Battlefields & Board Rooms: More Cultural Transformations in a South Carolina Company

By Rick Davis

 

In a previously published article in South Carolina Business magazine, a publication of the South Carolina Chamber, I described three cultural transformations that Elliott Davis underwent in our quest for change: growth in size and talent, improved communication and increased accountability. We knew that change was inevitable. It is a basic business principle — stagnation and lack of growth become a hindrance. While your competition leaps ahead in the market, you will be left behind.

Elliott Davis now sits on the other side of that culture shift and the view of the steps it took to get here is clearer. Having experienced the growing pains, it is easier to describe them to other companies looking to make changes.

My initial article listed three principles of cultural transformation, but an additional four, no less in importance, were “left on the cutting room floor.” Similar to the first article, I can compare those principles with the decisions and leadership of one of my heroes, George Washington, while he served on the battlefield during the Revolutionary War.

 

We needed to help people find the right roles and use their strengths.

Washington was a surveyor, a scout, a commander of a regiment tasked with defending Virginia’s “frontier” in the French and Indian War, and a farmer — all before the age of thirty. The lessons learned in each of those roles later translated into leadership traits on the battlefield. His strengths were well-suited for his time as general of our country’s first army.

At the same time, the decisions Washington made about recruitment of other leaders within the army were some of the most important that he made during the war. Time after time, appointed leaders were tasked with certain vital war duties — sometimes by Congress. When they failed at those tasks, Washington made decisions to replace them with more suitable leaders. His actions in getting the right people in the right job were assertive, and of course, sometimes desperate. At one point, he replaced his most experienced general, second-in-command Charles Lee, in the very midst of battle. He selected a German, von Steuben, to conduct the vital training that the army needed during the long winter of Valley Forge. He placed Henry Knox in charge of transporting immensely valuable artillery across 300 miles of ice and snow. He recruited Nathanael Greene to take over the logistics of managing the supply transport for the army. All these moves were master strokes of placing people in the right roles during the war.

At Elliott Davis, our old system encouraged people to try to do everything: manage business, do the work, develop staff, be out in the community, bring in business. We all were wearing too many hats.

We discovered that discerning and recognizing people’s skills and drives, and then allowing them to gravitate towards their strengths, reaped bigger and better benefits. We wanted people to ask the question, “What are my strengths and how can I develop them to achieve goals?”

Our people needed to have a clear career path based on their strengths rather than striving desperately to be “good at everything.” They needed to be great at pursuing and developing their own strengths. Far from feeling constrained or fettered by unrealistic expectations, there’s a certain relief in knowing that you’re not expected to be something you’re not. And there is motivation in seeing where you can end up. As others have said before, it’s about putting the right people in the right places doing the right things.

 

We needed to improve our client service.

Not only did it need to improve, but we recognized that “client service” wasn’t simply delivering a product of excellence — and it was much more than merely meeting deadlines. Those were things we were already accomplishing.

A part of client service is internal in professional services. It encompasses employees thinking like business people as they serve clients, behaving more entrepreneurially rather than performing like cookie-cutter technicians. To achieve this, we had to learn together to not fear getting out of our comfort zone to make bold moves such as bringing in unique talent, relocating service teams to be closer to their clients or challenging the status quo. Doing things differently would not kill our company. But not taking enough risk to grow and innovate could kill us.

Interestingly, it was Washington, more than the British, who took more of the risks in the war. In large part, this was because the British had a larger, better trained army that could afford to move slowly and methodically, overwhelming the Continental Army with superior numbers, strategy and training. As a result, Washington had to pursue change, stress, and uncertainty. He knew he had to act, move and risk decisively and boldly, simply because he and his army would not survive otherwise. At the same time, Washington was well able to “bravely run away” from conflicts and battles that would distract or weaken his army from its longer-term strategic purpose – waiting it out until economic realities and lowered morale in England brought about the recognition of U.S. independence.

Allowing and empowering our employees to think and do things differently opened up a far greater array of options in serving our clients, all in a highly competitive arena of significantly larger firms. We increased the number and variety of tools used to solve client problems. The result — increased ability to provide our clients with more creative and more flexible solutions.

 

We needed a culture that celebrated success.

A part of learning “what to do better” is the recognition of “what we did right.” Recognizing, acknowledging and vocally celebrating the right things reaffirmed and cemented positive behaviors. Celebrations as a firm were a witness to everyone about what we actually were pursuing.

We learned that we needed to think about good stuff, talk about it happening, celebrate the successes — or even just the steps and momentum we were gaining towards the successes.

Some of us may recall a line in Christian sacred writing: “Whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report . . . think on these things.”

There is a practical truth to that. What we celebrate, we will do.

 

We needed to commit to doing the right thing in the present.

The changes we pursued at Elliott Davis aren’t necessarily the same ones that others will focus on in their path of transformation. Every company has its own sets of strengths and weaknesses. But I can assure any leadership team that is wrestling with the need to move a company to a more successful place, embarking on a journey of corporate culture change is extremely rewarding even though we don’t always see the end of the road at its beginning.

Washington could not have foreseen the future country that was built on the foundation which he laid. From his efforts rose one of the freest and most powerful countries that history has seen. Since Washington could not see the future, all he could rely on was doing the right things in the immediate present without knowing the impact of his actions after his death.

A good leader in the corporate arena must do the same. Without knowing the future, and while recognizing that your decisions will affect many long after your own retirement, you must take counsel, be willing to take risks, act decisively and move forward as best you can with limited knowledge. Such actions — doing the right things without knowing the future — always require the character traits of faith and honor. Faith and honor supported Washington, and faith and honor must support leaders in corporate America as well.

Washington appeared to have a unique grasp of the significance of his actions and decisions on future generations. The rest of us should follow suit knowing that even in a more civilized and safe country, and in far smoother circumstances and contexts, the results of change affect everyone — your people, clients, other stakeholders, you . . . and your company’s very future. Each step on the path of culture change can seem small. But the combination of all of those steps can lead to something far greater than one could have imagined at the start.

Though our own culture change efforts were successful, I don’t want to give the impression it was easy. The process of change has been long and often challenging and, since none of us at Elliott Davis are George Washington, we made our share of mistakes.

But it was well worth the discomfort and struggle — worth it for families, for individuals, for communities, for clients, and for the future itself.

Washington believed that everyone’s actions had significance and meaning, not simply a general and his officers. Each individual’s actions have an effect far into the future.

He said it best: “It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.”

Building a company is not as significant or momentous an act as embarking on building a country. But the workplace does offer “happiness or misery” — and its influence extends far beyond its walls and doors.

 

Rick Davis is the managing shareholder of Elliott Davis, headquartered in Greenville, SC. For further conversation about corporate culture change, you may contact him at [email protected] or through https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickedavis.