No, not the Nevil Shute novel that I read in Year 10 at school, which sent me on a journey of reading many of his classic works. This week it is all about the 2018 Family Business Australia National Conference held in Alice Springs last week.
I’ve worked with family businesses for 30 years. I’ve seen a lot of what works and a lot of what doesn’t.
In my observations, there is a stark difference between the businesses that succeed, grow, build wealth and endure into the future and the ones that potter along at best – and fail at worst.
Every business owner I speak with, bar none, considers dealing with staff their number one headache. Not finance. Not marketing. Not technology. Staff.
I caught up with a liquidator colleague of mine the other week. Amongst other topics, we got around to talking about the state of business generally and what each of us is seeing in our respective fields of expertise. In a nutshell, some of what we’re observing is the same and some is different.
When I was a whipper-snapper, I was an avid participant in the scouting movement for seven years. I loved hanging out weekly with a bunch of like minded individuals and some great mentor leaders, learning new skills, going on camps and making a contribution to our local community. Some of my strongest memories are from that time in my life.
Over recent months, there has been a trend of business owners expressing their frustration when a staff member leaves them. All that time invested in getting them trained up, only for them to take their skills elsewhere. How inconsiderate?
It’s interesting the various family businesses that I work with. The industries may be different. The family dynamics may be different. The financial side of things can fluctuate wildly amongst different businesses. However, often the problems are the same across all of them, be they a blue collar trades based business or a professional services firm.
“Don’t Change” happens to be my favourite INXS song, perhaps because it is so powerful a memory of my teenage years. Now, incredibly, almost 36 years old (for the audio nerds, it was off the Shabooh Shoobah album), the distinctive voice of Michael Hutchence suggests to the object of his desires to “don’t change for you, don’t change a thing, for me.”
Whilst Hutchence implored his love to stay as she is, the fact remains that through our lives, our experiences, for better or for worse, impose change on us. Some of it we force. Some of it merely happens. I’d suggest that for most people, it is resisted as it takes us out of our comfort zone.