Instituting Change at a Material Handling Distributorship
As I’ve mentioned before in this space, the upcoming issue of The MHEDA Journal has the theme, “The Rules Have Changed.” The magazine will be full of articles from MHEDA distributor members. One such article is from Ted Springer, the president of Springer Equipment Company in Birmingham, AL.
In it, Springer says, “Diversity is something that people talk a lot about, but when it’s time to ‘put up or shut up,’ often it’s easier to stay the same.” He’s referring to product diversity, and what he means is that business onwers often espouse the values of diversification, but when all the numbers get crunched, you’ll find that it ends up being lip service.
Of course, his article goes on to talk about how his company has put those words into action (no spoiler alert needed…read all about it in April). But I thought this was a pretty provocative statement. It’s true in a lot of companies…initatives to change get started but, before long, people fall back to old habits. Or the person initiating the change gets moved to a new department and stops implementing the changes. Or maybe conflicting directives about how to implement the change come down and confuse people and stall things.
Whatever the case, there are many barriers to change. The companies that are best able to overcome those barriers are the ones that thrive, particularly in a down market where the old ways of doing business aren’t cutting it any more.
What do you think? How can these barriers be overcome?
Tags: distribution, lift truck, material handling
