Driving Successful Change with Ariz. Barbering & Cosmetology Board's ED Frank Migali

Arizona Barbering and Cosmetology Board's Executive Director Frank Migali shares how he drives successful change at his agency, including his vision of providing “world-class customer care.” One change he made to modernize communications saved his agency $60,000 annually—on postage alone. 

GL Solutions helps governments run, grow and adapt. For more information about GL Solutions and our modernization service for regulatory agencies, visit us on the web at www.glsolutions.com. Or connect with us via Facebook, X or LinkedIn. Reach our host, Sam Hardin, at hardin@glsolutions.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Transcript

Sam Hardin: 0:02

We're going to be talking about change management, but then also IT projects and the ROI on those projects. And, Frank, if you could go ahead and introduce yourself - your name, position and just a little brief background and we'll go ahead and kick off into some of the questions.

Frank Migali: 0:21

Absolutely. So, my name is Frank Migali. I'm the executive director of the Arizona Barbering and Cosmetology board. I have been in this role for a little over a year at this point. Prior to my time here at the barbering and cosmetology board, I have 19 years of state government experience. I started in a politically elected office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction. And then I moved. After about 14 years, I moved over to state as another state agency, but it was the governor's cabinet-level agency. And so in doing human service work, and then obviously made the transition over here a little over a year ago, onto the regulatory side. So I often joke that I have achieved a three legged stool of my state government experience and gotten to experience all three legs of that stool at this point. So I have a master's degree in business administration. I've had that for about, gosh, it's actually been eight years now. And I think that is precisely, it's part of the reason I'm in the role now, because the board determined that it was more important to have business functions than cosmetology or barbering functions for the organization at this time.

Sam Hardin: 2:04

Interesting, I did not know that. Great, thanks. Thanks for the introduction there. The first question I want to ask, you know, that you had mentioned, you've been in the position that you're in for a year. When we first met, and you kind of took over the reins there. I mean, there was, I don't know how to put it perfectly. But there was a sense of energy, like you came in with a plan. You came in with aspirations. You came in with stuff that you wanted to change. I mean, you weren't afraid to shake things up and say, hey, I want to do these things. What is it going to take? You know, what do we need to do? And I just kind of want to ask you about that. Is that Is that something that's, that's kind of based on your personality? Or is that something that, you know, you're taking on a new role and wanted to do those type of things? Or what kind of led to that energy?

Frank Migali: 2:58

Yeah, so I think that's an excellent, excellent question, Sam. And, and actually, it's probably twofold. And it is number one, that I am naturally geared to process improvement and improving things where I see there are problems. And I don't use the word problem as a negative because I think in government, we have failed for so long to identify problems and truly solve and fix those, right. And so I was very fortunate in my last role in state government, in our state human service agency. I was very fortunate to receive a significant amount of training in two different areas. And number one was advanced leadership training. And that was really about leadership styles and how to approach things with individuals. And very fortunate that my state agency chose to invest in me in that skill set. And the other the second piece was actually what we call the Arizona Management System,(https://hr.az.gov/arizona-management-system) which is really based on Lean Management principles. Now, we are obviously not a factory conveyor belt system. In that traditional sense, however, we do tend to make widgets, right. And I think a lot of people fail to understand that state government does, or government in general, I should say, really does make widgets. It's just how we have to, we have to look at them differently. And it's not, it's not that mass production of a thing. But it is a mass issuance of something, whether it's benefit payment, whether it's licensure, whether it's, you know, any number of these items. So I was also very fortunate in that role within my governor's cabinet level agency, that my agency and the state chose to invest in that training for me right. So I take my advanced leadership training, my training in Lean Management principles and I come into this organization. And it was ripe for both of those things. It was a convergence of a lot of really great things. And so I have taken this approach that I'm going to treat everybody fairly, and I'm going to train people. And I'm going to bring everybody alongside all while making huge change that needs to occur within the agency. I often joke that - and I try to be careful about making sure that my team doesn't view this as a negative. But I often joke about, you know, the work that we're doing right now is to bring the agency into the 21st century. And what I mean by that is that there are some very basic things that people feared changing previously, and I, I don't fear change. As a matter of fact, I think I've come to the realization in the last year that I thrive in change. And I think I've accepted that. And I've owned that, which I think has really helped do that. So it's really, that change management has really been a year of understanding, while also driving improvements, where there was that low hanging fruit to make changes.

Sam Hardin: 6:34

Yeah, I can really appreciate your comment about, you know, it being a, kind of a conveyor belt. When we talk about IT, too, from the vendor perspective, you know, we kind of get into that same conversation. Some people might think, software's just developed and it appears, and that should be super easy, right? And, you know, whatever. And I'm like, well, it's very similar to, you know, if you're hiring a contractor to build a house, you know, you got to create plans, and then you gotta execute those plans. I mean, it is a process. It's a conveyor process that, you know, has, it's all its little intricate pieces that have to be conducted at the right time to create a product that people are looking for. So I appreciate that portion of it. I would just corroborate everything that you just said. From our side, we've seen that you've been, you know, taking on change and with, you know, with embracing it, and then, you know, just coming forward with those plans. So I appreciate that. Can you just reference maybe, you know, one change or a set of changes that, you know, that that you've taken on recently that you're excited about? Or that, you know, you're just proud of?

Frank Migali: 7:49

Yeah, absolutely. So I think one specific thing that I'm going to point to is, I joined this agency and I was really kind of shocked and surprised that when we issued licenses, we were physically printing, stuffing the license in an envelope and paying the 55 or 60 cents apiece to mail those. And actually, I had that thought about the same time that I had to renew my hunting and fishing license with one of my other peer state agencies. And I had to print my own license. And I thought, wait a minute. So I start running numbers. And one of the things I did fail to mention in my introduction, and then the prior question, I'm very data driven. And so I talked with my team, and I'm like, hey, you know, how much money are we spending on postage annually. And we found the number. And it was $60,000, that my $2.5 million agency was spending on postage. I'm like, Okay, how can we change that? Can we transition that to us? You know, my idea was that we email the individuals that are licensed, and they print it, because we do have a regulatory requirement that those licenses be posted in the place of work. And so I'm like, how can we how can we transition to that? And my team at the time said, oh, we explored that a couple years ago, and we were told it was going to cost $10,000 to make the IT system change, to implement that. And I said, okay...And I think my team very quickly realized because of the look on my face, I'm not good with my facial expressions. My team very quickly realized, oh, my gosh. And so I said it out loud. And I said, you guys, I will always invest $10,000 to save $60,000. And you should have seen the look on their faces. And so we definitely partnered and we accomplished that. And we fully realized that cost savings. In April of this year, we were getting bills for postage that were about, you know, 1,500 bucks a month, and our April postage bill was $42. When we talk about change management return on investment, that's really what I I've been talking about. And I'm going to give one more example. You know, I have a vision of world class customer care, in this organization. And so I actually was in a meeting with my team yesterday, and I actually asked the question, what return on investment do we get for a positive customer experience? And my team was just silent. And they're like, well, there's not a financial, what they said is there's not a return on investment. And I said, you're right, there's not a financial return on investment. But what about that customer experience, and there is a return on investment there. If we have happy customers, they're going to come back. And they're going to tell people about the great work that we're doing and how quickly we process licenses and how easy that process is. And it really, so that's actually a new theme of mine, just in the last two days, but there, I think return on investment, we very often look very specifically at the financial aspect of that, where we also need to look at the customer experience within that.

Sam Hardin: 11:56

Yeah, I think you're totally right. I mean, you know, that's the first thing that I know, that comes to my mind, when I say ROI, I'm always okay, what are the dollars? And it's, and it's, it's really nice and simple when things can be distilled down to those dollars. And you can just say, oh, gosh, well, that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, you're so right. It's like when it gets when it gets into like experiences, and, you know, just the service offered, it's like, that becomes a little bit more gray area, you know. It becomes a little bit more like, how do you measure that? But I think you just hit the nail on the head. It's like, we have to start pushing into some of that area of like, you know, it's not always going to be strictly financial. It could even be distilled down to like your employees feeling at work, right. So you might even get less, if you increase the customer service, you're gonna get less people that call in and are frustrated or, you know, experiencing some problem at some level, and then, you know, so you're gonna get less of that interaction. It's like, well, what's that worth? I don't know, that seems like it'd be worth something to me. But yeah, that great. I appreciate that. That answer that's, that's really good insight. So, so, and I'm sure you touched on it a little bit. But, you know, this type of change can be hard. I mean, people are kind of, you know, people are creatures of habit, and they, and they want to kind of continue to do what they've been doing. And it's the status quo. And this is how we've always done it for the last 20 years, and why would we change? And so can you just talk about some of the challenges that you faced with implementing some of this change? And, and how that's how that's gone?

Frank Migali: 13:42

Yeah. So I spent a year I've spent a year really focusing on developing a mission and vision for the organization and most importantly, our vision, right? And getting the buy in. So first and foremost, it's super important for me to have the buy in from from my team or teams plural to that vision. Because that's what really gets people to come alongside, right. And when people come alongside, they're willing to identify problems. They're willing to help solve those problems. I would be lying if I have said in my leadership journey, that that is easy. It is not easy. Leadership is not easy. And really getting to bringing people alongside is not an easy thing. My desire is always being open and honest with the team and being transparent with my teams about the direction that we're going or where our pitfalls are. So I do think that we have I have had a number of challenges in this and that's everything from making IT system changes and them taking longer than I want them to. So even you know, from that perspective of development, there's issues and then there's even staffing issues. Let's go back to that IT system change example where we don't get our part of the work done within the timeline, so it delays things overall. And so it's really getting folks to, I think there's always prioritization and getting them to understand that. So that's been a challenge for me to get the team to understand that these things are a priority, and that my strategic direction and strategic vision are my number one priority. Because when we can achieve that, then we have we have achieved that number one. I guess is that is the success is achieving or not. But then I've got that customer experience. Then I've got all of those other things. And the other challenge is I think that I own some of this and that's okay, I'm good with owning it is that I have not been able to clearly articulate that when we make process change, it's twofold. The process change isn't just about the customer. And it isn't just about our internal process. It's got to be a combination of improving the process for both the customer and us internally. And how do we how do we find that middle ground to change the process for our customers and us internally? And I think you going back to, to your lead up of this question. It's a really good point, that change is difficult. I tell my staff, yeah, I understand change is difficult. But we all need to get comfortable with it. Because change is the only constant in life. Everything changes, it's always going to change, can we adjust how we prioritize our change? Absolutely. And we have done that a number of times this year. And I think it's also important for me as a leader and for leaders in general, to acknowledge that we have to be flexible in setting those priorities for change, and that we meet our teams where they are at. And what I mean by that is, you know, I have quite a number of people who are not as comfortable with my pace of change. And so I have softened a little bit and prioritized what I want changed. And we have chunked it out month over a month now. And we actually stop and celebrate when we achieve those changes. And I think that is my final point. We have to have to have to stop and celebrate the successes. Because if we don't, then why are we doing this? And, again, I think there's the data component of that. The data tells that story. And it's interesting, because I've been having to lead my board to understanding that the data tells the story, not the individuals in the field complaining about us.

Sam Hardin: 18:13

Yep. For sure. Yeah, it's definitely a double edged sword there. But you're just kind of getting into it, my next question. But so with that change, you know, getting team buy in, I'm sure is huge. You mentioned, you know, celebrating the success and taking a moment to say, okay, we accomplished this. Is there any other, you know, tips or, or things that you do to kind of get the camaraderie of the team with a buy in when you know, you might be facing some changes. It's like, oh, gosh, this is gonna change the way we operate, or this is gonna change the way we think about things. Do you have any other comments?

Frank Migali: 18:50

I think that's really funny, Sam. I think you triggered another thought for me. And that's really about how we have to you know, first of all getting their buy in, right. And so, for me to get their buy in, it's all about having an articulate vision for the future, and an understanding of that vision of the future, right, and the buy in of my vision to the future. If I can get that, if it's clear. That's great, right. I think we, the biggest now, where I have found and it's interesting to me is I have a lot of fear in my organization, because I'm driving process improvement, right? And changing things. People are fearful that they're going to lose their jobs as a result of these changes. And I keep having to remind them, that it's not about that at all. I don't our work changes, but the work is still there. There's still plenty for us to do. And so that has been something where I've had to figure out how to really partner with and collaborate with my teams, to get them to understand they don't need to fear for their job. But where I need them to be comfortable is that their job will change; how they process a license is going to change. But we still have to process the license. And so getting them to understand that the work is still there. So that's been something different for me. But again, just getting that buy in getting them to understand that there's no job loss here. There's just job change here.

Sam Hardin: 20:40

That's such a that's such an important point. You know, because there's all this fear, like, even in the general public around technology, and the latest with AI and all that type of stuff of. People are just feeling like, oh, am I going to be totally eradicated from the workforce or you know or are my skils going to be antiquated? And I think you're exactly right. It's like, no, you're not going to be not needed anymore. But yeah, it's probably going to change a little bit. You know, one of the biggest things that that we talked about is like, you know, you're gonna go from manually entering data into a system to now monitoring the data to make sure it looks correct. It's like you said, you still got to process the license. It's just a different way to go about to do the work. And I think, I don't know, I just thought that's a really good point. I think I think you're totally spot on with that. Okay, and then. So my next question is so what are some of the ways that you validate your changes were successful? So you know, you kind of spoke on like, I'm sure, you have to present some of this stuff to the board, you know, especially when we're talking about dollars. It's like, we probably have to present a plan, and then you have to show that the plan is working. What are some of the ways that you have to validate that that change was successful? Or that you completed, you know,

Frank Migali: 22:02

data, data data? I cannot reiterate that enough. That is so for me, and I know, this isn't everybody, right. And it's certainly not everybody within my organization. But data is the sole item for me that validates that our change is successful. Going back to my original example of our mail, our print license change that we made within our IT system, right? We invested, it actually didn't even end up costing$10,000 I think it was it was less than $7,000 to make that investment. Right. So I told the board, you know, I'm we are making this investment of $7,000 to change the IT system. But our year one savings on postage alone is going to be $60,000. And you should have seen the look on their face, right? Like I wish I had recorded that, like the looks on their faces, because there were like, I think for them, it was a no brainer, right? And they were like, Why are we why haven't we done that yet? Right? And so, for me, it's not and I had to be clear right with them. But because then right, we're saving on paper we're saving on. We're saving on envelope cost, we're saving on the actual staff time to do those things so we can improve our license processing time, because they've got they've gained an additional three hours a week of work time, not stuffing licenses, right. And so as you can tell, that's all data very data driven for me, right. But the other important thing that we didn't where I would say we failed in that conversation was we didn't talk about how it became an instantaneous, it became instantaneous access for our customer to their license. Right. So before they had to wait, you know, a week for us to print the license and get it in the mail, and then however many other days for the mail, you know, the mail service to process it and deliver it. Right. So we went from a, you know, maybe a 10 day delivery time, womb to tomb to instant, right. And we can recognize that. And so that is another thing that we need to do. And so that really is that and I think I want to give you another example on this too about another success. When I arrived at this organization. We hadtwo customer service representatives answering inbound phone calls and then I have three of my licensing specialists, three of our team's licensing specialists were also on the phones. It taking those inbound phone calls. And so I stopped. And I asked the question, well, why don't we need five people answering the phones. And they said, because we're getting so many calls about the status of where people's licenses are at. And I said, So you're telling me that we are taking our team who processes licenses away from their work of processing licenses to answer calls about the status of the very licenses that they are unable to process as a result. So it's really another so I immediately took the licensing specialists off of the phones and said, I need you guys back and focused on processing your licenses. And within four weeks, we reduced our, our call center volume from more than 4,000 calls a month, to less than to less than, like 2,700 calls a month, just by making that adjustment. And again, using data to drive that. And so that's, again, using data to drive with the successes. I would argue we still for 2023. And the work that we do, I would argue that we still are receiving way too many phone calls. But we are slowly just as we have an internal culture change, we have an external culture change that has to be made with our customers as well. Our customers are very accustomed to calling the organization for any question that they need answered. And we're trying to adjust that to we are providing as an example of frequently asked questions on our webpage. So because of that, you know, so I think it's, there's so many things that we can talk about in that change management aspect. But ultimately, so much of it boils down to internal and external culture change.

Sam Hardin: 26:57

Yeah, it's funny, because I'll talk to I'll talk to some people, you know, around the US and in different state agencies, and they'll be like, well, we could never, we could never totally cut off maling out licenses. Or we could never totally cut off people sending in applications. And I'm always like, why? Why couldn't you? I don't know, it seems like, I mean, you know, if we take anything from the private sector, it's like, oh, they did, and it seemed to work out. All right. And that's not like, I don't know that you can't, everything's so digital now. And it just seems like, well, other companies have, and it and it's worked out and people adapt. And I think sometimes there's a little bit of placating going on to like, well, you know, to the licensee base may not like this. It's like, well, you know, and, to further your point, it's like, without those metrics, those type of decisions can seem very like, oh, man, this is a big change. And you know, licensees aren't going to be super happy about the decision I'm making. But then that data just validates it. It's like, oh, yeah, okay, this was the right decision to make. But without that, it can seem like very like theoretical and like, oh, this, this will work, trust me, you know, we'll build it and they will come type of thing. And then you have the data. It's like, boom, nope, I got it. Like, take a look at that. So. Okay, I think so I just have a couple more questions here. So I wanted to get your just your feedback and your thought process on how I initially put it as software vendors, but really, I'm really just asking on vendors in general. So the people that serve, you know, the companies and people that service you to service, the general public, what's the best way that they can support you, and, and your vision, and you know, because you are looking to make rapid change, and you are looking to implement this stuff, and you know, you're charged on it, and you're constantly moving it forward. So what, what are some of the things that vendors can do to kind of support you or at least match you in that energy?

Frank Migali: 29:06

So I would actually change the term support to partner. And what I mean by that is, I really admire strong partnerships. And I think, I mean, I don't think I know that a huge part of why this organization, my organization, over the last year has been successful is because we have partnered wherever we can to be successful. And I mean, that's going to be our internal partners of human resources and our internal IT folks partnering with them and, and our external software provider providers in our case. And what I mean by partnership is that's always two way streets, right? And that's not me just simply paying the software or vendor to do something for me. Yeah, there's there's obviously cost to things, but then we have to be at the table together to drive the solution. And I think we so often get caught up in, well I'm the customer, they need to do what I say. And I'm like, well, yeah, to a certain extent, I agree. But we also have to own the work, right. And so one of the things I've also been doing is trying to share that vision; I share that vision publicly, we put it up in our board meetings. I share it with all of our partners, so that they know where we're at so that they know, my focus is on achieving that vision. And so I don't want to say it's strictly about dollars. Certainly, there's partnership, and certainly there's dollars involved. So that's good. But when we talk about vendors in general, and software and all of that, it's a partnership, and it's really innovation, right. And so what I mean by that is, I don't have all the solutions, right? I'm a visionary leader. I want to achieve timely quality, timely, timeliness and quality in our work process through world class customer care. That's what I want to do. Now, I don't have all of the granular ideas of how to get there. But I love it when people come to the table and say, you know, based on your vision, we could do X, Y, and Z. And I would consider those innovative thoughts. Right. And so with innovative thought, like I love it, when people come to the table and actually have innovative thoughts for me to consider. And I think sometimes our partners tend to be reliant on us, just telling them what we want, rather than thinking about the vision and coming up with some ideas themselves as well. So I love partnership, and I love the idea of innovation.

Sam Hardin: 32:04

Yeah, I think that's important point, it can almost come from a point of like, safety, because it's like, well, the client told me this. And it's like, you know, in our world what we talk about is we are the software experts. We shouldn't be client, how do you think we should build out the software? It's like, no, we have a way to build out software. Now when it comes to the regulations and, you know, specific things for the business portion, we're going to need to collaborate. But you're right, it's, you know, people have to kind of own own their, their level of expertise and where they're at and where they're coming from, rather than just saying, well, you know, it's safe and easy to just say, What do you think client? Tell me everything? It's like, no, yeah, that's not gonna work out. Well, hey, Frank, thanks. Thanks for talking to me today. I think you're I think your answers were really insightful. And I hope, you know, everybody listening and you know, people that are that are listening to this really can can gain something from it. I know it's been insightful for me, and I appreciate your time today.

Frank Migali: 33:07

Absolutely. I appreciate you. I appreciate the interview and the opportunity to give some some perspective from a state government regulatory organization.