For many of you, today is just another day – August 1, 2019.

For those of us at Definian International, the start of August always marks some important milestones:

• Today is the day we welcome in our new class of Associate Consultants, some of the “best of the best” who are starting or continuing their career with us.
• Today is also the first day of our new fiscal year, a chance for us to celebrate what’s new and what’s next for our company over the next 12 months.
• And today is the 34th anniversary of the founding of our company by Jim and Dune Hempleman, a day of intense pride as we celebrate our history and heritage.

We look forward to August 1 every year as it provides the perfect balance of where we have been and where we are going.

While we have evolved as a firm, the one constant over the last 34 years has been the culture of our firm. I believe it is the single most important element behind our longevity and success over the last three decades, and will be the reason we are going to experience unparalleled success and growth in the coming decades.

We all have heard that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and there’s a ton of writing on company culture, from books to blog posts to Tweets and everything in between. There’s no dearth of resources to explore if you want to understand how to build and sustain your company culture.

And don’t kid yourself. Every company has a culture – whether they can articulate it or not. It’s the ethos of the firm, the DNA that makes your company unique. Culture happens over time. It is shaped by management and lived out by the team.

When I joined Definian last year, I spent time exploring and understanding the culture of the firm. There was something special about this company and I quickly realized that my job, as the new CEO, was NOT to change the culture but rather to leverage our unique DNA to help us become an even better version of ourselves, both individually and collectively.

My exploration led me to uncover four key elements of our culture that help make Definian who it is:

1.   Grounded in ethics

Jim and Dune founded the company on a Code of Ethics that still guide our work today. The code is simple yet profound:

• Adhere to the highest ethical standards
• Place the client’s interest first
• Serve all clients with excellence
• Maintain a professional attitude
• Preserve the client’s confidence

These are not just words on paper to us. This is our foundation, the rock of our existence. We hire for these ethics. We expect 100% commitment to these ethics. We celebrate and reward them. If one were to list out our core values, ethical would be at the top of that list.

While the concept of being ethical might be considered table stakes to many, that’s unfortunately not the case at so many companies. We are proud of this commitment and stand firmly on the foundation of our Code of Ethics in all that we do.

2.   Relentlessly client-focused

Our commitment to our clients and their success is second-to-none. We will do anything within our power to help a client succeed. Whatever it takes, whenever it’s needed – that’s our mantra. Sure, it’s led to late nights, weekends and even less revenue or profit at times. But it’s all in the spirit of serving our clients.

Perhaps the best example of our client-focus is the Go-Live bell that hangs in our office. In other companies, a bell is rung when that company has a success (e.g., a new sale is made). At Definian, we ring the bell when our clients have success, namely in the form of a Go-Live on a technology implementation. We celebrate their success, not ours. It’s a very tangible reminder that when the client is successful, all the other pieces seem to fall in place.

3.   Committed to impeccable delivery

We own a critical task in any system deployment – to migrate data from an old, legacy system into a new target system. It’s perhaps the riskiest part of any technology implementation: Gartner states that 83% of all data migration projects either fail outright or cause significant cost overruns.

If we don’t deliver on our commitments, tens of millions of dollars of investment can be wasted. The pressure is on, all the time, to deliver a successful migration with accuracy and timeliness.

And deliver we do! Every single one of our projects over the last 34 years has gone live – yep, 100% success rate. That’s a lot of bell ringing! More importantly, it means that our clients know they can count on us to deliver on our promises and commitments, eliminating that portion of project risk for them.

There are a number of reasons why we have this impressive track record – from our incredible team of consultants to Applaud®, our proprietary software that is optimized for this work, to our decades of experience in anticipating and solving complex data migration challenges.

Our culture is built upon delivering excellence and success in every project, every time.

4.   Rooted in fun

There is a heavy dose of fun at Definian that I have not experienced other places that I’ve worked and led.

I am not talking about the artificial fun that may come with a foosball table or beer fridge (although both ideas have been mentioned here!). I am talking about genuinely enjoying being with each other and how that manifests itself on a daily basis.

Whether that be the regular lunch gathering in the kitchen to the sudden appearance of miniature Ed Grimley in a remote location to our annual lake party gathering – our team just enjoys being with each other, and it shows in their interaction and engagement.

The laughter, the challenges, the candor and the camaraderie. It’s hard to describe, yet palpable when you experience it. It’s the final piece that makes us unique.

Those four characteristics, when looked at individually, could apply to many companies and cultures in the business world. But the unique combination of all four of them, honed over the last 30+ years by Jim, Dune and the team, makes Definian who we are today … and who we will be tomorrow.

I mentioned that we don’t celebrate our own accomplishments or “ring our own bell” very often … or very well. That said, I am incredibly proud that our company was recently recognized as one of the “Best and Brightest Companies to Work For®” in Chicago this year. It’s a reflection of the culture described above and a significant validation of how special this place is.

Every once in a while, it’s okay to step back and celebrate what makes your company awesome. Today is that day for me.

Happy August 1, everyone.

#WeAreDefinian

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When I started my first job after college at Definian, which was founded by Jim and Dune Hempleman in Chicago in 1985, Definian was probably a third of the size that it is now, and it always had a small family atmosphere where everyone helps everyone else and takes care of each other. At the beginning of my first year at Definian, I would call Jim "Mr. Hempleman", but then he would respond that Mr. Hempleman was his father so I should call him "Jim".

Jim was the CEO, and he had a profound effect on my early career. I can remember storming into his office with a problem on my client project saying "we have a problem...", and Jim would calmly repeat it back to me saying "you mean that we have an opportunity...". Back then, we were very busy every fall season, and there were times when I was working past midnight at the office and I suddenly had to call Jim at home for help with a problem (sorry, I should say 'opportunity'). No matter how many times that I woke him up during the middle of the night or called him on a weekend, Jim was always available to help in any way that he could.

The most amazing thing Jim and Dune did for us was during the severe 2008-2009 recession. In an era when ownership and management lay off employees so that they can get their own bonuses, Jim and Dune sacrificed financially so that the rest of us didn't have to. During that same period, Definian had given an offer to a college graduate well in advance of the recession, and even during the deepest part of the recession, Jim insisted that we honor our commitment to that future employee. Jim always had a saying to "protect your people" and that people were the biggest asset at a consulting firm, and he lived it to the max. I'll never forget that. The other thing was that Jim always bet on the future, and he knew that our company would recover with the economy and we did; in fact, our company flourished a few years later.

It was always important to Jim and Dune that the company provide full health benefits for their employees. Even during the years when insurance costs were going up 20%-30% a year, Definian always fully paid for employees' health benefits. Likewise, I remember meetings with Jim where he would be looking at the salary raises or bonuses for the next year, and he would point to different sections of the spreadsheet and say "we can raise this more, we can give more here". In an era when many company managements try to do everything they can to keep salaries down, Jim and Dune always shared their financial success with the rest of staff. I remember another time when I was about to fly out on our first project overseas, and Dune handed me an envelope (this was before we had direct deposit, so we had paper checks). When I opened the envelope, it was a check to pre-pay my travel expenses, because Jim and Dune were so worried about sending an employee overseas for the first time that they wanted to make sure that I had extra cash just in case I needed it.

There were so many pieces of consulting advice that Jim shared over the years, such as "under promise and over deliver for your client". When we were working on some of our toughest projects which required lots and lots of hours, Jim would always say that we would look back someday and remember those as the 'good old days'. You know, he was right too, because I still remember those tough projects to this day. Jim would say to 'always act in the client's best interests', but the funny thing is that I always took that for granted, because that's how we always acted at Definian. It wasn't until 15+ years later, when I was witnessing unethical behavior by a few individuals on various other projects, that it really hit home what Jim had truly meant. There is actually a Code of Ethics that hangs in Definian's office, and it impacts everything that we do. To this day, we don't officially celebrate sales wins, but we do officially celebrate client projects successfully going live. Interestingly, a lot of the skills that I learned at work have helped me in my personal life too, which was something that I never expected on my first day at Definian 20 years ago.

To this day, I've never seen anyone analyze a set of requirements/specifications like Jim could. He was so productive all of the time too, doing work in taxis and on plane rides whenever we would travel together. Watching him entertain clients was an amazing thing, as he ordered many desserts from the menu at the end of the meal or selected a nice bottle of wine at the beginning. Of course, Jim and Dune threw these amazing parties for employees and our families every year at their home, both in December and during the summer. They put so much effort into every detail of the party, because they wanted to make sure that every single guest was taken care of.

Jim pushed me to grow in ways that I didn't realize at the time. I remember during meetings if I said that I didn't know a certain feature or process, then Jim would select me to work on the corresponding task because he said there was no better way for me to learn it. He also used to pull me into meetings and calls, so that I could listen in even though I really didn't understand much at the time. Without even realizing it, I learned so much over time by being there, listening, and watching how people reacted during meetings. Of course, Jim and I still got into heated arguments from time to time at work, but it always worked out because I think that both of us knew that the other person was trying to do the right thing too.

For my wedding, my wife and I invited all of Definian's staff, and during the reception we asked Jim and Dune to stand up in front of the entire audience so that I could publicly thank them for everything that they did for their employees. The interesting thing is that most of the people at the reception knew about Jim and Dune, even though they had never met them in person, because I talked about them so much to my family and friends. A couple of years ago, as Jim's health declined, there would be times where I would help him put on his overcoat at the office or drive him home when he was carrying something from the office. Even though it was difficult to see Jim's health suffer, I am so grateful now that in some small way I was able to help Jim then, in return for everything that he had done for me. My last long phone conversation with Jim was a random 5 minute phone conversation that turned into a 30 minute phone conversation, because Jim was trying to help me solve some problem (I mean, opportunity) on one of my client projects!

Jim passed away last May, and during that very same weekend, it was amazing to see Dune get on a phone call with our company management to help us through that difficult time. Absolutely incredible. Dune has done everything and more over the past year to take care of the company and its employees, and to continue Jim's vision and to grow it substantially more. Jim had selected his son-in-law to take over as CEO of the company, and there are so many situations over the past year where I understand exactly why Jim had selected him for that role.

Every night when Jim would leave the office, he would stop by every employee's desk and say "thank you for all of your hard work and dedication". After 20 amazing years at Definian, all I can say to Jim and Dune is the same thing: "THANK YOU for all of your hard work and dedication". I already talk about some of the details of my career with my kids, and hopefully someday I will be able to talk about the same things with my grandkids. I'll bet that they will say that it's amazing that owners of a company took care of their employees like that back then, and that it doesn't happen anymore... and I will say that people said the same thing back when I was working too, because nobody could believe it then either. Everyday I work as hard as I can at Definian, because I am still trying to thank Jim and Dune for the amazing opportunity that they gave me 20 years ago as a new college grad entering the workforce. I have worked at Definian now for almost half of my life, and it's been a tremendous honor for which I will forever be grateful.

Ahem ...

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