The Roots of Prismier – Grow On

The roots of a company are deep at the company core, hidden below the surface. They’re the part that supports its growth, nourishes its culture and generates its energy. Too often flashy flowers and tempting fruits prevent you from realizing what enables their growth in the first place.

This series is about giving you a window into our roots, the part rarely seen yet incredibly important. It’s about how the 4 simple concepts of “Own It”, “Be Nice”, “Appreciate Ya” and “Grow On” have formed our core and continued to drive our upward growth since the initial seed was planted. They’ve allowed us to blossom with our customers while preserving our solid core and thriving culture.

Just “Grow On”

When we talk about growth we mean more than just our company revenue or employee count. There is a symbiotic relationship between our company, colleagues, customers and communities that forms a canopy which flourishes and rises together when the right conditions have been met. Some growth takes physical forms that are easy to see; like when we hire a new team member, when we expand our capabilities or invest in the latest high-tech equipment for the shop floor. We prefer to focus on the growth that’s less easy to see; like when we expand our knowledge and understanding, develop new techniques, improve workflows, and most importantly, when we use our growth as a catalyst to take our customers to a higher level and give back in ways that elevate our communities. This type of growth is a continual process that can only occur when you put the right people in the right environment. The reason we embrace”Grow On” as one of our core values is because in today’s flourishing manufacturing industry, continuous growth is necessary to avoid the stagnancy that is the first sign of imminent decline.

A canopy that rises together

In the jungle of the modern manufacturing industry, no company stands alone on it’s own accord. That’s why we don’t see growth as a singular metric that focuses solely on what’s good for the company. When it comes to our company, our colleagues, our customers and our communities, we see growth as an ecosphere that benefits everything in it.

We want to see our customers grow because that in turn provides us with more opportunities which are the nutrients we need to stimulate our own growth. So every time Prismier has expanded, whether it be our customer service staff, machines, operators or network, those expansions are made with our customers in mind. Likewise, the personal growth of each and every Prismierian nourishes the growth of the company and improves our ability to provide a more comprehensive level of service to our customers. This is why instead of focussing exclusively on metrics, we try to promote an environment of growth that promotes exploration and resourcefulness.

Creating a “Grow On” environment

Growth is often overlooked as a company value (or reduced to the status of “sales metrics”) because it lacks the instant gratification of more preferred values centred around things like volume and revenue. You can’t watch a seed grow, but when you look back after even a short period of time the transformation is undeniable. Unlike most company values, growth is not something that needs to be incentivized through bonuses or pep rallies. A desire to grow must be in your DNA. That’s why growth needs to be fostered in an environment that provides the essential ingredients and doesn’t impede the natural order. In a company setting this means providing opportunities for employees to cross train in new disciplines and learn new skills, funding advanced learning to enhance their existing skill set, encouraging staff to take on new challenges that require resourcefulness and providing time for Prismierians to explore the relationship between our company and customers to gain a deeper understanding of how Prismier can help.

The fruits of steady growth become sweeter with time

You can’t predict what will grow from a single seed just like you can’t always predict how growth in the individual will impact the growth of the company. Some things are obvious, when employees take the initiative to cross train and you need an extra body to get a rush order out, you’re happy you have someone who can step in and deliver. Over a longer timeline you can see an even larger transformation. For instance, it was our on-site representation with a key client that uncovered a future need for small-metal stamping. By the time they needed parts, Prismier was able to deliver. They didn’t have to spend time researching and on-boarding a specialist supplier and we got to expand our relationship with a long-term customer. Now Prismier is a key supplier of small metal parts to many of our long term sheet metal parts clients and we have started new relationships because of our ability to deliver high quality custom small metal parts. Without providing the time for that deeper understanding to occur we wouldn’t have expanded when we did and could have potentially missed the perfect opportunity for the company to grow in a direction that benefitted many of our customers.

“Grow On” in the real world

Even though growth isn’t something you can stop and take a picture of, you can see the fruits of its labour everywhere around you at Prismier. Prismierians can feel the atmosphere of growth and see the effect on their colleagues on a daily basis. This is how we talk about “growing on” every day.

“We never stand still; we are never satisfied. Individually, and as teams, we constantly look at what we do, and ask, “How can we do this better?” Then, we use a systematic approach to take action. Equally as important is personal growth; we want each employee to grow personally in their position and keep current with latest manufacturing practices and/or technologies.”
Phillip Miller

Growth takes many shapes and forms, but in our experience the overall effect of growth is always positive. When you’re in a thousand year old industry that is entering its 3rd revolution, you can’t advance without embracing an attitude of growth. That’s why as Prismierians, “Grow On” will always be one of our core values.