The 2015 TLMI Annual Meeting took place October 8-11 at The Broadmoor, an historic resort and hotel in Colorado Springs, CO, USA. A member of Historic Hotels of America of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Broadmoor sits at the base of Cheyenne Mountain – 6,230 feet above sea level. Enjoying the picturesque setting, a record-breaking 450 converters, suppliers and guests came together to network with industry peers, fine tune their management skills and honor Frank Sablone, who is retiring from his role as TLMI president after 18 years of service to the label industry.

The theme of this year’s Annual Meeting was “Empowerment – Employees and Leadership,” and featured presenters who discussed ways that businesses can create strategies for leading through change, and how to transform change into a competitive advantage. “As company founders, owners, CEOs, presidents and senior managers, it is imperative that we take a close look at empowering our employees,” said Annual Meeting chair Tom Embley, CEO and president of Precision AirConvey.

Opening the morning session on Friday, October 9, was Peter Sheahan, founder and CEO of ChangeLabs, a consultancy whose goal is to help deliver large-scale behavioral change to companies around the world. In his presentation titled “FLIP: Creative Strategies for Turning Challenge into Opportunity and Change into Competitive Advantage.” Sheahan focused on embracing change and breaking free from models of thinking that are no longer relevant or effective in today’s business climate. He said, “Transformation is rarely a matter of intent and more often a matter of alignment.” Sheahan discussed the role assumptions play in blinding businesses to new opportunities, the importance of clarity and alignment in developing a strategic response to change, the need to take manageable risks to drive innovation, and the advantages in collaborating across the value chain to exploit new opportunities.

Kicking off Saturday’s morning session was Blue Angel pilot John Foley, who presented “Drive the Ball: Sustaining Excellence and Leadership through Change.” Foley emphasized focusing on one’s mind, as well as learning to focus as a whole team. He said, “What is your center point, and what is most important to you? Does your team all have the same answer? You must be aligned.”

With change taking place daily in today’s world, Foley stressed: “Human beings are more similar than dissimilar. You must connect at the heart, not the head.” Ultimately, Foley said, execution is paramount. “At the end of the day, you better execute – Nothing matters if you do not execute. And if you can only do one thing to get execution, it’s through trust. Increase trust and execution will follow,” he said, pointing out that trust means different things to different people, and it goes a long way when dealing with customers.

Foley also addressed the importance of accountability. When things go wrong, he said, communication is key. “Discuss what you and your team did wrong, and fess up to mistakes and commit to correcting them. Give your team freedom to admit to their mistakes because it will help strengthen them,” Foley said.

“Each team member should be glad to be here,” he concluded, adding that company leaders should check their egos at the door and create a safe environment for people to perform and grow.

Dr. Robert Kriegel, author of If It Ain’t Broke…Break it, followed Foley with a discussion on “leading versus managing,” and why leading is different and more important than managing. Kriegel presented case studies of big companies that became dinosaurs. “Wang had 85% of the computer market, with basically a word processor. IBM came out with a computer and Wang thought nothing of it… Six years later, Wang was bankrupt. They did not have a vision, nor looked toward the future,” he said.

“Are you thinking the same about digital?” Kriegel asked. “Don’t be stupid. Even IBM thought the future would be about hardware and they gave their software away to Bill Gates – big mistake. Blackberry had about a 60% share of its market, and ‘did a Wang’ – they thought they were great. Today they have approximately 3% of the market. They did not recognize that change was happening and kept with the same way of doing things.

“The people that win are the ones that keep challenging the old ways,” Kriegel said. “If it ain’t broke, break it. Continuous change is about redefining your role with clients.” Kriegler stressed that businesses should always challenge the way things have been done, and be ready to change through constant innovation.