The Final Word
A Lean journey with remarkable results
BY TOM MASON
Let’s trade tact for time: When I headed off to Washington, D.C., in 2002 to be chief of staff in the office of Sen. Norm Coleman, I calculated that by the time Coleman concluded his first term in office, there would be no entity called Minnesota Technology, Inc. Well, I was right, but only technically.
As MTI has evolved into the more robust and market-oriented Enterprise Minnesota (as has been abundantly described throughout this magazine), we should make time to tell the back story of MTI’s remarkable transformation from a quasi-state agency to its current state as a fee-based enterprise that thrives on the success of its customers.
I didn’t think it could happen. When the prospects of unprecedented state budget deficits forced Governor Tim Pawlenty and the Minnesota legislature to eliminate MTI’s state funding, there weren’t many observers inside or outside the organization who believed the organization would remain viable.
The mood felt like “Chicken Little,” according to John Connelly, Enterprise Minnesota’s director of product management. “Our business model had us acting like a government agency. Our focus was on activity more than on results.” Survival meant reversing that attitude. It was not an easy proposition.
The troops at MTI had to revolutionize their focus and streamline their mission. In three different iterations, MTI’s size went from 100 employees down to a very lean 30. Which, Connelly says, “left the remaining people with an ever-increasing sense of responsibility. We still had all these things to do, with only one in three people left to do them.”
Those 30 employees also had to change their mindsets. Instead of merely providing or brokering advice to clients, the MTI staff had to think about generating activities that would bring bottom-line value to customers and that would also pay for themselves.
They did it. “We realized we can’t go passively in to a client,” Connelly says. “You can’t go in with a 50,000- foot view. You have to go in and say, ‘I have something you need. Give me enough time to show it to you.’ ”
In their own way, the employees of Enterprise Minnesota have gained first-hand knowledge of what lean thinking and a positive attitude of vision and innovation can accomplish. In this case, it transformed from a process-oriented organization into a thriving enterprise focused on its customers and their bottom lines.