Real Estate and Construction
Building trust
How James B. Heller has built a culture of loyalty at ka architecture
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Cleveland | October 2007
While many expect employees to be
loyal to the company, James B.
Heller says there are times when the company needs to stand up and be
loyal to its employees.
As president of ka architecture, Heller
recalls an architect whose client was so
angry that the employee was sure he was
going to lose his job. Instead, Heller supported the company man and helped him
work out the issue — mending the client
relationship and cementing the employee’s
loyalty in one stroke.
Smart Business spoke with Heller about
why the customer isn’t always right and
why you can’t always take on every project.
Q: What are some pitfalls a CEO
should try to avoid?
Typically, I might get a phone call
from a client who identifies a concern. They say, ‘This is happening
on this particular project.’ There’s a
problem there, whatever it might
be. One pitfall is to too quickly
jump on that particular project
manager and always side with the
client. The typical comment, ‘The
client is always right’ — well, don’t
fall into that trap. Have a face-to-face conversation with that staff
person. Understand there are
always two sides to every story,
and work with that person to
solve the problem. Don’t jump
down on that person.
We’ve been doing a better job of
supporting our people over the
last couple years. Even saying
that to the client, saying, ‘Look,
I’ll look into it. I’ll get back to
you, and we’ll figure out a resolution.’
Also, you can always get
caught when a client starts talking about a particular project
and saying they have to get this project
done by a certain date. Without thinking,
because of my zealousness and aggressiveness to get a new project or new client, I
will commit to a timing circumstance too
quickly: ‘Oh yeah, we can get that done in
the next three days.’
That’s another thing I could easily fall into, which I no longer do. I no longer commit to anything that I am not physically
doing. It’s always, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow or
later today, I’ll let you know how soon I can
get it done.’
Q: How do you manage business growth?
We have been very attentive to the types
of projects who call us and what we can
handle. We are looking to have relationships with clients that, No. 1, we know
have a future, and No. 2, are projects that
permit us to engage our staff, that are interesting to our staff, and that are also sensitive to the outside world and the environment.
We are selective in choosing the projects.
Some make sense for us; some don’t make
sense for us. If the project is one where we
can learn and excite our staff, we are much
more receptive than we used to be in the
past. We used to just take everything, and
that’s no longer the case.
As the company grows, let’s face it, you
only have so much staff and so much time
to do a project. And when you make a commitment, it’s important that you meet that
commitment. We do our darnedest to meet
that commitment. You don’t want to just
hire staff for an upsurge in work, and then
let the staff go. The human side of the story
is much more important than just trying to
get more work in the door, build it up and
then cut it.
It’s not the way of handling the public or
our staff, and because of it, we have a lot of
longevity in our staff.
Q: How do you empower your employees to
run projects?
They are given the full responsibility to handle all aspects of
the project and interface and
use myself as well as others in
the office as a resource. They
basically are taking that particular client and become their
client.
We allow them to handle all
aspects of the project, and the
rest of the office becomes a
resource to that team. There is
still a continuity of the ‘ka’ way of
doing a project, but they very
much run the day-to-day of that
particular project.
Q: What has been your greatest
challenge in business?
You’re dealing with lots of different
people and lots of different personalities. Certain folks have certain
strengths. It’s a matter of balancing
those strengths against one another
and applauding what other folks do
in the office — it’s real easy then for
the outside client to say, ‘Jimmy, you
did a great job.’
But you have to say, ‘It was really
their doing, not mine,’ and commend
them internally and externally.
That’s what it takes to bite your tongue a little bit. It takes the human resources side
because the human touch can go a long way.
HOW TO REACH: ka architecture, (216) 781-9144 or
www.architectureoflife.com
