Yesterday I joined a community of business owners in Nashville to hear Ed Magee former GM of Harley Davidson’s York PA Operations. The subject was leading during dramatic transformations of a business.
What a unexpected that joy this talk would wind up combining so many of my great passions. Riding, lighting and branding!
Ed Magee shared how challenging it can be to change and to achieve “buy-in” from the team you are serving. Harley was hit with a 40% drop in sales after the 2008 financial crisis. As so many of us faced our own challenges, Harley Davidson went about making dramatic changes to their manufacturing facilities in order to survive!
There are so many components that fuel the spirit and image of a brand. Harley Davidson has a monumental story to tell. They leaned on their brand while leaning forward. They supported their team of employees and their customers as they swept through a turnaround they centered on the vision of a group ride. It’s great to hear about how a brand executed so well in tough times.
The history of the Harley brand in the market was one of rugged individualism. Words Harley Davidson would and did use to describe their culture. In this new chapter, the rugged was saved for the pursuit of freedom on the road and the factory became a streamlined and organized new place. While honoring the past, the brand focus became the Group Ride. And the group ride was lead with better lighting.
The updated factory, with it's enhanced production capabilities included more evenly distributed, brighter illumination with higher color rendering properties. Higher color rending meant the correct colored parts were easily identified and wound up on the right bike. The factory team that was previously challenged with seeing the subtleties between blue and burgundy under low CRI lighting could now work more quickly and efficiently and focus their attention an even higher level of quality control. It became easier to see the refined details of the work product of which they were so proud.
Centricity Business specializes in the realization of the brand promise through lighting, sound, media and other architectural technology.
A special thanks to Belmont University’s Executive Learning Network for bringing such quality speakers for us all to learn.
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