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Business adviser guides way to transformation

Ray Attiyah hasn't let that C-minus at Xavier University alter his vision.

Pursing an MBA at XU, Attiyah, who had worked as an engineer at Ethicon Endo-Surgery and the Johnson & Hardin printing company, wrote a business plan for a new type of business improvement firm that would do hands-on training for small and mid-sized manufacturers.

Attiyah's paper got the low grade because his professor thought he didn't have sales and marketing expertise and the consulting industry at the time was focused on the up-and-coming information technology market, not bricks-and-mortar businesses.

Undeterred in 1996, Attiyah started the firm in the attic of his Mount Lookout home. Today, his Definity Partners employs 32 project managers here and in Columbus, Cleveland and Indianapolis, and next year will expand to Atlanta.

Over the last dozen years, the company has helped about 200 companies transform their operations for growth, and the firm has expanded beyond manufacturing to serve clients in construction, finance, health and the nonprofit markets.

EXPLAIN YOUR APPROACH to organization transformation.

Most organizations are good at incremental change. They identify a problem and fix it. Transformation involves taking a step back and looking at the organization, the systems it has in place and the way it's managed.

The key is to establish solid, robust processes that allow employees to run the day-to-day operation. That's transformation, because it changes management and frees it from running the day-to-day operation to focus on growth. We describe our system as: run-improve-grow.

HOW IS THAT accomplished?

We focus on people development and process improvement. By addressing an organization's immediate issues, we can create an environment for long-term improvement.

We define what the organization's core business is, and how to simply that. That's the hardest thing to do, because it means management has to have a high level of trust in employees.

Adding checks and double-checks implies management doesn't have a lot of trust in employees. It also slows the organization down. Slow organizations can't be innovative and nimble.

HOW CRITICAL IS organization transformation in a slowing economy?

Everybody was doing well in 2005 through 2007, but now is the real test. It's like what happened to trees during the September windstorm. The strong trees survived the winds. This economy is a windstorm for organizations.

Cincinnati Enquirer - Sunday, October 26, 2008

by Mike Boyer