JPL: Provoking Change in a Successful Organization
This morning I attended The Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s Excellence Exchange. These breakfast meetings are an excellent venue to share ideas, best practices, and hear from a community business leader.
This morning the speaker was Luke Kempski, President of JPL. JPL has won many awards (Fastest 50 Growing, Best Places to Work…) and was/is a very successful organization, when 2 years ago it set out on a course of change. Luke set forth the course of action they took in order to continue to be a great organization. I thought his comments were insightful and I decided to share.
First, was the why change? They were starting to outgrow corporate infrastructure (financial Systems…), moving into new markets, and facing new competitors as they grew. They knew they needed to re-platform in order to build a strong base for the next 10 years of growth. They also concluded that this involved re-branding. Some key steps in the process were:
- Hired a consultant to lead the project.
- Formed a core leadership team.
- Segmented clients by size, purchasing process, and revenue potential.
- Listed strengths and weaknesses.
- Set a vision.
- Defined goals (i.e. What does a successful outcome look like?).
He also stressed how important internal communication was to this process. Getting total buy-in from the team made the external communication (mainly of the re-branding) much more consistent.
Overall, some very sound business advice for any organization looking to implement some major changes.
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