When change seems to be all we do, how do we manage it to our advantage? CHANGE MANAGEMENT
BY DAVID MEEKER, EDITOR, SAM
president and general counsel, WinSport Olympic Park, Calgary; Karl Kapuscinski, CEO, California Mountain Resort Com- pany; J.R. Murray, chief planning officer, Mountain Capital Partners; Karyn Thorr, COO, Crystal Mountain, Mich.; and Brent Tregaskis, president and general manag- er, Eldora Mountain Resort, Colo. THINGS HAVE CHANGED The pace of change has accelerated sig- nificantly in recent years. Keeping up, not to mention trying to get ahead, is challenging, which makes it all the more important for ski area leaders— from supervisors to the person in the corner office—to embrace change and instill the need for it as part of the com- pany culture. On a macro level, the North Ameri- can ski industry as a whole is very differ-
ent now than it was, say, 30 or 40 years ago when the industry was more mom and pop, according to Murray. “It was family, it was hobby, it was fun. And now it’s big business,” he said, “and it didn’t used to be.” That evolution has touched every aspect of the business. When Tregaskis started in manage- ment back in the mid-1980s, “not much changed year to year,” he said. “You weren’t looking for the next best thing. And nowadays, our company’s always looking for the next best thing.” It wasn’t long ago that change felt more reasonably paced, “not necessarily rare, but certainly less frequent than it is now,” said High Peaks Group founder and organizational development expert Paul Thallner, who is also a primary advi- sor and coach for the Summit Series. “We could manage change-related tasks in a
Bob Dylan once said, “There is noth- ing so stable as change,” meaning that everything changes at some point, or change is constant, which is true. Also true is that foregoing what is firmly established, i.e., stable, in fa- vor of fluidity and adaptability can be hard. However, change is necessary to improve, evolve, and innovate. “If we want to improve, then we have to change. Period,” said Boyne Resorts senior vice president of mountain oper- ations Mike Unruh during a fall SAM Summit Series course titled “How to Change When Change Is All We Do.” Unruh was one of six Summit Series mentors to share insights about how to manage change with 11 aspiring indus- try leaders, aka mentees, in the program. The other mentors that participated in this course included Kim Jones, vice
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