Bob Westendarp:

[00:00:00] The way to run a business is to build trust and communication rather than a hierarchical system of management. Got to recognize and understand the importance of cultural value differences and take them into consideration in dealing with. People around the world in your operation, think out of the box.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:00:24] Don't, don't get caught in a structured view of the situation whenever you are challenged. Creativity, I think, is the most important skill to deploy.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:00:56] Today we have Bob. We with us. Bob started off as an accountant and ended up running one of the largest travel agencies in the world, specializing in a niche that you won't believe even exists. Bob, welcome to the show and we look forward to talking with you. Thank you, ward. So you've been through a lot of changes in your career. And to try something different. I think it would be fun to start off with where you are now after having sold the company you co-founded. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:01:29] Yes. Uh, I, I've been out of Griffin for now going on 12 years, so I'm retired having a lot of. Fun and traveling all over the world and performing a lot of service and members of, member of a lot of, of, uh, charity boards.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:01:44] So I'm very busy and, uh, never looked back, uh, since we sold Griffin in 2014. And before that I had actually retired from Griffin as the CEO of the Americas region in 2013. So we had succe succession planning and succession execution going on to transition the company to a new and younger management team, even before we finally sold it in 2014.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:02:11] So tell us about Griffin. That's such an unusual. Segment of the world of travel.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:02:18] I, I'll give you a brief overview of where we were at the, at the end when we sold the company. Uh, the company was called the Griffin Global Group. It was a company operating in 22 different countries around the world with 32 offices.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:02:33] We had eight shareholders who were the co-founders and operators. Griffin was a specialist. In travel and transportation for the marine industry that ships crews and the offshore industry, very specialized field. So we were moving a crew off of ships all over the world. And moving new crew on. Same thing with offshore rigs.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:03:00] And at last count we were the largest in the world in this field. Uh, we had one other major competitor. The two of us kind of controlled the entire worldwide market. And uh, right when we sold it, we estimated that of marine travel. On the seas of the crew. We were moving about 25% of them globally. So as we walked through airports around the world, we would see our ticket jackets on tickets everywhere. And that was a really great feeling.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:03:27] And what was so special about that segment,

Bob Westendarp:

[00:03:30] the marine segment, which is it, it's actually a segment that we discovered in, in 1995 that didn't exist in the United States, that existed elsewhere in the world, but not the us. It is by its very nature. Last minute travel, when the ships dock, weather and all kinds of things affect the time the ship docks and it's always last minute, we would get a communication from X, Y, Z shipping company that they were docking in Perez tomorrow morning.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:04:00] They have 20 crew members that they need off the ship and sent home and 20 new crew members from the Philippines and all over the world brought to the ship and onboarded because it's last minute travel. The airlines are particularly interested in that revenue because it's last minute fill up. As you know, airlines, they increase the price of their tickets until the last day of travel for business travelers.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:04:24] And if you're a business traveler, you know that in the last week, if you buy a ticket, it's gonna be astronomically expensive. But what does the airline do at the last minute when all of those guys have been sold their tickets and they have 20 seats left on their airplane and they wanna monetize that?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:04:42] They dump it. They dump it to us because marine travel is by its very nature, last minute travel. So we had with hundreds of airlines around the world, special fares that were far lower than normal commercial airfares.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:04:59] How does an accountant get into the global crude logistics management business?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:05:04] Go figure. I had actually been through several transitions. I, I think I had about five careers. The travel business started as a, as a little hobby. In 1981, uh, my wife and I and a client and his wife decided we're gonna start a travel agency because we're gonna get all kinds of travel benefits. That was the motivation.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:05:25] We were gonna get free tickets and free hotel rooms and so forth and so on. So we did it and we had, we hired one man. We had one man, not no computers. He was handwriting tickets out of the OAG and a year later and a hundred thousand dollars in the hole. Uh, we finally realized that first of all, we weren't getting any travel benefits, and second of all, we just lost a hundred thousand dollars.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:05:48] So my wife and my partner's wife went in there and tried to run the business. They built it up very, very slowly as a traditional local travel agency. And by 1991 they had built it to about $10 million in volume. They were doing pretty well, weren't making any money, uh, but they had some pretty good volume.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:06:09] And that's when I decided to go in and see if I could make something unique, uh, with this company. So we did several years of exploration in, in 1995, we discovered this specific niche. This niche existed, uh, in the uk, in Greece, in Asia, but not in the United States. The airlines were not introducing this fair class in the United States.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:06:38] We decided we're gonna jump in there. We're gonna start, uh, we're gonna team up with, uh, a company in the uk, uh, that had a global operation and we're gonna, uh, access their airfares and start a business in the United States dealing with these kinds of clients. One of the big things we had to deal with initially was that the airlines showed up at our office within a couple of weeks.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:07:00] Asking, what the hell do you think you're doing? We don't want these fares in the United States. You can't do this in the United States, so shut down your operation. It took us a little while to to get them to understand that our clients were global and they're not stupid, and if they can't buy these faires in the United States from us, they're gonna go to other parts of the world where they can buy them and buy them there.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:07:28] And the airlines were gonna miss out on that seat revenue in the United States. Although their seats would be full, the revenue would not hit their bottom line here in the United States. And we became the only agency in the United States that had access to these fares from two or three of the major airlines. Then that started to grow from there.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:07:50] How'd you discover the niche initially? I mean, this is a, a really obscure sense of travel that was just happening internationally.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:07:57] Well, it is interesting. Uh, we had a, uh, an agent on our team that, uh, loved to travel and he, he loved to find reasons to do business travel.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:08:06] So he spent a lot of time in the UK and, and he. I was having a beer one night in the pub, and, uh, was introduced to a guy that did this kind of travel for his company. He managed it. Through many conversations, he, he discovered there were these fares that existed and that this particular company. Wasn't accessing them.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:08:27] So we discovered two things, a potential client and the thing that would attract that client. So he and I flew back and pitched this client that we had access to something that his agency didn't have in the United States. So we signed up a client in Aberdeen, Scotland, which we managed from Houston, Texas, and bought the Faires for that client from in Stone, a company.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:08:53] So it was a very strange, uh, a very strange mix, very strange bedfellows, but it introduced us to the, to the fair system. It introdu it introduced us to the business and it introduced the client to something that they had no idea existed, even though they were in the country. Where those, where that structure.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:09:12] Amazing. How long did it take for other companies to take notice in the States once it started to to become realized?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:09:20] There were two of us. There was us, and we had teamed up with a company called In Stone and a competitor of ours within a month figured out what we were doing and teamed up with a company called Griffin.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:09:33] So we weren't Griff at the time. We were Insta. And so the two of us were going, uh, head to head. We had a considerable advantage just prior to that. The airlines had eliminated commissions on the travel business, and so the travel business was in total upheaval. We were, we lost our entire revenue stream in the, in the traditional business, and we had to convert to, uh, uh, fees for service.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:09:56] The other agency did not do that effectively, and they were bleeding. Their commercial travel business to try to get into this business. So we just whooped them and uh, they did grow and we both grew and, and it was just the two of us. Nobody else figured it out just in stone and Griffin we're the only two in the market.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:10:15] And then what happened?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:10:16] We ended up doing a deal, uh, with KLM, the Royal Dutch Airlines. Uh, they were really interested in what we were doing. They were really interested in introducing this fair structure into the United States and attracting this business segment in the United States, but they wanted to do it in a controlled way, and we convinced them to let us manage the distribution of their marine and offshore tickets in North and South America.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:10:47] So we were effectively the distributor for all of North and South America of KLM Marina North Shore tickets. So then we introduced it to other agencies that were able to use [00:11:00] KLM, uh, for this. But by this time we already had the business and, and we had a hundred or more airlines with, with these fair deals.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:11:07] So how are they going to compete with us if they have one airline deal? KLM. Which we were managing and distributing to them. We kind of had the market under control Now, meanwhile, Griffin was growing and in stone was growing. So we were both heads, head to head competing with each other and getting a little bigger, little bigger, little bigger, little bigger.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:11:27] Until 2002, we had a, uh, a disagreement with in Stone. Turned out not to quite be the, the partner that we wanted to be with forever. And that's when I called Griffin. Who was having a very difficult time managing their US operation and, uh, suggested that I would be willing to form a joint venture with them in the United States, uh, and take over their operation and combine it with ours.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:11:55] That's when we became Griffin 2002, and in stone had been effectively in the United States, US so now in stone didn't exist in the United States. Now we Griffin control the entire US market in this category of, of business.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:12:12] How did that joint venture really change the growth of the business?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:12:18] Well, this is, this is, this is when things get interesting and, and this is when. This is when a lot of things started to happen that made us into the global company, that the largest in the world that we ended up being. When we, uh, formed our joint venture with, with Griffin, it was a 50 50 joint venture in the us. Griffin was operating globally, but a lot of their operation around the world was through ventures like ours.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:12:42] 50 50, 75, 25, some wholly owned. It was a, it was a corner of structures. All operating under the name Griffin with a little difference. Some was Griffin Marine, some was Griffin this, Griffin that, et cetera. So there wasn't uniformity globally as to what Griffin was other than we all had these fairs and we had handled this kind of business.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:13:06] So we were, we were one, we were a big global organization, but we were very disjointed. We did not have common ownership across the board. I think that's about the time I came to see you Ward. I said, what do we do?

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:13:19] I remember it well. What problem were you facing that facilitated that work?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:13:25] There were eight shareholders. Uh, totally. We'd have board meetings in various places around the world. And because there were different owners, owners involved in different locations, we were in effect competing against one another. There were clients that one office would try to get all of their business because all the revenue would then go to that office that was owned by these two guys, and this office over here would lose out and it's owned by someone else.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:13:54] So there was. There was a lot of infighting and we realized that in order for us to really be a global business, we need to figure out how to be one business instead of a series of little businesses owned differently acting like a big global business. So the pain point was intercompany conflict.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:14:17] And how hard of a sell was it to bring an outside organization like ours to come and help align the organization?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:14:24] Really hard.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:14:28] Can, can you talk about that?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:14:29] Yeah. Uh, Warren, you'll remember this. We're dealing with two British partners, three Greek partners, an Indian partner, a whole group of partners. And when you have those kind of partners, they all have different values. Nationality. Each nationality has their own, their own core value.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:14:50] And it's, it's different. People think it's the same all the way around the world. It's not. The US value, for instance, may be freedom and success and the UK may be tradition and China may be harmony. It's all different. So when you're trying to negotiate with these, with these guys. If you don't recognize these cultural differences, you're not gonna get 'em to the table.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:15:11] Luckily for me, I kind of got that and I had to convince him, and it took a lot of convincing to get him to the table and to come to Houston, Texas and sit down with a guy named Ward Pennebaker to talk about how we come up with a global vision and brand for this company, and we did it and we got 'em here.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:15:33] We had a guardrail session, uh, which was well attended by several of the shareholders, if I remember correctly. And it was the start of a real metamorphosis of our business that served us immensely well and made us what we ended up being.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:15:51] Were there any unexpected outcomes of going through that guardrails process?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:15:55] I think coming up with the, with the consensus as to what we do. As a company, what we did at that time was fairly simple. It was a matter of describing it and institutionalizing it. That was the, the difficult parts. Um, we got there and then we worked on, uh, branding. And branding is a, is a very tough animal when you're dealing with.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:16:23] So many different nationalities. Now, luckily we did have English as our common global corporate language, so that wasn't a hurdle. But everything else is different. Uh, the words they use in the UK to describe something are different from the words they use in the US or Australia or China. So when you're branding for a global organization like that, you've got to take these differences.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:16:48] Into consideration when you're doing your brand and all your marketing materials, and that, that is a big challenge. And I'm amazed that we wound up with a consensus on a really cool brand at the time. The, the brand that, uh, that Panabaker came up with. Was shockingly unique, I would say, and my partners bought it.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:17:14] They thought, damn, this is really cool. And so everybody's brand all of a sudden became the same. All the the Griffins, the Griffin is a mythical Greek creature. Creature. And every Griffin on every logo was a little different. Well, all of a sudden, finally, all the Griffins were the same. And the colors were the same and everything was the same, and our business cards were the same.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:17:36] And, and we were seeing our ticket jackets go through the airport all over the world, and they were all the same. And it made a huge, huge difference. And, and it, and it led to a, a, uh, a pretty big growth explosion.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:17:47] Do you remember how we changed the way you described the business that you were in and the urgency?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:17:54] Yes, totally. That was a, a major thing because every one of us around the world described our business differently, and none of us had the focus on the real nature of the business, which was, which was urgent response to urgent needs. And when we changed that concept and all of our sales teams around the world were using that concept to pitch our, our, our company to businesses, um, it, it's, it sold, it resonated and enabled us to, to sell.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:18:23] Not only local businesses in each of our markets, but global companies that used us in many offices across, across the world. And in fact, to give you a sense of that, of that global feel, in the end, we got to the point where if we had a, a. A client that was global and operating in several different con uh, countries and calling us from several different places.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:18:46] We would assign a team to that company, which may consist of agents in the us, agents in the uk, and agents that are service center in India. That phone call or email would reach that entire team of say, seven people all at the same time, and they were operating 24 hours a day, and that team could respond to that company no matter where they were calling from, or no matter what time they called. So it was seamless global service.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:19:13] I remember as we went through the discussions and the, the challenges that everyone was describing, what the company did as a travel agency for ships, crews. Mm-hmm. And we got 'em to turn that around to the customer so we could message to the travel. Person in the, in the shipping companies that you don't want to be the person to get the phone call, that your ship can't leave 'cause you don't have your crew. Yep. And all of a sudden they said, that's me.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:19:42] Yeah. And it was, it was funny. I remember we used to go to conferences, oil conferences, and marine conferences where we would be speaking to a group of operations managers that were managing the crew rotations. I'd get up there and, and be talking with them head to head with a.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:20:01] So-called competitor that wasn't really a competitor, but thought they could break into the business, big travel agency, American Express, Carlson, et cetera. And they would talk about what, how great they were and how they could provide this service and that service and that service. And I would get up there and say, well, okay, here's the situation.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:20:18] You have a ship at sea. It has this issue. It's coming to port. You have a crisis on your hand. Who are you gonna call? And taking it from that approach, every one of them sat up and listened. Every one of them thought, Hmm, okay, what? Okay, keep on talking. And that was the sales pitch that really, really resonated because it's what we really do.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:20:37] It's what we do. We just, were not good at vocalizing that. Until we all got together and agreed what our common vision and message was. Now,

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:20:48] once, once all this was, was done, what happened in the marketplace? You, you grew, but kind of specifically what happened?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:20:56] A lot of what happened was internal. We still had the internal competition going on. We still had different offices with different ownerships, and it was about this time that we figured out that we had to, we had to solve that problem. We had to. Figure out how to get together and negotiate with each other so that we could become one company globally with one ownership structure where every office was owned by that ownership structure.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:21:24] So we did that and it, it took us a couple of years to do that. Uh, we brought in a private equity company. In 2009 for, uh, 25% ownership interest, and that provided a lot of funding. We bought out a couple of shareholders that had been. Small minority owners in some of the offices and enabled us to restructure the ownership so that we were one company with one ownership structure that made all the difference in the world.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:21:54] Uh, then we truly were a global company instead of a global consortium of little companies acting like a big company with a common.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:22:02] How'd the culture of the organization change a, after you've gone through this sort of rebranding and monolithic branding strategy and, and change it to a, a single company mentality?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:22:13] It's hard, uh, when you're dealing with all those nationalities sitting in a room. And so, uh, we would fight and argue, but we, we were coming from a, a single perspective. We knew that whatever we agreed on and what we ever, whatever we negotiated. Was going to either harm or benefit everyone equally. We didn't have independent interests out there competing with one another.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:22:36] So you've obviously seen a lot of change since the early days of pen and paper scheduling into, uh, really when you left the company in, in 2014. How has the company changed since then?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:22:48] I retired in 2013, as did a couple of other of the older shareholders that had reached 65 at the time, and we brought in three of the cases, new CEOs and three of the offices.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:23:00] So that transition was going on. And then in 2014 at a board meeting, we came up with the, the brilliant idea that we might be interested in cashing out and selling our company. And uh, we were the biggest. So, who are we gonna call? We, we had no idea who to call or what to do. Uh, we thought about calling private equity again and seeing what they could do well, somehow or another, we came up with a brilliant idea of calling our number two competitor who was a company called a TPI and a TPI had during this time bought Instone, which was the company that we had originally aligned ourselves with.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:23:41] And so basically we were Griffin and in stone, once again, a TPI in stone, competing around the world for the same business except we were the biggest, we were bigger, they were private equity owned, and we thought, Hmm, let's give them a call. So we called 'em and said. Why about whatabout you buying us? And they said, okay.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:24:04] Much to our surprise, the mission of the private equity company was to grow the business. What better way to grow the business than to buy your worst enemy competitor? And eliminate them outta the market. And that's what they did. And so now the company, A TPI, I don't know how big they are now, but basically they've consolidated in Stone and Griffin and they have a huge corporate travel operation and they're one of the biggest travel agencies in the world.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:24:32] You had a very interesting, long and winding road as far as the, the trajectory of the company and going through these different acquisitions and sales. What was the biggest learning or takeaway from this? A lot of our listeners are, um, are young executives, are aspiring executives? What, what sort of words of wisdom can you s hare with them.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:24:51] There's a lot over the years. I, I think if I were to try to hone in on the most important lessons, I think that the business lesson I learned [00:25:00] early on before we got into all the machinations of merging with Griffin and et cetera, was that the way to run a business is to build trust and communication rather than a hierarchical system of management.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:25:15] Trust and communication are the key ingredients to being able to run a company successfully. A lot of people don't understand that. Um, that was a big lesson I learned early on in the Griffin years. The importance of a global brand and mission and vision, uh, became critically clear to me as we went through this rebranding process, and I saw the results of that.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:25:41] The last thing I would say, and, and this this deals most specifically with, with running a, a global operation, uh, and that is that, that you've got to recognize and understand the importance of cultural value differences and take them into consideration in dealing with people around the world in your operation.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:26:06] I think those are probably some of the major things that I learned over the years.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:26:10] How, how did you deal with the, the cultural difference aspect? Did you have any sort of training that you'd put the leadership to or the different teams through?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:26:19] You know, no. Um, I, I think that, that over the years, I, I somehow or another ran into people that shared with me.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:26:29] Their wisdom about, uh, global cultural differences. And I, and I remember one guy in particular, and I'm not sure exact the exact venue he was at Norwegian, and he pulled a little sheet of paper out of his pocket and said. Told me that you have to deal with cultural differences and realize that people around the world are not thinking the way you're thinking and don't have the same values as you have.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:26:54] And I'm like, what the hell is he talking about? And then he started reading countries and their prime, their principle value. And then it became clear to me, and he started off with the US and he says, your value is success and freedom. You wanna make money, you wanna be successful, you wanna be the top, you wanna be the biggest in China.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:27:14] They could care less. They're interested in harmony. They don't want any trouble. They don't want the feathers to be ruffled. They, they don't want to offend anybody. In Greece, it's all about fairness and loyalty. Success is important, but if it's not fair and you're not loyal to hell with success, India is all about.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:27:33] Spirituality, the UK is about tradition. If you don't recognize those things when you're talking to your partner from China or your partner from the uk, you're speaking a different language. You may be speaking English, but you're not on the same wavelength that they're on. I was lucky enough to learn that just from hearing from certain people that taught me that lesson.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:27:55] So can you give us an example of a point that you wanted to make and how you would translate it to each of those audiences?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:28:03] I think I had the most trouble with the Greeks and my principal partner was, was a Greek, and he was a wonderful guy. I remember, uh, a few occasions where I suggested something that, that he perceived.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:28:19] To be unfair, rightfully or wrongfully, and he perceived me to be disloyal to him because I brought up this unfair suggestion and he would blow his fuse. What I had to do was recognize where this was coming from and instead of blow back or argue back, step back, let him process this. Then come back again and say, well, let's reexamine this and just keep churning it.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:28:48] That without getting in his face and without reacting to, to his bluster or, or rage, I had to just step back and accept This guy's Greek. This is the way he is gonna behave. This is the way he is gonna respond to me. I've gotta just take it, sit back and wait for the right, right opportunity to get my message across.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:29:07] So did the other partners get on board with this or were you the only one that was the translator? You had the secret decoder ring?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:29:14] No, I think, I think we all kind of did. Um, I, I think in the end we were starting to understand each other, each other a lot better. We did have some outliers. Our partner in Singapore, he was Indian by, uh, by culture.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:29:27] He decided he knew how to run this company better than the rest of us. And, uh, so he was rather a tough person to handle in the board meetings 'cause he would try to take them over and tell us what to do. And, and we tried to deal with them as best we could. We could. And the end, uh, we ended up, uh, buying him out.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:29:47] Because we just couldn't, we couldn't deal with him. And that happens. And if that happens, you have to figure out how you're gonna go forward.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:29:53] Are, are you fa familiar with Gear Hofs, his cultural framework?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:29:58] No. Sounds like I should.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:30:00] You, you would really be fascinated by it. He created this like very mathematical framework around.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:30:08] Essentially every country in the world. And on a scale of one to 100, where they stand on these like six dimensions. So do they have a, a short term or long term view of the world? Are they an individualistic culture or collectivist culture? And it's, it's. A rough framework for, for all different cultures around the world.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:30:27] But it's a, a really fascinating tool to look at if you're going to do business or if you're working with somebody in, you know, somewhere in Asia or somewhere in South America, or somewhere in the Middle East, or, you know, a lot of these different areas geared Ofsted. You should, you should look it up.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:30:43] I think. I can't wait to read that. And, and I was lucky enough to get that message without reading the book, without reading the book. So I consider myself lucky in

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:30:52] that regard. So in your career, Bob, as you look back, is there anything that you wish you had done differently?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:30:59] No. I'm really happy with how my careers changed over the years, what I went through and morphing from one to the other and where I end up, where I ended up.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:31:09] And I'm really comfortable with. With where I ended up and what we achieved as as a business.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:31:15] So what would you, I know we've asked a similar question, but what would you tell some executive or aspiring executive who is about to face some real change? What advice would you give them of how to navigate it?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:31:30] Think out of the box. Don't, don't get caught in a structured view of the situation. Whenever you're challenged, creativity I think is the most important skill to deploy and, um, I pride myself over the years in always making lemonade out of lemons. And I think in any challenging situation, you have to look for how to make the lemonade

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:31:53] simple as that.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:31:55] Yep.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:31:56] When after we had gone through, uh, our work together, [00:32:00] how would you explain to others who were going through similar challenges of what you'd been through?

Bob Westendarp:

[00:32:07] I would tell them that you need help. That this is not something that is easy to do on your own when you have a bunch of different people involved and they all have their own opinion as to as to what the right answer is.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:32:20] You have to have a container, you have to have somebody that can. That can help you structure all those thoughts into a cohesive conclusion. That's what you did, and that's what the guardrails did for us. If we had not gone through that process, no telling where we would've ended up.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:32:39] Fair enough.

Bob Westendarp:

[00:32:40] So kudos to you.

Ward Pennebaker:

[00:32:42] Well, thank you.

Matt Pennebaker:

[00:32:42] Thank you. Thanks for listening to Rethink Change. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and be sure to follow the show so you don't miss a single episode. If you're a disruptor looking to challenge the status quo and don't know where to start or what to do next, Pennebaker can help find out more at Pennebaker.com.