WESTREC MARINAS PERPETUAL CHANGE – THE NEW NORMAL? Presented by Alex Laidlaw, Vice President, WESTREC MARINAS

“The very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before.” (Heraclitus, 500 B.C.)

So is Perpetual Change something to fear or something to embrace?

Perpetual Market Change

Changing Market Realities Consumers have less money. There is greater price sensitivity for products and services. Customers are harder than ever to satisfy. Boats are still unnecessarily complex, expensive machines. Tight credit markets have made borrowing not only difficult, but in some cases impossible. The industry as a whole is dealing with a higher costs and lower margins

Thoughts on a Changing Market Keep things in perspective. No one needs a boat, They choose to have one. Perception is reality. Things will get better when people believe they'll get better. Periodically re-evaluate your priorities and the viability of your business model. And make sure your strategic plan is keeping you on course. Hope and wait won't get the job done. Focus on the have-tos and defer the want-tos.

Thoughts on a Changing Market Accept the fact that your business is worth less than it used to be. More than ever, cash is still king. Understand what your customers are going through. Be more flexible with clients and increase the level of communication with them. Provide more personalized service. Challenge the status quo. Find new markets and revenue streams. Create activity. Busy places get business; slow ones don't.

The most important issue facing business leadership today is the need to prepare their organizations to cope with perpetual change.

Perpetual Organizational Change

The traditional approach to organizational strategy implies that because our business model succeeded in the past, and is still succeeding today, it will continue to provide us with a foundation for success in the future. Worked well when there was little change in the external environment…..However

We operate in a very different environment today. The only way for organizations to survive and adapt successfully to chaos and complexity is for them to strive for perpetual organizational change. The practical application of this perpetual change is the need for the organization to grow its capacity for continual learning, renewal and reinvention.

Implementing Capacity for Organizational Change

Change Management’s Behavior Einstein's famous definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.“ Life is a six-inch game, and those 6 inches is right between the ears. Communicate a strategy that it is important to go the extra mile for the customer so that you can minimize the risk of losing customers. If you are awesome with customers, they will spread P.W.O.M. (positive word-of-mouth) so that you can attract new customers.

Develop a Corporate Culture Be Customer Focused. Manage from the “outside-in” not the “inside-out.” Understand the value of your employees. Well trained, Qualified, Competent, and Happy employees deliver the best service experiences. Always find ways to Add Value. Find new ways to communicate with the Customer.

Weed the Garden The strategy here is to hire the best and leave the rest. When you finally weed the garden the other employees will probably cheer as well and say "what took you so long, we figured that out 10 months ago.“ If you do not weed the garden, the employees just might be complaining about how tough it is. If they are doing that, they are certainly not focused on the customer. This often leads to N.W.O.M. (negative word of mouth). When you finally weed the garden, the performance of the rest of the team will go up. 

Hire the Best If you want to motivate your current team, you must add new hires that bring the right attitude and work ethic to the party. Hiring wrong can be a bad motivation for your current employees. Everyone is a customer of numerous organizations, so when you are a customer and an employee goes the extra mile and is demonstrating right behavior - hire them! It is easier to teach them about your business than it is to try to fix a poor attitude or a weak work ethic. 

8 Steps to successful Organizational Change Increase urgency - inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant. Build the guiding team - get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels. Get the vision right - get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy, focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency. Communicate for buy-in - Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications - make technology work for you rather than against.

8 Steps to successful Organizational Change Empower action - Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders - reward and recognize progress and achievements. Create short-term wins - Set aims that are easy to achieve - in bite-size chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives. Finish current stages before starting new ones. Don't let up - Foster and encourage determination and persistence - ongoing change - encourage ongoing progress reporting - highlight achieved and future milestones. Make change stick - Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, new change leaders. Weave change into culture

So is perpetual change something to fear or something to embrace?

He who rejects change is the architect of decay He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects change is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson

I’d like to hear from y’all… Questions? Comments? How can we help you? Thanks for having me!