MM: The next thing I’d like you to talk to is the optimized workflow.

With these basic principles of accountability and no enabling bad behavior or sloppy work. Staying online. Getting it right upfront.

With that set of principles, your current-state process, as I recall from our conversation—entailed about 300 or so discrete steps. Is that right?

TM: That is correct. 300 individual steps.

MM: Then how did you start to develop the optimized future-state capability?

TM: Well, as you mentioned—the visual representation on the wall. We kind of created, after we had all of the artifacts out there, we either took pictures or put them into a document. We reduced them so that they could fit on half of that wall. Then we drew a line under that.

The top of the wall was the current. The “current,” being with a few modifications that we felt we could implement right away. Then we drew a line.

On the bottom, we started the new process. “What do we do now? What is the process that we should lead with? Look. You’re doing this on the backend, and we know that there’s pain back there. We want to move this up into the process.”

Subject Indexes in Two Hours vs 30 person-weeks

MM: So for example, there were two things that I want you to address. First, how your team builds the subject index in the back of the catalog and, second, how your ream conducted profit analysis of each page in the catalog.

Let’s talk about the index, first of all. In a 900-page catalog, creating an index can be quite the chore. It typically happens at the end of the production cycle.

So there was like a two-week period at the very end of the production cycle, where 15 to 20 people sequestered themselves into a room and basically called out names and told what page number those particular items were on. That’s now the index was built.

Again, you’re talking 10 to 15 people for 8 hours a day, for 2 weeks. That’s a lot of man-hours.

MM: Yes. That’s 30 man-weeks.

TM: It had to be done. So we recognized with database publishing how electronically that information is captured within the database, and—through a simple export—that same result can be more accurately and quickly exported within a matter of 2 hours.

But more importantly, we reduced the cycle time by two weeks.

MM: So you simply got everyone to acknowledge, “Here’s how we do our catalog.” With the idea of really coming to understand if not appreciate exactly the kind of frustration each stakeholder had experienced in this process.

TM: And you know, it’s funny you say that. Actually, at three points during the process, we had everyone come up to the board and sign it, that they agreed with everything that was up on the board.

The first time was after we defined the current process. Everybody agreed. Another time, when we defined an interim process that we felt we could implement without the software solution. So we saw some immediate benefits from defining the process. Then the third sign-off was when everybody agreed to the “new optimal process,” which would include the database publishing system.

MM: Fabulous. What you just described, Tom, is the workflow map in the War Room. It became a visual contract.

TM: Absolutely. Yes. That’s what it was.

MM: What made it easy to sign, is that the stakeholders participated wholly in defining the current state, as well as the interim state in terms of, “Here’s what we could do to make things better without having to automate anything.”

TM: Correct.

Who’s Responsible?

MM: As you begin to create this visual roadmap, people naturally begin to argue about who was responsible for what. Or how things got done. Can you take us through a couple of those scenarios, and how they resolved?

TM: Let me step back just briefly and talk about a little bit of the hierarchy we had at Hubert. I think that that had an effect on those types of situations.

At Hubert, we had a VP of Organizational Development. He was a person who reported to the president but did not have any structure under him. He was a change-management guru.

Because he reported only to the president and had basically no agenda, he could work across departments and not appear to be persuaded by one or the other.

Additionally, this man was trained to facilitate meetings. He was really good at what Peter Block would call the ‘what’ question. That is, “If you ask a ‘what’ question, you’re going to get a whole lot more different types of responses than when you ask a ‘why’ question.”

If you ask, ‘why’—you’re challenging somebody. However, if you’re asking ‘what’—you’re asking them to explain what it is that they need to tell you. That was something that he was a master at doing. He was able to allow people to speak freely, but also was able to get them focused on the right path—together—without creating a lot of disturbances.

That said, there are some people in every organization that are going to create disturbances. You have to address those—and sometimes, that means that there’s somebody that’s going to have to go. And at Hubert, there was. There was a person that had to go.

At Central, they were fortunate to not have it to that degree. But, there are always those that latch on to change and those that desperately try to avoid it.

Change Management Toolkit

MM: Could you take us through Hubert’s toolkit of change management? What does that mean?

TM: It is making sure that you do things right the first time, and therefore you don’t have to worry about it later. That lives in several different areas. It can live as a whole— meaning if we hadn’t done the research and the white paper and all that stuff upfront, would we’ve been as successful?

But you can take it down to the minutia, too. That is, Hubert identified during the current process that there was a maximum of 7 times where a price could be entered into the workflow. Now, that 7 times didn’t happen all the time— but it wasn’t unusual for a price to be entered at least 4 times into the system at some point.

MM: You had developed this already in the Hubert organization. Is that correct?

TM: It is. But this was by far the biggest change that they’d ever undertaken.

But our VP of Organizational Development also did some train-the-trainer type things.  It was the cultural paradigm. So, the idea was, that if everyone in the company had this skill-set, and then it would be a better place to work.

Let’s say there is a process that involved Sales and Marketing. Maybe a person in the Warehouse was trained to do it. Maybe the Warehouse person would facilitate that meeting, because he did not have an agenda between Sales and Marketing. But if it were a big process across multi-departments— which this one was— then he would be involved with something that big.

MM: Tom, I have found that very few companies have a structured, defined, and repeatable change-management process in place.

TM: I’ve never seen one other than Hubert.

MM: Exactly. And I say that the lack of such a process makes change wrenching, difficult, expensive, and problematic. Inevitably, change means that people have to get out of their comfort zone and get out of their daily routines and habits, and do what is new, uncomfortable, and probably prone to criticism.

TM: Yes.

MM: So with the mindset of having the best-of-class system for your particular organization, what led to the need or idea of, “We’ve got to do something different?”

TM: Well, luckily, when I was hired at Hubert, actually in the interview process, I mentioned to them that I’d been looking at database publishing solutions for my previous job, which was with a centralized prepress group for newspaper circulars.

As it turned out, that company decided not to go down the road of database publishing. But I had already researched many solutions that would help production efficiencies.

During my job interview with Hubert I mentioned my research of database publishing systems. That intrigued them. I believe that my research became one of the key reasons they hired me. Consequently, a couple of years later, they gave me the freedom to continue that research. That involved going to events like Seybold and Print and ACCM—looking into the providers of these types of automated database publishing solutions or content management systems and digital asset management, and coming up with a solution that was right for Hubert at that time.

When I came on board at Central Restaurant, it was very easy for me to jump back into research mode and take a look at all of the pieces. All of the different vendors who had been out there—many of whom were the same. That was reassuring. But also to take a look at some of the newer vendors out there, and to make a determination of whether or not those solutions might be a better fit for us.

MM: So, looking back, the idea of ‘investing yourself personally in research,’ and developing mental maps as well as thick folders of research, you were also really investing yourself in understanding the next technology wave in this case, the next generation of database publishing.

So, not only did you find it gratifying, but it became a differentiator in the job market, making your more attractive as a potential employee.

TM: Yes. And it’s ongoing, of course. Not only did it help me get the job at Hubert, but also Hubert then allowed me to continue my research, and to become basically an expert in the field while at Hubert. That then allowed me to broaden my wings and move on after Hubert. Although I must say, Hubert was a great place to work.

Innovation Leader

MM: So, the mindset of having a best-of-class system must also entailed hiring the best individuals who understood what it means to be best of class, and who—in your case—are real innovation leaders. So Hubert, had already invested in the idea database publishing as the “next wave” of innovation and productivity—and hired your to execute that idea. What happens next?

TM: Well, I think the key is to develop a systematic way to gain buy-in, so that the company can move forward with an innovation.

At Hubert this started with writing a white paper that depicted what database publishing could do for Hubert. It was fairly in-depth on how it would affect the organization—and in some ways, the hierarchy of the organization.

It basically outlined, “Here are the steps that we have to do.” It’s not just implementation. Part of the success of database publishing involves bringing in the key vendors that are involved – to have them methodically work through a process with you, and to show the company that they understood what you were doing. That way, they could present to you, based on what you wanted out of the software.

Even before there were presentations being done there was a lot of dialogue outlining how those presentations should be done for Hubert.

MM: I recall from our previous conversations that while at Hubert, you played an instrumental role in reworking their core catalog production processes, developing an integrated workflow for the print and online catalog. This entailed driving many internal changes around how to produce multichannel marketing communications and, specifically, big-book catalogs

TM: That’s correct. Something we did at Hubert—in 1998 and 1999—was to rework the flow of catalog production. That also then was in the early stages of getting the web online. So there were multiple reasons to do that.

Central went through a similar process. There were a few steps different, because it was 10 years later. But there are an awful lot of things that are very similar in how to approach this new, very integrated relational database situation.

I was basically the evangelist of the Hubert change, and I did that at Central. Along with that, I handled a lot of the database publishing duties for other K+K-America companies. Including C&H Distribution and Connie Safety, at the time. I was also highly involved in their integration into their publishing database, as well.

Change Process

MM: As we develop our master-class profile in this interview, detailing how to facilitate and drive these sorts of process transformations, perhaps we develop combined narrative from your experience with Central Restaurant and Hubert. So, let’s start with what typically kick-starts a change process: a catalytic event. What happened that required a change in workflows, either at Hubert or at Central Restaurant?

TM: ‘Require’ is a strong word. In both cases, the company saw itself as a business leader and having a best-in-class environment. While Hubert did not want to not have the best systems, Central was dead-set on having a best-in-class environment in all of their different technological pieces.

MM: Where did that notion arise in the organization?

TM: In 2006 by Johnson Ventures purchased Central.

As the owner, Rick Johnson just believes that having the best in class for anything—that’s where he wants to be. Now, the best in class doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the best out there. It could mean it’s just the best for the environment for the company at its particular stage—and looking toward the future.

An example might be an Endeca solution, a guided navigation solution for a website that is best in class. But it’s best in class for the big boys, and maybe that’s not necessarily needed for a company of our size.