MatureWorker: A New Series Helping Seasoned Workers Adjust to Workplace Changes.

MatureWorker By JON F. WEINSTEIN

MY TECH-LEAP-FORWARD:

A CAUTIONARY TALE

The classic Come-of-Age in Tech story usually goes something like this: Older, more pre-tech set- in-- their ways workers are usually pushed into having to adopt computer use and transition to digital tools by younger, better trained workers. Indeed, that was true for just about every company I have done business with and known since the early 1980s.

I was once a classic example of how that works---and I also was a major anomaly.

In 1983, I joined a suddenly booming company that was moving form under $2 million a year in revenue with decent margins to an exploding company doubling that revenue alone well before the first half of the year was over. I came into the company at the end of February of that year. What do I find? The booming, suddenly industry-leading company, which was really structured like a small 1960’s business---still operated with rotary dial phones that had not been  upgraded since---1971. As COO, my first order of business was to survey how the dial in/out systems were being used by the sellers.

They weren’t.

I then launched a very quick but intense re-education  campaign to show these older, 1950’s-trained ( and still oriented) sellers how much more can be gained for them in their direct, immediate sales fulfillment through an upgraded phone system. Granted, this was 1983; we are not talking state of the art digital phones systems. But what I was proposing to do was 12 years ahead of where this antique system was festering in.

I explained the quickness of call-making alone would yield a significant, immediate leap in sales. The ability to save message for replay---a novel invention in 1983---would often prove---and very fast, too—to be the difference between us getting the sale---versus our competitors.

“Look , our competitors don’t have these phone systems that you want”, a few grumbled,” so why the fuss?” When I explained how entities, from armies to small companies, etc. learned determine who won. Companies that learned, changed and improved first and fastest, won.

Based on terms of the 1981 tax law which I helped work on in Congress two years before and the company’s unused collection of available, lawful tax credits---ripping out the dinosaur phone system and replacing it with the new one costs us: Nothing.

Yes, a few of the Ole-Times struggled with( then) more complex buttons and lights. But, immediately, sales efficiency soared. The ability to build an Outbound sales calling regime was successful. The natural reticence about physically dialing over and over was now gone.  Imagine that! The company had PUSH BUTTON PHONES ! Welcome to where the rest of the world was. Within days, the majority of the older folks forget about their fears and hesitation---and took like fish to water with the new phones. A short time later—everyone got it.

One of the things I pointed out to a leery management was: ‘ How many young new workers who we will need, and fast, to meet our suddenly exploding sales and growth will want to come to work in a place with ‘Antique’ phones ? ‘. So, in this instance, I was the Young Turk taking the older folks into the new tech world…a few years down the line… I  was the young Turk resisting PC use for myself—and was dragged into it thankfully by a 57-year-old CFO who was a very tach-savvy guy. MORE ON THAT SOON….

Jon F. Weinstein is a small business commentator, consultant, PPE specialist and published author.