Risk & Business Magazine Cal LeGrow Fall 2016 | Page 29

STAND OUT

You’ve Got To Stand
Out To Stay Alive

BY: ANNE WHELAN, CEO,
SEAFAIR CAPITAL

Doing Things Differently

T

here’s an old saying that
goes, “the definition of
insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again
and expecting different
results.” That profound statement is
attributed to Albert Einstein. But you
don’t need to be a Nobel Prize winner
to figure out that if you want a different
result, you have to do things differently.
Now more than ever, we need to
get that right for Newfoundland
and Labrador businesses.
Look at the situation we now find
ourselves in. The province is running a
huge deficit. The current unemployment
rate is the highest in the country—and
growing. The average age in the province
is rapidly increasing, foreshadowing
a significant demographic and health
care crisis in the next two decades.
Our government has presented a “tax
and spend” budget. If we could see our
way through to better times where we
could trim costs and find efficiencies,
there might be some rationale for that.
But that hasn’t been our pattern.
To suggest that the problem is the
government-of-the-day is to oversimplify
the situation. It’s that we—all of us who
own businesses or work in them—have
to think differently. We are the economy.
We are the taxpayers, the job creators, the
people who turn the wheels of commerce
in our province. If we want different
results, it’s time for us to change it up.
When it comes to guiding a business
through challenging times, the silver
lining is that economic woes can actually
create a sense of urgency for change. Sure,
it would arguably be better if that urgency
was shared by government, but we have
become accustomed to a level of spending

in this province that is going to take some
time to correct. Since most companies
can’t run a large deficit, businesses don’t
have the luxury of that time. We need
different results, and we need them now.
While each company has its own
unique challenges, there are some
fundamental truths about businesses
in Newfoundland and Labrador. One of
them is that while it’s true that we lag
woefully behind in productivity in this
province, it’s at the convergence of people
and technology that this productivity
gap is most noted. What does this mean
for business? It means we need to start
investing not just in bricks and mortar
but also in software and innovation.

“THE DEFINITION
OF INSANITY IS
DOING THE SAME
THING OVER AND
OVER AGAIN
AND EXPECTING
DIFFERENT
RESULTS.”
Through our businesses at Seafair
Capital, we have taken our share of
economic hits this year and are trying
to do things differently. We have had
to make some cuts, but we are working
hard to find innovation in the way we
do our day-to-day work. For example,
we’re implementing new software to
reduce HR paperwork and increase
our accuracy in tracking leave and
benefits. Another program creates
visual performance dashboards guiding