Change in the workplace or in your life outside of work isn’t easy at times. Even moving into your dream home is stressful and takes some getting used to. Your dream vacation is met with travel delays, lost luggage and sunburn at times. Everything doesn’t go as planned 100% of the time. Many political elections are based on change, but sometimes change is difficult to get used to, even if it’s good. Henry Ford once said “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”. Change wasn’t easy for people in those times, but the invention of the automobile as a way of travel changed the word.
When I was young we had VHS tapes and if you were lucky, a laser disc player to watch movies on. Soon after we had DVDs and Blu-ray discs took over and now we can get just about any movie we want through the internet right on our phones, computers or tablets. The majority of the multimillion / billion dollar video rental store industry is just about gone. There are a few video rental stores hanging on by a thread, but I’d give them another year or two and they’ll be a thing of the past. The music industry and other businesses have been through the same changes because of technologic changes. Just about everything I learned in broadcast school isn’t used anymore. I can do more on my phone with video and audio than I could in the editing booth back in school in 1990. Change in the workplace in some of these industries meant looking for a totally new line of work. If you don’t go with the changing times in a hurry you get left behind.
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
– John F. Kennedy
Over my 30+ years in the entertainment and speaking business I’ve experienced a lot of change. I’ve done my best to keep changing things to fit the market. When I first started out companies would hire me to entertain their employees during a holiday party. As the economy tanked my clients wanted more of a take away from my presentations rather than just a lot of laughs. They needed their employees to get educated and motivated during the presentations so I changed with the times and started offering that. I soon realized that what I did best was entertain people. I 
decided to mix entertainment and motivation into an interactive presentation. People learn better and get motivated when they have fun. Employees like feeling appreciated and getting rewarded for a job well done. Having a speaker stand behind a podium lecturing to them on how to make more money for their company while the employees are still struggling financially, usually has a negative affect. Your employees need to be motivated, but showing them they are appreciated while doing so is a better solution.
By combining entertainment and motivation I’m able to offer a presentation where the employees feel like they are being rewarded for a job well done. In all reality, I’m making them happy and entertaining them all while injecting just the right amount of motivation on various key points my clients want to target. In the movie “Mary Poppins” they sing about a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down. Think of the entertainment portions of my presentations as the spoon full of sugar and the medicine / motivation goes down just fine because of it. Your employees will have fun and get motivated at the same time. Happy and motivated employees are better and more productive employees. Productive employees created a better work environment and in turn more money for the company.
Change in the workplace is happening in all industries and we have to somehow deal with it. Be as open as you can with your employees and set a plan in place to make them understand why the changes are coming. I got hired once by a very large / well known company to entertain and motivated 200+ of their employees that were getting let go. I thought it was going to be an event full of sad and angry people, but it wasn’t. They were all happy and having a great time. Their company set plans in place to help them find other jobs by working on their resumes with them, give them a buyout or even transfer them to the other state if they wanted to go. They ended this difficult time with a final party to show them that they truly appreciated them. It was an incredible event.
Motivational speakers and entertainers like myself can help motivate your employees to accept change better. You are always going to have employees that fight change. That’s just part of human nature. You can do your best to get through to them all while keeping the morale up for all the employees. The motivation and inspiration starts at the top with the CEO and goes all the way down to the newest hire. Keep a positive and happy work environment and change in the workplace will go down as easy as a spoon full of sugar.
If I can be of help, please let me know.