Justin Harper has this saying: You don’t win the war by fighting the war. You win by fighting the battles.

The situation seems overwhelming. The clock is ticking. Your comfort zone vanishes before your eyes. In these moments, Justin’s words of wisdom prove to be quite appropriate.

Recently in East Texas, the service/logistics team was severely short-staffed for four straight days. The remaining team, two in particular Service Manager Michael Johnson and Field Service Technician Steven Johnston, were faced with a tall task. Dozens of machines needed to be brought in, unboxed, processed, set up and ultimately delivered… by Friday.

The Johnson & Johnston duo shook firmly out of their normal role comfort zones and ensured that there was no delivery left behind. They went to battle for their team and their clients.

One Johnson had to take charge.

Michael Johnson came to Datamax eight years ago, and immediately showed fearlessness in his approach to servicing whatever type of machine you brought his way. The puzzle connoisseur and game fanatic takes pride in his strategic approach to unique service issues – so much so that he was eventually promoted to Service Manager.

Even still, he hadn’t run a department single-handedly (that was the role of Director of Operations Justin Harper) and he had zero logistics experience. That Tuesday, he knew that the first order of business was to get equipment in and get the paperwork organized.

“The thought was this is going to be crazy, so what do we need to do?” Michael recalls. “It was a little bit manic there for a while, but we finally got settled into what we needed to do. Let’s put our heads down and get it done.”

The biggest task at hand was 12 machines at an area school district that, for all intents and purposes, HAD to be delivered on Friday. On Tuesday, Steven prioritized the beginning phases of prepping machines while Michael fielded the technician calls as well as the customer-facing calls that Justin would normally handle. Meanwhile, he began the paperwork of machines coming in.

This was something well out of Michael’s comfort level,” Justin recalls. Unboxing, matching serial numbers, wasn’t in Michael’s wheelhouse. He didn’t want to do it! I could hear it in his voice! But he sure stepped up and did it anyways.”

Wednesday would bring a marathon worthy-day of setting up equipment.

The other Johnson had to get ‘in the zone.’

Prior to being moved to technician, Steven had worked in parts and mirrored normal set-up veteran Roy Martin in setting up equipment. However, he’d never faced anything like this at Datamax. While Steven admits to being flabbergasted, he also shrugs his shoulders a bit at the intensity that awaited him.
It was about not looking too far ahead. One machine at a time.

“Setting up equipment, it’s something that I’d already trained a bit on. I had been looking over Roy’s shoulders for a while, watching how he does it. Once you’ve done one, each one gets a little bit easier. But honestly, I didn’t pay attention to anything else all day. You just zone out. Get one done and move to the next. It’s essentially starting an assembly line.”

Together, they accomplished something ‘Amazing.’

Thursday continued with finalizing setup and preparing for delivery. They also got reinforcements in the likes of DFW Logistics Manager Mark Mansell (who all parties agree… if he hadn’t come over the job wouldn’t have gotten done). Even still, the duo never let up, while Delivery Driver Jerry Ford continued to push forward with deliveries.  While Michael admits that there were times when his decision-making was hurried, and while Steven had his panic moments, their unComfort zone waned into fluid, furious execution. In the end all 10+ deliveries were made.

Looking back, Justin is nearly at a loss for words (a rarity for him).

“In a word? Amazing. That week was probably the most uncomfortable and stressful scenario I’ve ever been in in this industry,” Justin said. “When I left that day, there was not a doubt in my mind that those guys would take care of it. These guys stepped out of their comfort zone in a big way, and they got it done.”

Don’t fight the war. Fight the battles.