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WITI SAVVY
How a New Leader Changes Culture
Cathie Kozik, Corporate Vice-President, Integrated Supply Chain IT for Motorola, has only been in her new position for a few months, but already has discovered that she has more than her fair share of work cut out for her. She is accountable for the end-to-end responsibility of all the systems that keep the Motorola supply chain running, and working together with other departments to create a vision for what the future looks like.
In the past, there was not an integrated approach to working with customers, meaning that there were numerous ways for each of them to do business with Motorola, she said. "The supply chain leadership got together and recognized that there was a great opportunity for them to work together and to create a seamless vision of the Motorola supply chain," said Kozik. Kozik's job is to make sure that the IT division is in line with the rest of Motorola's supply chain. "I'm building a culture, the same kind of culture within IT that is being created within the supply chain organization overall," she said. "Where there is an absolute, passionate commitment to doing the right thing for the customer and an unwillingness to accept excuses and barriers. It is a complete focus on execution. So I am building the organization both structurally as well as mentally." Building a new culture is a daunting task, but Kozik believes there is a proper way to approach such a process. The first thing that should be done is to write down exactly what the culture should look like, what the expectations are, and to define its successes. "Then you have to communicate it," she said. "You have to share this with people. And then you have to live it." That is the most difficult aspect of it, she said. Like most things, it is easier said than done. It takes strong leadership skills to not only develop the ideas, but most importantly to put them into practice so others can observe them. "Your actions always speak louder than your words," said Kozik. "Every day you have to demonstrate your focus on execution and ask questions like, 'Where are things at?' And you're getting people into a drumbeat or a cadence of delivering results so they know what you're expecting that from them." However, this process is not without its challenges. A big challenge is not letting the little things get lost in the shuffle, she said. During a large operation such as this it is very possible to forget about the small things and only focus on the larger aspects of the project. "The greatest challenge becomes engaging the hearts and minds of the individual contributor," she said. "This change impacts significantly the most senior leadership in the company. We need to ensure that they're on board with the change because they are the ones who are most directly impacted by the shift in responsibility from the verticals to the horizontals." The "verticals and horizontals," as Kozik calls them, are the center of what is trying to be accomplished by the current culture change. In the past, Motorola put too much focus on the verticals (the businesses) and not as much on the horizontals (the functional teams) she said. "In the past, teams such as IT were limited to support functions. Now Motorola is attempting to shift its strength away from just being in the verticals and concentrating on the horizontals as well," said Kozik. "We're shifting the balance, rotating, if you will, where the center of strength is going to be," she said. "There will be a continued focus on the business, because we never forget that that's where the money gets made, but we're focusing on eliminating some of the redundancy that's going on." It is not an easy task, but Kozik has been extremely impressed with how the company has reacted to its latest challenge. In order to get something so large accomplished, egos are put aside and everyone focuses on the company and its customers. "The key thing is that the leadership has to buy into it," she said. "And that has been true almost from day one. In fact, it's been the greatest act of selfless leadership that I've seen in a company. All the supply chain leaders came together and said, 'You know what? We need to do the right thing for Motorola; we need to do the right thing for our customers.' And they have demonstrated this since the first day that they were there. They get it. They know what needs to be done. And they've been leading their organization through this transition."
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Some jobs or responsibilities carry more weight than others, yet perhaps none is more daunting than completely revising a company's culture.
