Putting People and Processes before Technology
Ray Moorcroft meets Derek Buchanan, CEO of Episys, whose inspirational leadership style has transformed the fortunes of his organisation during the first six years of his tenure.
Episys is a global information technology solutions and services company to the retail, manufacturing, logistics, chemical, healthcare and public service sector industries. The company provides expertise, products, services and support for signage, labelling and mobile systems. The organisation is a UK based enterprise (its Headquarters are based in Royston) with an international reputation. Well established in the USA and in Australia, it believes passionately that the recipe for success and growth is in taking exceptional care of its clients, who then provide references to prospective customers. The company realises that this can only be done by also taking exceptional care of its employees and ensuring that they follow well-proven processes that are defined for each aspect of their jobs.
CEO, Derek Buchanan, has been in post for six years, and in that time has been instrumental in contributing to the company becoming a highly successful business. He is very proud of the fact that, over all that time, staff turnover has been minimal.
When he joined, he felt that the company needed a change of direction, focusing on customer service and product. Turnover has doubled and clients are happy to endorse the company.
Derek is passionate about customer service and about looking after his staff. He has pioneered a number of initiatives to give these areas a boost. Most notable of these is the unique ‘Ever been disappointed?’ programme whereby a client can communicate dissatisfaction from anywhere in the world to Derek personally so that he himself can locate the source of the problem that caused the disappointment and fix it so that it won’t happen again to any Episys customer. This initiative resulted from feedback at the time he joined the company which, in essence, highlighted the fact that some customers were feeling neglected because complaints had not been receiving a response. The result of the programme is that trust and confidence has now been built with customers.
In my other, full-time job, I lecture or rather facilitate learning on Leadership and Management and people say to me, “How do you keep up-to-date with developments in the field?”
My answer is always, “Through ‘manager’ – where else?” However, I confess to cheating a little here, because it’s a little more complicated than simply reading the journal. This is because, as Editor of this journal, I’m fortunate enough to encounter on a frequent basis many IAM members, ‘gurus’, politicians and leading figures from the worlds of business and commerce – both nationally and internationally – and, quite simply, I get to discuss and debate with them their perspectives and views on what constitutes effective (I hesitate to use the word, ‘good’) Leadership and Management.
Here I confess to a crime amongst academics – I prefer practitioners’ views to those of the gurus. Strangely, the really impressive gurus also share this perspective – look at my interviews with Marcus Buckingham and John Adair in the October/November 2005 issue of ‘manager’!
The reason for this stance is that, as any student of mine knows, my own view of Leadership is predicated on the simple premise that if no single, agreed definition exists, then your own definition is valid.
Therefore, when speaking to successful business people like Derek Buchanan, I believe I will learn more, because they’re actually doing this stuff, and the experiences they describe can be interpreted by both of us. This interactive approach was clearly evident in my conversation with Derek – the willingness to learn and the ‘hunger’ for knowledge and new ideas are deeply ingrained in the ethos of the Episys CEO.
The art of interviewing
If you’re interested in the process for obtaining interviews for ‘manager’ (and please do note that we’ll always consider such contributions from members who care to contact me at editor@instam.org), it follows a strict procedure.
First, Roy Bass, the Managing Editor, and I formulate a series of ‘advance questions’ to the interviewee, and these are then submitted to the relevant person. A date is arranged for interview, and off we go…except the really good interviewees ignore the rules and we have a great conversation.
This happened with Derek – let me give you an example. The first, ‘standard’ question was, “Please tell me about yourself and your career until the time you joined Episys.”
Derek’s reply began with, “Well, I’ve always had a thing about the 1950s and its music – you know, the whole ‘Lubbock’ thing …*” and that was it! Twenty minutes later, after sharing views on Buddy Holly et al, we got back to his early career. Derek started out as a 17-year-old Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) trainee, who didn’t have much going for him – especially as a supporter of Motherwell Football Club – but as a genuine football fan, he wanted to watch the 1986 World Cup. As a result, he combined a trip to a friend’s house in St. Neots (Cambridge, UK) with the opportunity to work in that friend’s uncle’s garden, resulting in the destruction of precious plants through using a sit-on lawn mower without permission.
In the aftermath of this calamity, during the ensuing ‘discussion’, the uncle, who was a Director of McDonnell Douglas (and who also had an interest in 1950s music), saw something in the rebellious teenager and told Derek about a scheme which his company was trying out. It was all about retention of graduates and the alternative approach of ‘growing your own’ – particularly in the field of computer studies.
The idea was to attract talent before going to University. Anyway, Derek applied, was terrified on his second ever trip away from home…and failed. However, he was placed 12th out of 100 (they needed ten) and he went home quite pleased with himself, only to receive a call on a Friday some weeks later informing him that two of the candidates had decided to go to University instead, so he was ‘in’ and could he start that Monday?
This story is worth the telling, because it shows that it is possible to succeed through other routes – and Derek has taken this to heart as all routes are encouraged at Episys.
Administrative Management
That could have been the end of a rather nice and uplifting tale, but now it gets really interesting: having got there, Derek was happy to do his job, and loved the power of computers, but he had a particular view of that job. For him, doing what you were supposed to do, and really looking after all your customers, were two inviolable principles for him – principles which form the bedrock of the rules that all Administrative Managers live by.
Anyway, Derek’s consistency of service and attention to detail paid off, and one customer – the Inland Revenue no less – recognised the value of his approach. Their appreciation took the form of writing to Derek directly with a purchase order for £250,000, insisting that he be their ‘sales liaison’ – so, reluctantly at first, Derek transferred his approach from technology to sales, reasoning that the same principles should apply: “It is about giving something people genuinely need…and making sure they get it!”
Our discussion then centred on this interactive approach to managing clients, leading seamlessly to my next question.
Ray Moorcroft (RM): How do you see the role of ‘Administration’ within your overall company operations?
Derek Buchanan (DB): Well, this is about a ‘Eureka moment’ of inspiration that came to me – our ‘Ever Been Disappointed?’ campaign. Under this umbrella title, we give customers a ‘panic alarm’ in the form of a self-addressed card, with postage pre- paid from anywhere in the world, for them to return to me whenever they have a problem or complaint.
The card is a means to an end – it’s a link to the customer imploring him or her not to remain silent if ever we should unwittingly disappoint them. More often than not, if ever such a situation arises, and I’m pleased to say that those occasions are rare, the communication comes in the form of a telephone call to me. This invariably results in ‘process improvement’ because both parties – the customer and Episys – are committed to ‘signing off’ the resulting procedural changes.
In the longer run, this leads to increased customer loyalty, and a continuing commitment to development and improvement. And, of course, the success of all these procedures relies upon consistent and open Administrative Management.
For me, Administration is about having a clear set of rules; if they’re not clear, then how can we expect people to follow them. A number of things then flow from this: the rules have to be mandated by the individuals concerned, because they have to have a ‘key task focus’. The rules are there to support the culture, which enables staff to do things differently – but always with a task and customer focus.
However, these rules have to be brought to life – and this takes the form of weekly Process Review Meetings in which discussions on systems take pride of place. Although these meetings have a serious purpose, it’s all done in a good-humoured atmosphere. We highlight what’s happened for people to earn praise, what’s going to be happening in the next ninety days, what’s been a ‘shocker’ (these warrant a T-Shirt!) and we re-iterate the basics. For example, whilst punctuality is a basic, staff are reminded that you only make a commitment if you can fulfil it!
One of the outcomes was to set a rule by which we never communicate bad news by e-mail! It’s an effective mechanism, but it can never replace the human touch. It’s tough, but it’s part of the managers’ job.
RM: So we’re talking about well-proven processes that are alive and are defined for each aspect of the job?
DB: Yes, but the important thing is to accept that it’s OK to make mistakes if you learn from them, because then people are comfortable about themselves. If something goes wrong, we say that there are always two sides to the story. In the Process Review Meeting, we talk about how the ‘wrong’ happened. Now, there are only two explanations: it’s a people thing or it’s something wrong with the process.
RM: I agree – my mantra is that “if you make a mistake, it’s my fault because I haven’t trained you or we’ve got the wrong system”.
DB: Precisely. So the approach gives you freedom to remedy the problem by training or system change.
RM: Is this the basis for success of the ‘Ever Been Disappointed’ campaign?
DB: I guess so – this is how it works. Take a personal example. Have you ever had a special event, which you’ve booked, but which was a disappointment?
RM: Strangely enough, I had just such an experience at a restaurant where we booked a table to celebrate my daughter’s birthday.
DB: Well consider this: the owners of the restaurant didn’t want you to have that experience, and would surely have done something about it if they had known. Ah, but people say they don’t complain because ‘nothing gets done’. Through system and people development, at Episys, we can ‘get things done’!
I found Derek’s management style so absorbing that the time just sped by. I wanted to see his philosophy in action, so I was delighted when he graciously invited me to attend the next Episys Annual Conference, and I will report on that in an upcoming issue.
In the meantime, it’s worth leaving you with Derek’s final words for our members: “Our Systems have been proven to reduce costs for some of the world’s major brands, unlike speculative technology”. Watch this space!
