PerSyst Consulting Welcomes Obie Kokich to Their Team

We are happy to announce that Mr. Obie Kokich recently joined PerSyst Consulting. Obie has over 10 years of experience helping companies of all sizes ranging from small startups to Fortune 100 companies. He worked to improve their day-to-day operations with process improvements and implemented leading edge technology. Perfecting his skills with many leading consulting firms in Washington and California, Obie has engaged with over 200 organizations across various industries and has a deep understanding of IT infrastructure, cloud computing, ERP and CRM solutions, custom software development and systems integration.

Obie’s consulting and solution architecture work emphasizes the advantages of enterprise technology to enable process optimization. He comprehends the technology landscape and architects multi-faceted solutions to achieve business objectives.   

A primary focus for Obie is excellent customer service and he has a true desire to be a customer advocate. After more than a decade in the field, Obie realizes that in the technology consulting industry, it is rare to find consulting groups with expertise to deploy the wide range of enterprise technology needed to meet complex business objectives. So over his career, he has developed strategic partnerships with a variety of world class technology consulting firms, implementation organizations and key subject matter experts. He understands how and when to engage with these partners to deliver end-to-end solutions that maximize results and never loses sight of his client’s best interests.

Obie's addition to the team solidifies PerSyst's ability to meet our client’s varying needs to integrate the best technology with the best supporting processes for unsurpassed results.

Mission Critical Decisions

Decision-making takes many forms in organizations.  Some decisions are by consensus; some are more dictatorial.  Businesses can learn from the American Red Cross.  Although many businesses have day-to-day business concerns interspersed with critical decisions, few have decisions that impact whether someone lives or dies. 

The dynamic way the Red Cross determines dependencies between projects, departments and states provide a real-life model for making decisions in an ever-changing environment.  In Life or Death Decision-Making:  What Businesses Can Learn from the Red Cross, Fast Company outlines how this non-profit quickly moves forward.  For companies whose economic landscape changes, this is a lesson on moving forward quickly and decisively.

Change management behavior – trust is critical

Project management is rational…change management is emotional…

Though this is an overstatement it helps make a point about a key difference between the two practices. Project management designs a plan that scope, budget and timeline. Change management is about executing that plan and understanding the inevitable emotional and behavioral impacts.

Let’s look at one…trust. Leaders and team members need to feel comfortable that hand-offs will go smoothly and work will be completed at high level. There is second trust behavior which is just as important…perhaps even more than the first. Trust is also feeling comfortable with others and being able to admit mistakes and ask for help in a safe environment.

This type trust sounds obvious but it’s difficult to achieve…particularly today. In a completive work environment, it takes courage to ask for help or admit you’re wrong. This can be interpreted as showing weakness in front of peers. However it’s exactly the sort of behavior and courage that allows one to be successful in assessing and adjusting action. Change is fluid and frequently reactive. You need to trust in each other to allow for rapid course correction without the worry of perception and finger pointing.

True competitive differentiation

Do you really understand what is important to your customers and clients?  What is your point of competitive differentiation that separates you from the pack?  After your own assessment of the issue, if high levels of competence are on your list, you may be ignoring what is truly important and meaningful to your customers.  Customers are assuming competence and expertise in your business; that’s a given when they call or visit you.  Relying on competence alone, when seeking to separate from your competition is like a hotel seeking new customers by advertising they have clean sheets and towels.

You should be looking at areas of service and behavior that have seen historical failure in your industry, or common complaints that are specific about your local competitors.  A rich area to mine information is local forums and postings.  This is not to say that competency isn’t important, it’s the baseline structure that you build your business upon, it’s just not enough. Great examples are contractors and tradesman. These are frequently small or even one-person businesses. Communication and customer follow up are difficult due to lack of office or administrative staff. However, a company that follows up quickly on a customer request or better yet, answers the phone on the first call is frequently far ahead of their competitors.

Find a similar example for your business and simple actions can truly separate you.  

Change? It does a brain good!

With the start of a new year just around the corner, I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of change and how we respond to the prospect.  About 98% of the population does not like change.  In fact, research suggests that we are incapable of making major changes most of the time, even in matters of life and death.  I recently reread with interest a 2005 Fast Company, Inc. article on the subject that cited studies that showed 90% of heart attack victims when faced with the need to change could not do so. 

I am a process person.  I see life from a process perspective and, as a result, I see the beauty in change as a means to make life easier, more enjoyable and as a means to achieve desired outcomes.  Even as someone who enjoys change, however, as I look back over my life, it is clear that my attempts at making change far outweigh the number of times I have actually sustained changes and enjoyed the outcomes that were my target.  There are the multiple times that I have set out to improve my health by changing my eating habits.  Often, I have succeeded at one or more elements of change such as the content of my diet or the “what.”  Meanwhile, the “when,” “why” and “how much” elements of my diet have not changed through the years in spite of attempts to change most of these aspects.  The same can be said of my attempts to simplify life by exercising the use of the word “no” more often.

Neurologists suggest that making major changes are physiologically challenging for our brains.  Have you ever changed a piece of software on your network only to have three or four other systems start having problems?  Making a major life change may have an analogous impact on your brain as the change of software does to your computer network.  There are just so many connections and alterations that have to be readied for the change, that you are bound to suffer some speed bumps along the way.

There is a way to make change successfully and as painless as possible.  First, identify the psychological win for the people involved.  Dr. Dean Ornish has demonstrated the value of focusing on the joy that change can create in getting people to make dietary changes to impact their health.  Change is best when it has a logical benefit as opposed to change for the sake of change.  Once you have identified the rationale for the change, associate the logic to the emotional benefits.  If a needed change will make life easier on the people in the effort, then they will be happier and have more free time on their hands.  Make the emotional benefits real.  Paint the picture of the emotion that will persist if the change is not achieved.  Some people are motivated by movement toward pleasure; others are motivated by movement away from pain.  Lastly, slice changes into bite-size pieces.  Recognize progress, reward the wins and build momentum for continued change. The medical community suggests that learning new habits is one key to warding off brain malfunction.  So, if we give ourselves the opportunity to experience change we are fueling brain health along the way.