these changes, employees have been working together on stress management, finding time, and tapping their imagination.
"Business processes were created, refined, streamlined, embedded and monitored," said Mr. Harris. "And very curiously my phone and inbox got quiet as employees became empowered to dream, imagine, solve and improve on their own."
Discussion Questions: What are some of the best strategies to get employees to embrace new technologies? How do you overcome "fear of change" around such implementations? How do you help employees "find the time" to tackle these projects?