Life brought Lansing couple lemons; they made lemonade
Jerry Houston has been known to bring lemons, rope and blindfolds to
work.
Participants in his classes might think the props strange at first. They might feel silly picking a lemon and following his orders to "get to know your lemon - feel it, study it."
They might feel awkward and, yes, a bit vulnerable being blindfolded, holding on to a rope and trying to form a square with 11 of their co-workers.
But there's a point to such off-the-wall activities.
When the lemons are thrown back into a pile and each participant is able to pick out his or her own lemon, Houston explains, it demonstrates that although all lemons have the same common purpose, to make lemonade - they each have unique characteristics. Likewise, every person in a company has the same goal- to make that company as profitable as possible - yet each person has unique talents to work toward that goal.
And while the blindfolded rope-holders may have trouble forming a square at first and even shout at each other, most soon realize they can only succeed if they work as a team. Leaders naturally emerge.
Houston uses those and other activities to teach continuous quality improvement to businesses of all sizes. His Lansing-based company, Houston Associates, aims to "maximize personal and organizational effectiveness."
"Everyone has more potential than they're using," Houston says. "We grossly underutitize people's abilities."
Once widowed and unemployed, Houston has developed the company with the help and encouragement of his second wife, Julie. The couple met in 1990 through their church, Trinity Lutheran in Lansing, where Jerry counseled Julie as she grieved over the death of her first husband.
Jerry, now 47, had spent years climbing the corporate ladder and was a senior vice president of a 350-employee company in the south suburbs when he was "downsized."
"My first reaction was panic," he admits, "but thanks to (Julie's) encouragement, I looked at how I could market what I knew and how to make a business out of that. "
Still, he was scared. He had taught training and quality management throughout his career, but rather than reinvent the wheel, he searched for others involved in the type of business he was interested in.
He found Resource Associates Corp., a Reading, Pa.-based company founded in 1978 that is a leader in the human resources development industry. The Houstons flew to Pennsylvania to meet with the corporation's executives, and Jerry decided to invest in a distribution agreement with the company.
He started Houston Associates out of his dining room in 1992 while the couple were planning their wedding for September of that year. It was a rough start. "I thought, 'If this is the way it's going to be, I'm going to fail", Jerry recalls. "It felt strange (working from home). It didn't feel like work."
So he rented a one-room office on Torrence Avenue and borrowed a nearby law firm's conference room to use as a classroom. He sold his living room furniture to buy office furniture.
"I was so excited when I got my first piece of mail and when the phone rang the first time," Jerry remembers with a laugh.
Fortunately, the phone rings a lot more often these days. Houston has moved into larger office space at 18525 Torrence Ave. and hired an office administrator; Julie, 48, who was herself downsized from an information systems job, joined the company full-time in March; and they have six associates with backgrounds as varied as library science and a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agent.
Houston Associates' programs can help a budding entrepreneur decide whether or how to start a business, or teach employees the three key elements' to every process: attitude, interpersonal skills and goal setting. The company conducts programs for specific companies but smaller businesses can take advantage of targeted classes that are run periodically. Jerry also mentors managers in series of 12 to 14 sessions, and a newer program provides a profile of a person to help analyze behaviors that affect business success.
"We consider ourselves in the listening business," Julie says. One client refers to Jerry as his "business shrink".
In addition, Jerry's brother, Mick, has signed on and broadened the company's services. He's a veteran financial planner who helps clients set up 401(k) plans or other programs.
"We're a small company that has a very wide array of skills," Jerry notes. "We use each person's expertise," just like the lemons.
While the Houstons put in about 50 hours a week at the office, they're also the parents of seven young adults, ages 17 to 24 - making their blended family bigger than their company. Four of the kids Will be in college this fall.
But Jerry, who once worked 80-hour weeks and thought becoming president was the mark of success, takes it all in stride. He has different measures of success now; he's the president, but he still has to vacuum the carpet and take out the garbage.
"We teach dreaming in our classes," Jerry says. "When you dream something, write it down. We've done more things in three years of marriage than most people do their whole lives, because we've dreamed of doing those things, and then we made them happen. "
