Love ‘em or Lose ‘em
I’ve had a slim yellow book in my bag which talks about getting good people to stay since the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference back in Boston (2006!) which I got when I sat in on a seminar with my friend Matt. Finally, a few days ago I got to reading it and as usual penned plenty of notes in the margins… and then, as we all experience, I put it to one side and forgot about it.
That was until I read Rachel Elnaugh’s latest post (thanks Steve for the link!) which prompted me to pick it back up and read again.
I too watched Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares last night and saw a Lancashire pub try to turn their business around based on the Gordon’s ideas. Everything went swimmingly until he left them to it. On his return he saw some very unhappy staff on the verge of leaving and the owners clueless as to how to make things easier. All the work and effort that they had all put in the year before had evaporated and they were back to square one.
The programme is good at showing how an experienced professional can share ideas with others who want to learn and make a marked improvement.
Consultancy is good like that. You can bring someone onboard with the passion, ideas, and experience to help get you from A-B quicker/better and everything is rosey. That is until that person walks away to show that what has happened was that the business didn’t learn anything - they just piggy backed and bought a meal ticket.
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” - Chinese Proverb
The key to any business is sustainability and you can only get that if everyone has a shared vision. You may have one or two to lead the pack but leadership and management are two very different things.
I saw the pub owners managing and not leading, one boss tried to jazz up the menu with over-the-top wording and the other couldn’t keep himself out of the kitchen and both got in the way of the staff. Leading is something different. Leading inspires people. Leadership is a shift from position to knowledge. Knowledge comes from having a solid understanding of the business at every level and using that information to help guide the staff and the business forward.
Remember when you learnt to ride your bike? You learnt to ride it because you wanted the freedom, not because you enjoyed your parents holding the back of your seat or those big ol’ stablisers.
I’m going to be reading through my little yellow book later tonight. You can find out more about this book here.