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My husband and I planned a wonderful river cruise this summer from Regensburg to Budapest, traveling through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. We were looking forward to unpacking once and enjoying the beautiful scenery and perhaps cooler temperatures as Europe floated by and we relaxed aboard the ship, unwinding from the stress of running a successful business.
Mother Nature had other plans.
What happens when your 8-day European river cruise runs out of river?
Extreme heat and prolonged dry conditions had lowered sections of the Danube River to the point that our itinerary couldn’t operate as planned. Instead of eight days of cruising, we experienced less than eight hours of it. Along the way, there were motor coaches, itinerary changes, three different ships, packing and unpacking, and temperatures reaching 104 degrees.
In other words, it was the exact opposite of the seamless, unplugged experience I had envisioned when I organized the trip earlier this year.
We certainly had a different adventure than we initially signed up for. We also left having experienced some powerful lessons about leadership.
The cruise company, Scenic River Cruises, couldn't control the river. But they could control their response.
Communication began a week before our embarkation date and continued throughout the trip. Scenic was transparent about the conditions and gave us options, including rescheduling or receiving a refund. We had been looking forward to the trip, and reworking our entire vacation at that point sounded like more work than going with the flow. After all, I’m from the world of retail — I’m used to change! So we forged ahead. And we were certainly immersed in change.
Our itinerary changed again before we even boarded. Stops changed. Ships changed. We spent three nights docked in Passau, Germany, where the Danube was so low that the view from the balcony of our beautiful junior suite was mostly rebar and graffiti below the dock!
Scenic adapted.
When the river couldn't take us somewhere, coaches did. We explored beautiful cities, abbeys, castles, orchards, and palaces throughout Germany, Austria, and Slovakia. We eventually enjoyed a few precious hours actually cruising the Danube, before conditions required another change of plans.
Then we packed again. And changed ships again.
Ultimately, the river levels became too low to safely complete the journey by water, so we arrived in Budapest by coach and spent the final night of our “river cruise” at a hotel.
Was it the vacation we planned? Absolutely not. Was it an extraordinary lesson in service and leadership? Absolutely.
We can plan and plan, but there are so many variables that remain out of our control. Leaders must navigate according to their best-laid plans, but great leadership is often revealed when absolutely nothing is going according to plan.
Retail leaders deal with plenty of things they can't control. Someone calls out before a busy Saturday. A shipment arrives late. Technology goes down. Construction blocks the entrance. Weather keeps customers away or unexpectedly sends them flooding in. A promotion doesn't perform as expected. A new initiative changes at the last minute.
Even in a state of flux, great leaders have enormous influence over how their teams experience those moments. You can’t always deliver the experience you planned. But you can always influence the experience people have.
Read on for some tangible lessons for retail leaders about how to navigate the unexpected disruptions, including what great leaders do when the plan falls apart.
Sometimes our best leadership shows up when the river runs dry!
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