Acxiom rebuilds from scratch: at Acxiom Corporation, there are no fancy titles. Everyone's office is the same size, and nobody worries about going through the proper channels. The result? Phenomenal growth and a contented workforce - Vision

Twelve years ago, Acxiom Corporation's chief executive, Charles Morgan, summoned his management team to a meeting to deal with a dire problem: people were asking him to make too many decisions. Early each morning, he complained, managers began lining up outside his door. As the day wore on, the line got longer and longer. Whether the matter was great or small, everyone wanted his input.

The problem was Acxiom's organizational structure. It was too top-driven, too rigidly hierarchical, like some old-fashioned factory or mill. It simply didn't work. The Little Rock, Arkansas-based company was a young, rising player in the cutting-edge field of "data mining"--amassing mountains of information such as phone numbers, addresses, and demographic data for client companies and sifting through it to identify potential new customers and serve existing ones. In order to stay ahead of its competitors, Acxiom had to be quick to capitalize on business opportunities. More important, it had to be flexible enough to meet its clients' highly specialized needs. If Morgan was involved in every decision, he told his managers and executives, the company would never be able to reach its potential. The organization had to find a new way to operate.

It was up to Acxiom's HR team to meet Morgan's challenge. Working closely with the chief executive, they devised a radical solution. Essentially, HR demolished the old corporate culture and built a new and startlingly different one to replace it. Instead of the old conventional corporate hierarchy, it adopted a streamlined, flattened organizational structure in which tides became relatively unimportant. The top-driven chain of command was replaced by a decentralized, results-oriented environment in which managers of individual business units now had considerable autonomy to make their own decisions--and to be responsive to customers. Finally, instead of being confined by the boxes on a flow chart, employees were assigned to work on teams that cut across conventional departmental lines to focus directly on major customer and business issues.

The Acxiom Business Culture, as the new organizational approach was called, proved to be a real shock to the system--in precisely the way that Morgan had hoped. Since the program's implementation in the early 1990s, the firm has been able to sustain tremendous growth. The company's revenues have grown from just over $100 million in 1993 to $870 million last year. The firm has become the dominant player in its field, building a client list that includes not only Fortune 500 behemoths Microsoft and General Motors, but also 23 of the 25 largest financial-services companies and six of the nation's top 10 insurers.

Although it did endure a revenue downturn in 2001 like many other information-technology companies, Acxiom's fortunes are again improving. In the most recent quarter, its earnings per share were up 75 percent over the same quarter in the previous year, from 8 cents to 14 cents. Revenues rose 9 percent, from $215.2 million to $235.4 million.

A major factor in the company's success has been a dramatic improvement in productivity that is due to the Acxiom Business Culture's elimination of wasted motion and decision-making logjams. Last year, for example, employees managed to deliver a massive Web-based prospect database for a client in 45 days--a third of the usual turnaround time for a project of that magnitude.

Acxiom's internal environment is as healthy as its bottom line. It has been named on three occasions to Fortune's list of the 100 best companies to work for in America, and twice has made a similar list of best information-technology workplaces compiled by Computerworld magazine. As a result, the organization has been able to achieve a voluntary turnover rate of 7.5 percent, lower than the information-technology industry's 10 percent average. The high degree of employee satisfaction is reflected in a recent survey, in which three-quarters of Acxiom's employees said they had the opportunity "to do what I do best every day" in their jobs. Eighty-five percent said their positions provided opportunities to learn and grow.

By boldly reinventing an entire organization, Acxiom's HR team enabled the company to achieve its potential to become an industry leader. For that, Acxiom wins the Workforce Optimas Award for vision.

Throwing out titles and tearing down inside walls

Acxiom's HR team started out by taking a hard look at the company's existing culture and questioning whether the basic premises were relevant to the new, rapidly evolving information marketplace. It didn't make much sense to organize workers into a hierarchy in which advancement was based on educational level, skills, or experience, because those credentials could become obsolete overnight. The distinctions by which individuals were ranked in an organization didn't have much relevance to the company's work. What really mattered was getting people to work together to create whatever products and perform whatever tasks the customers needed.

"We don't want people to aspire to be called some title, or to be in a certain position on a chart, or to compete with the person at the next desk," says Acxiom HR professional Jeff Standridge, whose responsibility is organizational effectiveness. "We want them to aspire to do something to add value to the company."

Toward that end, the HR team did away with most of the hierarchical structure and job titles. In its place, they created a system with just four managerial levels--company, division, group, and business unit. Instead of titles or ranks, Acxiom staffers--associates, in company nomenclature--are described by what they actually do in their job, such as "computer operator" or "data entry specialist." That principle extends all the way to Charles Morgan, who is referred to not as the CEO but as "Company Leader." Similarly, HR itself was renamed "organizational development," which the team thought more specifically described its role.

At company headquarters, the physical environment fosters the company's egalitarian culture. "In most hierarchical companies, for example, your status is indicated by the size of your office," Standridge says. "We gave everyone the same-size space, no matter what their role." That conveys a none-too-subtle symbolic message to new employees from the moment they walk in the door. "At most companies, you spend a lot of time sizing up the internal competition and trying to climb over them. Here, you quickly see that isn't going to work. So instead, you have to figure out how to make the best, most important contribution that you can."

Some new hires find Acxiom's lack of a pecking order disconcerting at first. Others find it invigorating. Lee Parrish, leader of the information security assurance team, came to the company two years ago from a firm with a more conventional hierarchy. "With my former employer; you had to go through several levels of leadership to get something approved," he says. "I found myself repeating things over and over, which was frustrating and time-consuming. You had a job title, and narrowly defined responsibilities. Here, you have a role. Instead of a lot of wasted motion, you can reach out to people and spend your time working on proactive solutions to problems. And because you don't have to go through so many steps to get something approved, there's a greater willingness to try new ideas. You feel more comfortable, because you know that if something new turns out to be a mistake, you're just as easily able to go in and correct it right away."

Playing on multiple teams

As HR streamlined the organizational chart, it also confronted another, even trickier issue--how to make the company's structure fit the work it performed for clients. So HR added another dimension to the flattened, four-tier structure--work teams. Some teams were organized around particular products, technologies, or services, whereas others focused on specific clients' needs. The teams expand and contract according to business needs, and staffers may be members of multiple teams and play different roles. "I may be a leader on one team, and a member on another," Standridge says.

The unconventional, rank-free approach enables Acxiom to utilize its workforce talent in ways that a more traditional organization cannot. David Mois, for example, is a 29-year company veteran who rose from computer operator to vice president of information technology in the previous corporate structure. Today, the multiple-team concept allows him to spread his wealth of accumulated knowledge and skills throughout the organization. "One day, I may be working on a project with Charles Morgan, and the next day I may be on a team working with entry-level people," says Mois, whose work deals mostly with supporting Acxiom's database applications across networks, and other IT issues.

Acxiom's lack of emphasis on titles also allows capable employees to rise to positions of influence within their teams. "Because we don't have the layers of bureaucracy for a person to climb, it's not as authority- and ego-driven here as in normal corporate America," says Peggy Hunter; a veteran of the company's sales force. "No matter who you are, you can deal with an issue head-on, rather than having to play the political game and carefully couching what you say." If she encounters an issue involving one of her major clients, she readily has access not only to the leader of the company's sales organization but also to company leader Morgan if necessary. "I'm one of those people who doesn't care if you call me a janitor, as long as I get the chance to do my job," she says.

Because associates often are working for more than one leader, the multiple-team concept requires them to focus harder on managing their time and responsibilities. It also requires team leaders to cooperate rather than compete for shared resources, They have to learn to talk to one another and to communicate effectively with their own teams so that the workforce is used efficiently. The firm helps develop those skills within its workforce by putting all new hires through a training course on what it calls "Acxiom-style" leadership, which emphasizes collegial skills such as listening with an open mind, leading by example, and developing a balanced perspective. To further reinforce those principles, the firm has its leaders evaluated annually by members of their teams.

Emphasis on direct communication

One of the key elements of the less structured organizational approach is trust, Mois says. "In the old style of management, it's up to the manager to control a person's time," he says. "He or she will say, 'Here's what I need you to do, and when.' At Acxiom, in contrast, a leader will say to a person on the team, 'Here's what we need to accomplish. I need you to tell me what you'll need to do to make that happen, how long it will take, and what resources you'll require.' What I've seen, actually, is that individual employees will take on more responsibility and perform better when there's this sort of open discussion, as opposed to someone just giving them orders."

The effectiveness of "Acxiom-style" leadership is further reflected by survey results, in which better than 90 percent of employees agree with this statement: "I know what is expected from me at work." And 85 percent say, "I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work effectively."

Acxiom's HR professionals deliberately have shaped the corporate environment to maximize such communication. Ninety-eight percent of Acxiom's staff work in cubicles, and those with enclosed office spaces are encouraged to keep their doors open whenever possible. From new-hire orientation onward, employees are also urged to rely on face-to-face communication when possible, rather than just reflexively dashing off e-mails or instant messages. "Obviously, we still need to use those tools, because not everyone is in close proximity all the time," Standridge says. "But if you've got an issue with someone, it works better to sit down and talk with them."

Hunter, who travels extensively to work with Acxiom clients and telecommutes from an office in her home in a forest outside Eugene, Oregon, also says that the ease of internal communication is one of the program's strengths. "Even though I'm not at headquarters, it's easy for me to get things moving, because I can reach people directly. I can find the expertise I need over the phone. I don't have to go through a chain of command, and wait until we can set up a meeting. What I've found is that I can spend more time on work that actually makes money for the company."

Acxiom has found ways to utilize its own line of business--data-mining--to open new lines of communication. The company has created an internal workforce database that contains detailed information about job roles and expertise, and encourages employees to use it to find and contact potential project sources of advice or assistance. In case an employee can't identify the right expert on his own, the company also has grouped its workers into online communities around various subject areas and skills. They all can be queried simultaneously.

"If I need help--for example, I need advice from our technical experts on how to do something with an Adobe Acrobat document--I don't have to go through channels and talk to a manager or supervisor," Mois says. "Instead, I can just hit the community with the question and get a quick answer. At Acxiom, the emphasis is on direct communication between individuals. Just as we have an open-door policy, we also have an open e-mail policy."

Open, direct lines of access extend right up to the top executive's office. Mois, for example, recalls a situation a few months ago in which a customer needed technical information. The employee who was contacted had wide-ranging expertise, but was totally unfamiliar with the area in question. Feeling stumped, the employee sent out a request for help through the system. As an afterthought, he included company leader Morgan's e-mail address on the routing. "The next day, [Morgan] contacted me with the name of a person who could help, and e-mailed that expert also to help establish the contact. This is a company where even the CEO will jump in and assist you with a simple situation."

Now that the Acxiom Business Culture has freed him from employee traffic jams outside his office, Morgan has the time to provide that sort of help.

RELATED ARTICLE: Acxiom Builds Bold New Culture

tools

Acxiom didn't mess around. It knew it had to make major organizational changes, so it completely revamped its internal culture. The company offers the following tips for redesigning a company to simplify the decision-making process and foster improved communication. The ideas are based on interviews with the company's HR professionals and staffers:

* Titles? We don't need no stinkin' titles! As Acxiom's HR professionals see it, employees at most companies waste too much time pondering the distinction between, say, a vice president and an executive vice president. Replace the fancy nomenclature with simple job names that actually reflect the work that staffers do.

* Break down the walls and bring people together. You can curb departmental rivalries and disagreements by organizing workers into both semi-permanent and temporary teams that focus on either products or important clients. The multiple-team concept cuts across normal departmental lines to get the job done.

* Direct communication is better. At Acxiom, employees don't waste valuable time seeking supervisory permission to talk to experts in other departments. To the contrary, the company encourages staffers to talk directly to one another to get answers. It's a time-saving strategy worth emulating.

* Train everyone to be a leader. Put all new hires through a seminar on effective management techniques, even if they're not being hired to supervise. It's a good way to make sure that everyone understands how the company's organizational structure is supposed to work.

* Allow employees to manage themselves. Train managers to focus on the work goal, not the process. Instead of micromanaging the labor, they'll often get better results by allowing workers to choose the best way to get the job done.

Patrick J. Kiger is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment.

workforce.com

For more info on: Corporate Culture

Ask Acxiom about achieving similar success in your organization at workforce.com/02/12/feature5

COPYRIGHT 2002 ACC Communications Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group