When Jeff Tognoni arrived at Made2Manage Systems Inc. in
August 2003, he found a company in serious need of a reboot.
The business software and service provider had seen its revenue
dip from $34.5 million in 2001 to $30.2 million in 2002.
It was also the fourth straight year the company had lost money
and spirits were down.
But Tognoni says the last thing employees in that situation want
to hear is a rah-rah speech about how bright the future is going
to be.
“You can motivate for a short amount of time because of charisma, but you can’t really get them to change because of charisma,” Tognoni says. “You don’t try to unnaturally hype them up
about how it’s going to be great and play music and blah, blah,
blah. To me, I’m on the other side of that and mostly what we say
is, ‘OK, how long will this joker last?’”
Instead of trying to rally the troops, Tognoni moved quickly
with actions he believed would make the company more profitable again. Made2Manage was taken private upon Tognoni’s
arrival, and its name was eventually changed to Consona Corp.
after being acquired by Tognoni’s equity firm.
“You’re very honest with them,” says Tognoni, the president
and CEO. “You tell them what is going to happen and what you
believe the decisions will lead to. You open with what the plan
is going to be. You are open and candid and say, ‘I don’t expect
you to trust me. I’m new, and there are a lot of changes here,
and I don’t expect you to trust what these changes are going to
do. All I’m asking is to do your best and execute the way we’re
asking you, and I will let the results speak for themselves.’”
Tognoni gathered what data he could, compared it to industry standards and quickly began making moves. He shared his
plan with employees and tried to figure out who would fit into
the new picture and who would not.
Within a month, the decisions had been made, and it was time
to move forward.
“You’re always making decisions where you don’t have perfect data,” Tognoni says. “That’s the whole essence of being an
executive. The worst thing is to not make decisions and to continually say, ‘I don’t have enough data so I can’t make a decision.’ That will destroy even a good company over time.”
