COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

A business owner from Illinois called me the other day to give me an update on the culture change initiative he and his executive team have implemented at their company during the past 180 days. By way of background, despite historical success, growth, and value for many years, the past several years have been characterized by a predisposition toward complacency; a quality the business owner idealistically believed was transitory, though up until recently, had insidiously become the new de-facto company culture.

Like many green industry companies, the Illinois business owner’s executive team became predominantly cautious, passive, and sensitive to many issues spawned by Covid. For example: company goals became more like recommendations than performance standards, many office employees declared they had to be safe and were more productive while working from home, various internal business processes were significantly delayed due to a concentrated effort on maintaining work-life balance instead of maximizing EBITDA, and the company’s once-active client relations management program nearly stopped completely.

To be clear, especially to those employees still wearing masks, particularly in California, I am way past Covid-related explanations, excuses, and exceptions. Lamentably, some owners are still beholden.

While many company metrics had softened, most notably, the Illinois business had an annual revenue of $8.200,000 in 2022, 2023, and 2024. No growth! For three straight years! That three-year stagnation, compounded by dire nation-wide inflation, and reinforced by emotionally-manufactured remonstrances from many employees, finally caused the business owner to reach his tolerance limit. Gloriously, he made the correct decision to redirect the company’s resources toward a one-word culture change: Accountability.

As we designed the new culture six months ago, I explained the desired change would occur incrementally, not instantaneously. Implementing challenging business goals, reinstituting expedited business processes, and fostering a sense of workplace capitalism in place of employee convenience, after three years of dormancy, would require firm patience, expectation management, and commitment from the executives.

In specific, I told the Illinois business owner that though admirable in my mind, such an aggressive plan would likely incur significant collateral damage to the current workforce which had become supremely comfortable over the past several years. In blunt terms, some employees would be unwilling to adapt to the new culture and would resign, while still others who could not adapt, would likely have to be terminated.

Revised job descriptions, weekly one-on-one meetings, weekly sales submittal standards, monthly metric presentations, monthly client visitation schedules, weekly goals-based accountability sessions, and straightforward performance evaluations quickly became the norm. By the way, all administrative, sales, and managerial employees were required to return to the main office as part of their revised work schedule.

Get ready for the resistance.

Paging Collateral damage. Collateral damage on Aisle 1.

You don’t believe me? The Landscape Design/Sales Manager resigned quickly because the new work requirements did not align with her work-life balance equation. Several sales employees were terminated because they refused to make cold calls to potential clients, due to their Covid-inspired lethargy which calcified them into mere order takers instead of proactive revenue prospectors. The Design-Build Project Manager has repeatedly resisted the new standard of being on job sites six hours each work day; a far cry from her previous routine of staying in her air-conditioned office all day, every day. The Maintenance Account Manager has frequently complained that she “does not like getting dirty” when being “forced” to work in the field and can no longer routinely delegate those “dirty” tasks to another employee by phone or text.

To its credit, the executive team has maintained its vision, commitment, and courage in support of the new accountability-based culture despite active and passive resistance; especially when confronted with making the right decisions that will likely generate additional collateral damage.

Collateral damage, or a fourth consecutive year of $8.200,000 in revenue? What’s your decision?

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