Cheryl Koopman was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio and moved to Cincinnati in 1989. Cheryl earned her Bachelors Degree from the University of Cincinnati and her Masters Degree from the University of Phoenix. She began her career with Richards Industries in 1997 as an HR Assistant, and worked her way up to her current position as Vice President of Human Resources. Cheryl is active in the community as a member of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Council and co-founder of the Hyde Park Blast. She continually looks for that perfect balance between working hard and playing hard, and recently completed her first Ironman.
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Post 3 - Times of Change
Posted By: Cheryl Koopman
3/21/2008
We're in a tough spot at Richards Industries at times - a manufacturing company that is placed right in the heart of one of the nicest residential neighborhoods in Cincinnati. We've strived over the years to be the best neighbor we can be to both the surrounding businesses and residents. It's part of our culture - one of giving back and supporting the community. We have to stay up to speed with the proposed changes to the neighborhood and how they might affect our business.
It's always been important to us to hire people who we feel will fit in with the family here. One of the last questions we ask before we hire someone is "would I take this person home with me for dinner with my family?" If the answer isn't yes, we have some additional interviewing we need to do. The point is that we are a family based company in the heart of a residential community... and we're a manufacturer.
And according to the news, the papers, etc., the competition in manufacturing and in the business world in general is fierce... and probably only getting more and more competitive. Today we face more competition than ever before; opportunities don't last as long as they used to; We have to be able to make changes quickly if we want to truly make change a competitive advantage and succeed versus our competition.
Over the last several years I've seen a lot of proposed change and a lot of opposition to change in Hyde Park and in Cincinnati. For the most part, I've witnessed more people being scared of or opposed to change than I have seen people who accept it. I see or hear about the struggles in many companies who are going through tough times when the economy shifts. But not at Richards Industries. Even in tough times, we've taken care of our employees. In fact, there's never been a layoff in Richards Industries' history. We attribute this to both the broad customer base as well as careful workforce management. We're conservative in terms of the workforce and our approach has paid off.
One of the more valuable lessons I've learned over the years, basically growing up at Richards Industries, is to embrace change. We've done a lot of things over the last few years to continue changing and growing with or ahead of the industry.
The universal truth is that things change and the pace of change is accelerating every day! For us at Richards Industries, it means that we need to embrace change and master adapting to it. Because we're a small company, instead of fearing change, we have the opportunity to take advantage of it and use it as a competitive advantage. Change is a part of our daily lives.
The reality is that no company can master change just because the management team tells employees to do so. We have to all be on that bus together... The accelerating pace of change is an opportunity for us to put our competition on stand-by. They'll have to react to what we're doing...trying to keep up with us.
We have a number of choices do nothing and fail, do enough to survive or be a leader and make Change a true and sustainable competitive advantage. The biggest risk we take is in doing nothing. We have to perpetually adjust, refine, innovate, adapt, and learn.
I'd love to see all of us adopt that "for now" attitude when it comes to our lives, our communities, our businesses. Information or "the way things are" doesn't have to be that way for long periods of time. The goal should be to move as fast as we can - as long as we continue to chase perfections, we'll achieve excellence along the way. Learn to accept that while whatever it is may be great today...it's inevitable that it will change...and that's a good thing. And when you go up against those who are anti-change, encourage them to become part of the solutions instead of just complainers.
Away we go...