Early in my career, while working for May Department Stores, I was transferred to its newly acquired division, Lord & Taylor. The brand was strong and instantly recognizable—but the business was carrying significant operating losses and an infrastructure that hadn’t kept pace with its scale or ambitions.

My responsibility was credit card marketing and operations. What I found was a manual system attempting to support over a billion dollars in annual sales. And something more troubling: every credit application included handwritten notes on the ethnicity of the applicant.

I had the opportunity to address two systemic problems at once.

The first was a new store opening in San Antonio. Expectations were modest—300 new accounts in the first year. My approach was to fully embrace the city’s diverse community with a first-of-its-kind bilingual marketing program, advertising in both Spanish and English media. The result: 3,500 accounts in the first 30 days.

The second was a complete technology overhaul—designing and testing a new platform, building the credit scoring models, and guiding a skeptical staff through a significant skills transition. The night before go-live, a credit staff spokesperson came to my office and announced the entire team would resign unless their salaries were doubled. I listened, said there would be no increase, and that anyone who reconsidered was welcome back in the morning. Everyone returned. Over time, they came to appreciate how the new system improved their working lives.

Some problems are operational. Some are cultural. The most interesting ones are usually both.