Articles Written by Charles Vander Kooi
The wild ride thru business rapids
By Charles Vander KooiWhitewater rafting is a popular outdoor activity with thousands of enthusiasts across the country. It is a combination of individual effort, guided instruction, and team spirit. There is nothing quite like the satisfaction you get after successfully running a daunting set of rapids with your raft-mates. The price of failure is high; the thrill of victory is exhilarating – just like life in the entrepreneurial business world!
In fact, the whitewater rafting experience compares in many ways to the flow of a business. The river is like your business because each is created in the same way, they grow in similar fashion, they create unique “ecosystems” around themselves, and certainly provide the ride of your life.
Ideas and springs
A river is created by runoff from a spring or from melting snow that flows into valleys to create brooks which merge to become creeks which grow progressively larger as they flow to the ocean. Similarly, businesses start with an idea.Soon the idea progresses beyond the thinker to the first employees who believe in the idea, as well. These people tend to have a deep sense of loyalty as long as they remain employees. The idea grows and starts to produce a profit which brings more employees and “units of activity” such as vehicles, assets, etc.
Just as a river is made up of many different flows, a company develops many different goals, as the number of different people needed to facilitate its growth expands. In the worst case scenario, a business grows too fast like a river overrunning its banks, and its growth becomes destructive to both the company and the surrounding environment.
Brooks, creeks and rivers each have differing ecosystems around them based on the plants, animals and fish which inhabit them. As companies go thru the various stages of growth they tend to have differing strengths and challenges based on employee and customer expectations.
Survival thru time
A small start-up firm with only a few employees and assets cannot tolerate any “evaporation” of assets, and the major concern is survival. Some companies choose to remain this size for the life of the company.Others continue to grow as they accumulate more employees and assets. These firms focus on the proper acquisition of assets. Their major concern is fueling their continued growth. Many firms enter this stage, but few mature to move on to the next stage. Here’s why: Something happens in the environment – a shift in consumer demand, a split up of personnel, or a downturn in the economy – and, suddenly, the rate of revenue growth slows.
Unfortunately, during this second stage, the rate of growth of expenditures like payroll, overhead, expenses, etc. tend to exceed what “standard” business expenditures would be. If anything slows the rapid rate of revenue growth, the owner cannot or will not throttle back on the expense lever fast enough, and the firm is forced to eat up its skimpy asset base and take on debt – or worse!
If a firm is either lucky or sufficiently well managed, it progresses to the next stage of growth. This is where the rate of growth slows and most firms begin to departmentalize or create new flows of revenue growth within themselves.
These firms start to focus on the prioritization or allocation of employees and assets to maximize the firm’s return on those assets, instead of just adding to the expense base. The company now starts to focus on the depreciation and upgrading of assets. Their major concern is maximizing return on assets used.
While it is possible to handle all these challenges in a business career, most people are better suited for life in 1 particular phase of growth or type of company. It is a rare individual who has the capacity to instinctively handle all the challenges faced in each of these different phases of growth.
The ebb and flow of business
Like a river, your business has many different flows. You have some good profitable jobs like the main river channel. Other jobs, like a pool, just break-even and don’t really get you anywhere. Then you have reverse flows against the main channel, unprofitable jobs that create turbulence causing erosion of the banks in more ways than one!One of the keys to running a successful business is to be able to identify the flows of your business to maximize the good ones while minimizing the turbulence so your business will flow more smoothly.
All rivers face obstacles like rocks that divert the flow of water. In business, these rocks tend to divert energy and resources away from the pursuit of company goals. Weather, economic factors, personnel issues, technology advancements and competitive firms are all potential obstacles. Most business owners just hope that these rocks will dissolve or that enough revenue will flow through the river to cover the rocks.
If you have been whitewater rafting you know it is foolish to think a river will be easier to run in high water. More water brings on more thrills and far more spectacular spills; it is much more effective and practical to learn to guide your business through obstacles than to just hope the revenue will rise over them. Or, once you have the confidence that your raft can handle any level of problem you face in this stretch of the river, you are in a much better position to handle the problems which loom downstream!
Why we take on the rapids
If business is like a river with flows, currents, and rocks, then how should we attempt to maximize our “return on energy” – company profits, heightened reputation, and personal satisfaction – that we put into it, let alone enjoy personal fulfillment or employee enrichment?What is it that attracts so many people to spend their vacation rafting thru rapids rather than lounging on the riverbank? Whitewater rafting provides a sense of accomplishment, thrill, and hard individual effort that leads to team success. After rafting a river, you develop a greater understanding and appreciation for the skills required to successfully run ever-changing river conditions.
Aren’t these all attitudes we would want our employees to feel working within our firm? And, is it any wonder that when our key employees are not able to gain this sense of fulfillment from working for us that we lose them? Or worse yet, they become our competitor.
DIRTFT (No, I did not just pound the keyboard)
If you decide to ride the river, apply Bruce Merrifield’s “DIRTFT” principle, Do It Right The First Time. Life is too short to keep re-doing poorly executed attempts to capitalize on opportunities. Besides, once you attempt a “wipeout,” and it fails or doesn’t live up to expectations, you think, “I told you so” and you go right back to your old time-tested habits.Wipeout has gone on since the days of the hunter/gatherers. If you cannot properly farm, just kill the animals that are eating your crops. If you cannot properly run a machine in the big city, just move back to the farm. If you cannot properly learn to use a computer, just look for a high paying assembly line job. History shows that despite the wipeout effect on any individual, we as a culture will in fact move on to the next stage of mankind.
How to take on the whitewater
So how do we go “DIRTFT principle” rafting? First of all, never try to whitewater raft alone! Every year people die in the river because they think, “How hard can this be?” If it is your first time trying any wipeout procedure, always seek a professional guide to help you.Your guide will assign you to a raft of up to 8 people each with differing abilities and emotions about taking part in rafting. (Sound like your business yet?) Your guide will go over safety precautions, rowing instructions and what to do when everything goes wrong and you have to get a “swimmer” back in the raft.
This is vitally important, because there should be no confusion at all on how to “re-staff” the boat during an emergency. Think how often we cover “swimmer rescue” with our work team. Don’t we just have a warranty crew to fix all those mistakes?
Next you move your raft down to the edge of the river and go over a few last-minute emergency safety signals and real-life rowing commands. Then you “put in” and you feel that first rush of cold water and adrenaline. Remember that feeling when you first started your business?
The guide takes command
During the easy stretch of the river, your guide will start with a few basic maneuvers: right turn, left turn, high side. Never put a new crew into a difficult stretch of the river first!The guide will make a few positional changes due to various individual’s “stroke power” – their ability to listen, their willingness to work hard, their experience and their drive – so that one side of the raft is not exceedingly stronger than the other. Imbalance of power within the crew would cause lots of trouble in a rapid.
With everything in place, you move quickly to your first set of rapids. You always hear the rapids first; you cannot see them because the river is falling away from you. The guide will quickly scan the crew for anyone who is going to “freeze up,” and will move them to the middle of the raft. If they are not going to contribute, he’ll at least get them out of the way of those who are.
After going through the first set of rapids, it is important for the team to celebrate success. Then they bail out any water taken on so that the raft is more maneuverable for the next set of rapids. Remember to celebrate success with your crew in your business, and then go over efficiency improvements for the next job.
Often the guide will make one more set of positional changes so that the day will be both safe and enjoyable for everyone. There can be some grousing over positions, but people usually find they enjoy the position the guide puts them in, even though they thought differently prior to running the river.
The growing strength of the team
If the rafters continue to listen to their guide’s instructions and work hard together, they will quickly gain a team spirit as they tackle their first few sets of rapids. The team will begin to develop “synergistic reactivity” where each rafter senses when they will receive an instruction, what that instruction will be, and they react in a unified fashion to the command.I have been on rafts with people that know what to do and want to do it, but they get in each other’s way and cannot seem to get the hang of knowing how to perform the command. To put it mildly, there is a lot of bailing of water on those trips.
But I’ve also been on rafts where the team also understands how to synchronize their efforts in harmony, and everyone enjoys a great feeling of satisfaction and power. The guide will notice this and start to challenge the raft by taking “unique” lines through the rapids or even taking them backwards, which is truly a thrill for everyone.
Man overboard!
It seems that no raft trip is complete without “swimmers,” people who are knocked out of the raft and into the rapids. Rocks create the channels of water in a set of rapids. The raft is constantly bumping into them, even with the best teams. Some guides even intentionally hit strategic rocks to set up the raft for its next line through the remaining rapids.Upon hitting a rock particularly hard, you might be the one who flies through the air out of the raft. This is when preparation and “synergistic reactivity” really kick in. The guide does not have the time to tell you what to do in this life-threatening situation nor would you be able to hear him from underwater.
Your first instinct is to get back in the raft. Instead, you must react based on your safety training. In the rapids, you can easily be pinned between a rock and the raft which will cause injury. The guide will decide if you can get into the raft cleanly or if you will finish the rapids as a floating object!
This is where “synergistic reactivity” comes into play. If the guide knows that each person can perform both their duties and the new duties now required by the situation, it greatly lengthens the time to recover swimmers in a set of rapids. Someone will have to lift the swimmer into the raft while others continue to stroke per the guide’s instructions to navigate the rocks ahead.
If you must remain a swimmer for the rest of the rapids, you position yourself in the whitewater swimming position, on your back, arms out, feet downstream, and breathe when you can. You need to get to shore quickly, but safely!
Oftentimes extremely dangerous log jams of trees, branches, etc. lie beneath the rapids. They are called “strainers” because they strain debris out of the river – in this case, you. A log looks like a safe place to land. But if you remember your safety preparation, you know you will be sucked under that “friendly” looking log. So you swim clear of it to the rocky shore where your raft will soon come to pick you up. You have the story of a lifetime from your rafting experience.
Surviving a big hit
Another event that frequently occurs while rafting is the “high side” situation. This occurs when you hit a rock while running a rapid and it turns you sideways! Rafts are not designed to go down rivers sideways. They become unstable and impossible to steer.If you hit a rock sideways, one side of the raft pops up on the rock instantly dropping other side down so low that it immediately fills the raft with river water and flings all of the rafters out of the raft. This all happens in a matter of seconds. Now you can forget “synergistic reactivity” because you now have 8 “swimmers” and a raft stuck on a rock. Everyone needs to get to shore as quickly and safely as possible, and you will need another raft within your party to bring your raft to shore.
One way to avoid this mess is for the guide to instantly call for a “high side” when the sideways raft hits the rock. Everyone in the raft immediately jumps to the “high side” of the raft taking all the weight off of the lower pontoon and raising it above the onrushing water.
Eventually the river will sweep the raft around the rock and everyone needs to jump back into their position to continue through the rapids. Only diligent preparation and quick reaction time can ensure your team will live to tell their high-side story – dry.
As you can see, there is a lot more to whitewater rafting than meets the eye, just as there is more to your business. But if you prepare ahead of time, have good equipment, position people effectively, communicate properly and start to develop synergistic reactivity, you can enjoy a whitewater or business experience!
