I was fortunate enough recently to hear Tom O’Toole’s presentation. He is famous for a few things and one of my personal favourites is his response to the following “Why would you spend all that money on training your people when they might just up and leave?”
To which he replies “Yeah and what if I don’t train them and they stay?!”
Tom is the Beechworth Baker. His Bakery is not just a successful business it is credited with reinvigorating the entire town of Beechworth in rural Victoria
In his presentation he has a photo of the Entire Team, a sizeable group of people.
His talks about his people being the largest cost in his business and he acknowledges that his Team are the reason the business is as successful as it is. While the Bakery items are first class without the right Team, he says, there is no way the Beachworth Bakery would be what it is today.
Does this great Team just manifest? No way!
When I joined my first Corporate I heard “your people are your greatest asset”. As a newly graduated accountant I found this a strange concept; I’d been taught that assets were either current or non-current. Current = bank account etc and can be quickly converted to cash. Or non-current = was plant & equipment or machine to be depreciated over time till the value was …. Well …$Zero.
I distinctly remember thinking “Why would anyone think of employees – people – as assets?”
I learned that “your people are your greatest asset” meant some thing completely different in the Corporate World.
When I left accounting behind and moved into Organisation Development and studied adult learning and coaching psychology over time I developed my own theories about creating greater value from existing “assets”. I used to hear people talk about “dead wood”; a particularly unpleasant way to refer to employees – again, people!! – who in the speakers opinion was “not contributing”.
Again I distinctly remember my thoughts at the time “Did you employ dead wood? Were they Dead Wood when you employed them?”
In the same way that a business would keep the plant & equipment and machinery up to date and well maintained – had the “employee assets” been improved in the same way.
When a business employs some one, whether as a part-time, casual team member or as a fulltime senior executive they are asking them to bring all their skills, knowledge, enthusiasm, energy and belief to the business.
What does the business offer in return?
Tom O’Toole in his Beechworth Bakery, offers a lot to his people. Many businesses, large and small, could learn a lot from Tom
Instead of bemoaning the cost of employees, instead of whining about penalty rates and paying super etc many businesses would be better off putting their energy into recruiting, training, giving feedback and creating development opportunities for their people.
Instead of trying to do everything their selves many business owners, entrepreneurs and StartUps would be better creating a great team around them so that they can get on with what they do best and have others do what thy do best.
Having the right people in your Team takes time; to recruit the right people, to set clear, agreed expectations, to provide training, feedback and more training and more feedback, to create opportunities and help them create their own opportunities. Years ago I worked for Mike Hawker when he was the CEO of IAG (Insurance Australia Group) and he was launching our Leadership Development Program for Middle Managers (my favourite group of managers) and he talked about taking a spiraling approach to ones career saying (similar): “Take the opportunity to learn, grow, develop. Your career will be like a spiral …. and if you need to spiral out of IAG for a while, that’s OK. You’ll take your knowledge and skills and be Leaders in Business and IAG can know that we have contributed to the overall betterment of business. And who knows you just might spiral back”
What is important is how people feel about being part of your business. How equipped they feel to do the job asked of them.
How they behave every day with your customers, suppliers, the rest of the Team. How valued they feel as employees, as members of your Team, of your business. it’s your business ….
