As a young professional in the boating world, he understands the importance of continuous improvement. Since his first job, Patrick Green has grown as a professional at some of the industry’s most reputable organizations.  Read on to learn more about how Patrick navigates the workplace in order to create a positive work culture.

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Q: How did you get started in the boating industry?

Green: I got my first job working summers at Gordy’s in Fontana, Wisconsin on Geneva Lake. I actually was able to save enough money working my first two summers to buy a car on my own before I turned 16.

Q: Being a young professional, you fall into the category of Millennial. How do you navigate the workplace, as a leader, with that “label”?

Green: Reading the room. One of the biggest lessons I hope to carry with me 20 years from now, is understanding & learning from the generational gap. When a company’s culture becomes stagnant so do its people.

Q: Tobler Marina is a Marine Industry Certified Dealership. As the Director of Certification, what benefits are you seeing within the dealership after completing and actively participating in the program?

Green: We’ve gotten in the habit of including the Certification Curriculum in our weekly manager meetings, and then trickling it down through weekly dept meetings. This has enabled us to reflect, but also allowed us to push forward with simplifying process. The accountability tools have also helped us understand why the process is so important. Employee feedback is key.

Q: As a professional who puts an emphasis on growing and continuously learning, what would you say was the most important thing you learned in the business this year?

Green: It’s important to have values in an organization that match personal values. This also relates to employees and customers – and the relationships that coincide.

Q: We always end our Member Spotlight interview with this… What are 5 things that people may not know about you?

1. I was a zipline guide in Alaska for one summer after college.
2. I went snowboarding every month for 23 months in a row.
3. I love to rock climb.
4. I studied Philosophy in college.
5. I aspire to do the Great Loop.

Equip. [ih-kwip] verb. to provide appropriate provisions, resources, and preparations for performance or action.

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A lot can be learned about leadership in the dojo.

To be a world class martial artist, you must be equipped with flexibility. Among other things, it allows you to deliver a devastating and lightning-fast kick to your opponent’s head.

That’s why, about 11 years ago, on a slow and plodding journey to black belt, I bought a stretcher. I knew that at 32 years old, I was not going to become a world class martial artist. But I aspired to get as close as I could. I had good motivation: It doesn’t take receiving very many kicks to the head before you wish you could kick to the head too.

To use this piece of equipment, which resembles a medieval torture device, you strap your legs in and then crank a wheel a little further each day, each week, until you’ve reached your goal of a full split – which brings with it the ability to deliver that devastating kick.

Similar to the martial arts world, to be a leader in your dealership, you need to be equipped with a kind of flexibility. In the 18-month Leadership Development Program offered by Spader Business Management, the word David Spader uses is “adaptability” – not exactly the same as flexibility, but a close cousin.

David goes so far as to call adaptability “the single best predictor of our sustained individual and organizational success.”

So, dealership leaders, are you equipped with adaptability? Well, there are two prerequisites. One, a desire to adapt. And two, a willingness to feel the discomfort of doing things differently.

If you have that desire and that willingness, the MRAA has a lot to offer you. We’ve partnered with leading educators – people like David Spader – to develop a wealth of training resources, tools and courses to help you improve and grow in this fast-changing market.

In fact, one of the central themes of our upcoming conference – the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo – is future-proofing: looking forward to what’s coming toward us to minimize the shocks and stresses of the change ahead, so we can maximize our success. There’s no better place to gain insight into adapting yourself, your department and your dealership to the evolution of our customer and our industry.

In the end, I’ve learned that adaptability is, in fact, more important than its cousin, flexibility. A few weeks into the use of my torture device, I landed in the doctor’s office. Turns out my hips were not made to flex like that, much to my chagrin, and my attempts to try actually chipped a piece of bone off the edge of my hip socket.

The doctor gave me a choice: Pick another sport or stop trying to kick to the head. Needless to say, I love martial arts. I wasn’t going to pick another sport. So, instead of relying on flexibility, I’ve equipped myself with another martial arts skill. Hint: Watch out for my hook.

What new skills are you and your team developing to adapt to the changes taking place under your roof and in your boating community? Share them with us in the comments or at the MDCE in December. See you there!

Empower. [em-pou-er] verb. to give (someone) the authority or power to do something.

Make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights. 

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In our business world today, where leadership and management courses, consultancies, books and countless other resources constitute a multi-million-dollar business, we can easily be led to believe that empowerment is something that must be done to us. We must have a manager-type empower us to make decisions. We must have a leader to authorize us to do something or to accomplish something. Someone that is not us must grant us the authority to make things happen.

I don’t believe this thinking could be further from the truth, and I believe that its guidance misleads many would-be leaders into thinking they have to wait for the signal — to wait for the message that someone believes in them enough to allow them to step up and create results.

At a time when we are striving to recognize young leaders in our industry and at a time when there’s a great deal of conversation about generational differences, I wonder if we’re doing a good enough job of encouraging and supporting our up-and-comers? I wonder if they feel empowered or if they’re waiting for us to fulfill the perception that someone must empower them?

At MRAA, we exist to support you, your business and your team with tools, resources and educational programs. We go so far as to say that our annual conference will engage, energize and empower you and your team to greater results.

But this “empower” is not about what MRAA can do for you or to you. It’s about making resources available so you can make the critical decisions. So, you can empower yourself and your team to be better today than you were yesterday.

I like to think of it as a challenge for myself, for my team, and for you and your team, as well: Give yourself the authority to do something incredible. Take control of your business, your career trajectory, your customers and the results that you desire to create.

Excel. [ik-sel] verb. to exceed all expectations and achieve a level higher in performance, quality, or degree.

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It was a truly memorable moment of my career. The boss and I were out on the road sharing the concept for an all-new program, trying to create buy-in. The meeting had arrived at the moment of the close, and she leaned in, focused and sincere: “We’ve really built this program to ensure that we can over-promise and under-deliver.”

The faux pas wasn’t lost on the group. We got a good laugh out of it then, and I still get a chuckle out of it when I think about it more than a decade later.

As author and sales guru Grant Cardone suggests in his book, “10X. The Only Difference Between Success and Failure,” even the culturally acceptable idea of under-promising and over-delivering is a poor way to capture business. Think about it. Let’s under-promise and tell our customers that the boat will float most of the time, so they’re surprised and delighted when it never actually sinks. How many more boats do you think you would sell?

In our demanding society, and particularly in a want-based industry like boating, where expectations are continually on the rise, there is still an easy pathway we can take to excel – to exceed all expectations and achieve a level higher in performance and quality. That pathway is to create better experiences for our customers.

A friend, who is the CEO for a fast-growing tech company, calls it the Amazon effect, noting that price, availability and delivery are no longer points to compete on. “So what’s left?” he asks. Brand and reputation … which are shaped by the experience you provide.

Experiences are today’s currency. Experiences – again, particularly in a want-based industry like boating – are what make or break our businesses and indeed, the success of our entire industry. How are you doing with the experiences you and your business provide? How is your team doing? And how do you know?

Several brief mystery shopping exercises around the marine and RV industries suggest that somewhere between 35 and 40 percent of the leads sent to our dealers are going unanswered. But not at your dealership, right? What does this tell you about the experiences our industry is providing?

Similarly, a recent study by AVALA Marketing Group showed that more than 40 percent of consumers who made it through the initial contact hurdle and have actually bought a boat never hear from their dealer again. There was no “thank you.” No, “how did we do?” No assistance. Just, “here’s your boat. And good luck.” Are you sure that doesn’t happen at your business?

If you want to excel in today’s market place, you have to focus on the experience. You have to make a commitment to creating world-class experiences and to over-delivering on that promise every step of the way. You have to exceed expectations. It’s not just a feel-good manner of taking care of your customers; it’s clear that this approach will not only set you apart from the competition, but will also offer you a long-term strategy with real-world, bottom-line business results at stake.