The Change Dude’s Blog

It’s Summer and the Living’s Easy

Summer 2009 might well be the easiest vacation season in along time.  Living in a Southern California beach community is a great gift.  I love the beach, the temperate weather and diversity of the visitors that enjoy my fair city. 

This summer appears to be busier than most.  When you pull apart the potential reasons that traffic at the beach has been phenomenally busy this summer a few potential factors may be in play.

1. Economic conditions have provided Americans with a choice to either spend their discretionary income on elaborate family vacations or save some of that precious income and take day trips to the local beaches.

2. Of the 5 million or so unemployed Americans many like to surf and choose to spend their summer at the beach in lieu of pursuing a relatively fruitless job search.

3. A greater number of local residents decided this was the year to spend more time at the surf than in the past.

In any case there are certainly more folks at the local beaches this year than in the past.  This is great news for small business, children that hate long drives in the family car and beach toy manufacturers.

What’s the change lesson in my observation?  It’s all about adaptive leadership.  In the face of events that sent the US economy back to the days of the Jackie Gleason Show, high balls and rotary phones family leaders have adapted to the situation at hand.  Family leaders are pulling back into their own economic boundaries and leading though example. 

Leadership in business has shown it’s far less adaptive this year than most moms and dads.  Business leaders consistently have fallen back into their comfort zones.  When the economy began to fade the tried and true tools of retrenchment were pulled out of the bag.  Reduce cost, reduce staff, reduce investment, reduce incentive to excel and take a step back from innovation. 

We all need to shake off the trappings of knowing and put on our learning, collaborative listening cap.  Open the office door and let in some fresh air.  Be vulnerable in the organization and ask important open questions about how to spring forward from the deep trenches that have been dug since earlier this year.  Ask colleagues, ask customers, ask employees for their thoughts.  You may find that there’s a beach closer to you than you think.

August 12, 2009 - Posted by thechangedude | Uncategorized