Page 10 - Mobility Management, May 2018

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Numotion’s 2018 NLC
who we are as a company with our market leadership position,” Barczak said. “We heard they were engaged and energized by that theme: I’m going to go back with what I learned from the NLC and be a better leader and communicate with my teams better and communicate with my customers better. So I think we accomplished what we wanted to, which was to communicate key messages to the managers across Numotion and have them walk away from the NLC fired up and ready to implement change and drive multiple key initiatives back across Numotion.”
Another major message, Barczak said, was “There’s leadership on multiple levels. First and foremost, there’s leadership in the customer experience and in customer service. Let’s be responsive. That’s one level of leader- ship, driving good customer service. The other part, for the leadership in the room, is how do they lead their teams and lead their people? Set a good example, provide good coaching, provide good guidance, provide good training. So there is both an internal element of leadership and developing people, and you have an external component of leadership in providing good customer service. I think that all came out through the various presentations.”
The manufacturer expo hall gave ATPs the chance to get up close with seating and mobility technology, but also gave that first-hand experience to members of Numotion who don’t work with products every day.
“There are ancillary benefits of getting people together face to face,” Barczak said. “That’s always a good thing, as is interacting with vendors through the expo. We got a lot of good feedback on the expo — from the ATPs for sure, but also from others who don’t get as much of a chance to see different product. The whole NLC is a great learning experience, to connect the customer journey, even if you’re in a role that’s not directly customer facing. For you to be able to see the impact that we have as a company for the customers we work with, to be able to see the product and process complexity. Something like the NLC helps you to see the breadth of the process and how your particular role impacts that process.”
Leadership that Inspires
Numotion has made it clear that industry leadership is a priority — one such example is the industry white paper written by CEO Mike Swinford and distributed by Numotion this year (https:/www.numotion.com/
10 MAY2018|MOBILITYMANAGEMENT
transformingcrt).
Another example was in the choice of keynote speaker
and the decision to share Gleason’s message in real time with a worldwide Facebook audience.
“ALS is a disease that destroys people’s purpose,” Gleason said. “It can suck away the meaning of life, not only for the person who is diagnosed, but also for families and close loved ones. ALS can force the greatest leaders to fade away quietly to die.”
Gleason shared how his leadership style had, out
of necessity, changed from more quietly leading by example to being a leader who “had to persevere, stay poised and positive, and find ways to be more of an effective vocal leader while still inspiring by example.” After his diagnosis, Gleason added that he searched
for his new purpose: “If there was any hint of possibility that I could learn to live a meaningful life despite my ALS
This is visionary. This is who we are and who we want to continue to be
— Bret Barczak
diagnosis, I wanted to do everything I could to make it happen. This could be an opportunity for me to be an example to other people, I told myself. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to help other people.”
“It was clear,” Barczak said, “everyone was moved by [Gleason’s] message around leadership in particular, and that certainly tied into the meeting for us.”
Investing in such leadership projects as Swinford’s white paper and in the NLC, Barczak added, is critical to Numotion’s ultimate message.
“This is forward thinking,” he said. “This is visionary.
This is who we are and who we want to continue to be. People who really understood why we created that white paper and Mike’s message in it, I think those are the people who are going to be the front-line leaders across Numotion that pull the industry through this transforma- tion. It’s got to permeate through the organization, and those folks seeing that vision and that transformational thinking from Mike not only through the white paper, but through his words and the way we communicated things at the NLC, I think that’s going to drive us.” m
—Story & photos by Laurie Watanabe
MobilityMgmt.com