Openness to change essential to growth

"I looked in the mirror and saw a CEO whose talents would not take my company to where I dreamt it might go," Jay Loewi shared in explaining his decision to hire a president for The QTI Group.

"I have the passion and customer-relationship skills to drive growth and the entrepreneurial mindset to find new opportunities. But that's not enough."

Madison-headquartered QTI is a recruiting, staffing and consulting organization serving clients across southern Wisconsin.

Loewi, a charismatic, customer-driven entrepreneur, led the 51-year-old company for the last 17 years. Under his leadership, QTI added numerous new services, creating a portfolio of rapidly growing businesses.

As these services started to commoditize, Loewi and his team changed their business model from one of managing each service's customer base independently to collectively focusing on solving human-resource issues facing clients' senior leaders. It was a successful shift: As QTI's integrated services helped clients grow, QTI's growth accelerated.

Loewi's strengths created a customer-centered culture with service, honesty, hard work and inventiveness as core values. His entrepreneurial style enabled QTI to attract highly creative and entrepreneurial managers who might otherwise become competitors.

New leadership needed

But Loewi understood that a growing and diversifying organization like QTI needed additional leadership skills as it grew in geographic reach and size. The company and its opportunities, he recognized, had become too large for him to manage with his hands-on, informal style, where one conversation or observation could alert him to looming customer issues.

With growth, maintaining outstanding customer experiences would also get more challenging because core leaders (who drive culture) would be moving further from the front-line (where service is delivered). Metrics and processes would become more vital, and leaders would need to switch from managing day-to-day operations to serving as creators of change and alignment. "I am terrible at structure," Loewi admitted, "yet we'd need more as growth continued."

Londa Dewey, the president that Loewi brought in, is an inspired choice. In addition to being president of U.S. Bank's Madison market, she served as president of the Private Client Group, where she oversaw 118 U.S. Bank locations offering holistic solutions to meet clients' financial goals. The solutions required coordination of bank resources, capital and cross business-line services, coordination similar to that required by QTI's new business model.

Sustaining growth

Dewey's infrastructure, process development and management skills will enable QTI to sustain growth and high service. "As important, Londa has managed the size of company we want to become, so she knows what to expect and what mistakes to avoid moving forward. Coming from a customer-centric organization, she's also a great fit with our culture," Loewi observed.

Loewi accepted that he needed to complement his skills in high-level relationship development with Dewey's exceptional management skills.

The change frees Loewi's immensely creative mind to imagine new possibilities for QTI; and, he has more time for his favorite and highest-value role, customer relationships. QTI now stands ready to build market leadership within a broader geographic market.

Do your leadership strengths make you the best leader for your organization's next stage? If not, in what role can you add the most value to your company or another?

If you have Loewi's self-knowledge and openness to change, you'll build a stronger organization and a more fulfilling career.

Kay Plantes is a Madison economist, strategy consultant and executive educator.