Moving Words – Thrive
Timothy Brady
“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.”
– Jamais Cascio
Surviving in the long term as a business requires the vigilance to be frequently reinventing your company. If it doesn’t adapt to the constantly-changing business environment, your business will fall behind its competitors.
The moving and storage business is dynamic; a fluid industry that’s changing and evolving all the time. Two excellent examples are the always-changing trucking regulations put forth by the FMCSA and how technology keeps advancing at a breakneck speed.
Just think about the changes which have occurred in the Hours of Service rules in the past 10 years. The rules, whether to trucking’s advantage (seldom, but there are a few) or disadvantage, each change the carrier’s operation matrix. Those carriers who use their old ways of conducting business to meet the requirements created by the most recent HOS changes are continually trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
The same can be said in regards to technology, and while not all the newest tech gadgets will work, there are still truckers and companies out there trying to manage their trucks and loads sans tablets and smart phones.
When was the last time you bought a roll of film, put it into a camera, took photos, then dropped it off at the drugstore to be developed? We have teenagers and young adults today who have never seen a roll of film. Yet one of the most-revered companies in America, Kodak, spent years sitting on their laurels, ignoring the digital revolution – and today they are a small shadow of their previous company at just over $1 billion in revenue per year. In contrast, Fujifilms, one of Kodak’s major competitors, studied and stayed up with current trends, and earns nearly $17 billion a year. Fujifilms joined the digital revolution and is thriving because they adapted to the changing dynamics of the photo and camera industry.
Are you avoiding changes? Trying to buck them, doing things the same way as you always have while expecting different results?
You, as the owner, must be the first to adapt to the changes occurring around you. To grow the business to the next level requires designing systems that cover procedures and routines for each department. It also requires a very special skill –the ability to delegate tasks, where the person doing the task may have a different technique than the owner – but achieves the needed results.
To thrive, you must adapt, balancing your owner’s skills and dreams and matching these to the unique niche you’ve selected. Then provide the needed flexibility for these ideas so you can grow and thrive in the ever-changing market and industry you serve.
Which are you, a Kodak, or a Fujifilm type of company?
“A workplace that encourages self-awareness is an environment where the most productive, curious, and innovative people thrive.” – Neil Blumenthal
