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MiMfg Magazine
November 2018
2018 John G. Thodis • Small Tier
Michigan Manufacturer of the Year
Jim Richards
Total Security Solutions
As the stated mission for one mid-sized
manufacturer, those words underscore the
family-first focus of many industry leaders.
For Jim Richards, founding Total Security
Solutions (TSS) was about building a business, being
competitive and providing quality, custom-built
bulletproof barrier systems. But it was also about a
lot more. It was about job security and peace of
mind for Fowlerville families.
“I’m Fowlerville through and through. We were
always going to expand here before we’d expand
somewhere else — this is where home is,” explains
Richards. “I want TSS to be a place people want to
work. If they can dedicate 100 percent of themselves
to us, I’ll do whatever I can to provide the resources
for them to succeed.”
Over the past 12 years, thanks to Jim’s diligent
oversight over every aspect of the business, TSS
has become one of Michigan’s fastest growing
companies. With a love for the industry that started
by working with his dad, Jim’s competitive nature
and compassionate leadership has helped distinguish
TSS from an industry already full of innovators.
“We go faster than our competition and we do it
while maintaining the quality our products and our
customers demand,” Richards explained. “We are
regularly operating 20 to 30 percent above our natural
comfort zone and, while it can be a challenge to find
the people capable of working at that pace, the ones
who can have helped make hitting each new level of
expansion possible.”
A self-described perfectionist, Jim never settles for
“good enough” — there is always room to improve,
always a chance for people to be better. Like most
entrepreneurs, Jim has experience in every facet of
the business. He’s developed its strategic plan in the
board room and run the CNC machines on the factory
floor. This level of immersion is valuable and necessary
for a company’s early years, but as a brand grows,
leadership must be able to delegate.
“We were at around 20 people when I realized, if
we were going to reach the next level, I had to loosen
my grip on the reins and trust others with more
responsibility,” Richards recalls. “We put in place
some scalable processes, introduced a culture of
accountability and developed a clear vision for where
we all should want the company to go. It was pretty
cool to see that the team’s connection to each other
got stronger the more I was willing to let go.”
As others stepped up, Jim began a deep process
of soul-searching where he focused on cementing
TSS’s core values and developing a company-wide
mindset which would help to maintain stable
growth even through uncertain times.
“It’s important that TSS employees grow as the
company grows and implementing transparency,
information sharing and professional development
into the culture all create empathy for each other’s
roles and responsibilities,” says Richards. “We needed
a way to communicate that vision and it starts, for
us, with the Entrepreneurial Operating System®.”
Under Jim’s leadership, TSS implemented the
Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), a
methodology essential to building the TSS culture
and one fully embraced by both the leadership team
and department managers. In addition to providing
extensive new-hire training on the company’s vision,
values, and strategic direction, TSS also holds monthly
“all-hands” lunch-and-learns. Each session strives to
educate employees around a specific topic that helps
create and maintain a culture of lifelong learning.
The TSS leadership team meets weekly to review
key metrics, assess progress on company initiatives,
and solve issues which stand in the way of meeting
company goals. Key metrics are shared with each
department and incentives are provided for reaching
shared goals, making every worker a stakeholder.
Another sign of great leadership, Richards isn’t
above the learning process and regularly works to
improve himself thanks to feedback from his team.
His weekly “Breakfast with the CEO” are off-site
breakfast meetings which allow leader and team to
get to know each other better, express concerns,
offer insight, explain decisions and gather candid
feedback. Through it all, from the founding of TSS
to today, Richards’ lifelong commitment to fostering
leadership, service and compassion —
not just in business but in the community —
has allowed everyone on the team to feel a sense of
ownership in TSS’ direction.
“TSS stopped being about me the day I founded
it,” Richards says with pride. “This is a business that
should outlive me and be a part of this community
for generations. That’s the ultimate goal.”
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