Making Changes

by Sharon B. Drechsler, RRP
owner/operator
Drechsler Communications

The summer season has resort staff working at maximum levels to manage day-to-day responsibilities and yet, now is the very time managers may find themselves faced with implementing a change.

Many managers realize that with the autumn comes the annual billing, balloting and newsletter season and they are making plans now to avoid pitfalls last year’s season may have revealed. Others may have a more pressing need to implement a change, whether it’s due to a system failure, the departure of a key employee or some other impetus.

Sometimes managers have the luxury of planning for change. At other times, change just happens.

I’m reminded of Betty, a resort manager of a beachfront Holiday Inn in Atlantic City, North Carolina. Betty’s assistant-innkeeper quit in May, right before the beginning of their extremely busy, summer season. She replaced him with an inexperienced, but well-intentioned (and, I might add, extremely personable) young woman, a recent college graduate with one year’s experience as a full-time front office manager – me! Together that summer, Betty and her 23-year-old protégé became shining examples of what can happen when change is handled poorly. Without training or direction, I was given the assignment of operating a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, full-service dining room and bar. I don’t know how we made it through that busy summer without the health department closing us down, but somehow we managed to feed three squares a day to a standing room-only crowd. I don’t ever want to see another hush puppy as long as I live! By the end of the summer, Betty and I had burned ourselves out.
What could have been done differently? Betty gained at least thirty pounds while I became dangerously thin. How could we have survived that summer less painfully? With proper planning, resort managers seeking to introduce a change during their resort’s prime season can make it a much less stressful process.

An Australian-based consulting company, Business Performance Pty Ltd, (www.businessperform.com) suggests we take the following steps when introducing change to the workplace environment:

• Create tension (that is, discomfort with the status quo).
• Harness support. (Don’t forget senior staff, as well your front line workers.)
• Articulate goals.
• Nominate roles.
• Grow capability.
• Entrench changes, as in
“making it stick.”

Managers contemplating the introduction of change may have a ‘gut’ feeling that something’s got to give. Often we start to feel that the need for change, and the way to accomplish it, should be obvious to everyone. You may be surprised at how different each team member’s perceptions and perspectives are from one individual to the next. You’ll find that the discipline of organizing your plans into lists, timetables and charts helps you to better articulate why, how and when something is to be done. The practice of communicating with your team helps ‘create tension’ for them to start looking for a better or alternative solution. This tension eventually becomes the resolve to seek and effectuate the best results.

There is almost always some resistance to change, even when change is a necessity (such as the departure of a key employee). Systems Products International (SPI)’s Director of Sales Matt Brosious has been involved in a number of software data conversions. He remarks that it is particularly important for everyone in the organization to believe that senior management is dedicated to a successful implementation and to the acceptance and well-being of the people who will be affected when introducing a new person, procedure or product.

If my former employer and I had articulated and listed my goals for my summer spent in “Hell’s kitchen,” we might have been able to benchmark my learning process. Without giving me a target to shoot for, it seemed as though each day brought with it a new set of surprises – and none of them very much fun. Each evening ended with a feeling of relief that we’d survived another day. If we had reviewed all of the day-to-day functions entailed in operating the restaurant, we could have found ways to nominate roles for other members of the team. And, of course, training, rewarding creative thinking and encouragement would have helped all the employees in growing our capabilities and would have entrenched the positive aspects of having a new manager.

If the change you are planning involves using a vendor, they can become your strategic partner in implementing change. Converting to a new software system, remodeling units or changing providers of almost any goods or services are examples of change that can affect multiple departments and create unforeseen by-products. Matt recommends managers maximize the use of planning lists, Gantt charts and timelines – and to use a team approach in creating them. Thanks to technology today, there are plenty of planning tools available.

These are some ideas that Betty and I could have used to our advantage. Our team could have pooled our group’s experience and knowledge to save everyone a lot of aggravation. For instance, someone might have suggested we double-check our daily order of poultry to make sure we weren’t getting genetically-altered chickens. (How else would you explain these critters having such an abundance of wings, as compared to breasts and legs?) Plus, the kitchen and dining room staff would have been encouraged by us soliciting their suggestions for ways to achieve greater efficiency. We might have had fewer no-shows on sunny days when the surf was up.

Our plans are only as good as our ability to communicate them and earn buy-in from every person on the team. The real key to implementing change is the effective management of people.