Passing The Baton: Have a Disciplined Organization

Passing the Baton features a series of “letters” sent from Terry Corman, outgoing CEO of Firehouse Image Center (Indianapolis, Indiana) to his son, Ted Corman, who will be leading the business into its future. This series of communiques offers thoughtful views of a business undergoing generational transition, glimpses of the company’s history, and strong views of the realities of leadership. 

As I said last week, I held myself accountable for working on the corporate culture. The other side of the corporate culture coin is to create and maintain a disciplined organization.

You have heard about businesses that are said to have "the inmates running the asylum." That quote certainly brings to mind a chaotic organization. Here are the action items I think help create a disciplined work environment.

First, have clear and attainable goals. Then to share those goals with everyone. I see you have the goals for the company on your office wall. Very smart. Better than me.

Second, work areas and offices need to be clean and organized. The Firehouse team has done a fine job. Well, done! The place looks great.

Third, everyone should have goals for their departments, with metrics, that allow them to understand the value they are adding to the process.

I fell short on this over the years, but now with the full implementation of ‘LIFT E.R.P’, from Durst, you have the ultimate workflow organization and production data. Where we used written ‘standard operating procedures’ in the past, now, the standardized and full use of ‘LIFT’ streamlines the process and clearly defines roles. The metrics are there, too.

The Firehouse team has done well here.