Edition 485 – Set Them Free
It’s 1985. It’s my last year of high school. Sting had embarked on his solo career a couple of years previously and the radio airwaves were dominated equally by him, Phil Collins and Dire Straits.
One of his chart toppers that year was “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”. It’s said that he wrote that, as a response to the public reaction to the 1983 song by his band, The Police, “Every Breath You Take”. In an interview I once saw, Sting felt that people listening to that earlier song, were interpreting those lyrics too literally, leading to a sense of acceptance of control in relationships.
If you love someone, set them free!
The song came to me, recently, during some client meetings, not for the fact it was playing in the background, but as a result of the conversations taking place with family business owners, who were talking about their staff.
Some staff, in various businesses, have expressed rumblings about their lot in life. Whether it is their workload, or work colleagues, or customers of the business, or perceived failures in systems, the commonality amongst these individuals is:
- They’re never, quite, entirely happy, no matter the changes that you make in your business, to make their lives better.
- They’re longer standing employees – in most case, over 3 years tenure.
- They’re usually adept at what they do, and for the most part, do it well.
In my experience, we persevere with these individuals for too long in our businesses, mostly out of some invented fear that if they leave, our businesses will suffer. Invariably, over time, our level of frustration builds gradually to the point where, much like the frog in the pot, the water reaches boiling point one day, when we’ve not seen it coming.
My challenge to small and family business owners is to identify early on, when your employees are starting to grumble, and then consider, whether the time is approaching, when you should set them free.
Who do we know and trust in our industry or profession, that can help develop our people, beyond what we ourselves can do as business owners?
Who amongst our trusted colleagues, should we be speaking with, to see whether they offer an alternative for some of our own staff, when it seems that we can’t offer them the future that we thought we could?
In larger organisations, individuals in one division, have the opportunity to seek advancement in other areas of the organisation, through the relationships that not only have they developed, but those that their direct reports have access to, and connections with.
So, why, in the small and family business space, aren’t we connecting with our colleagues in and across industries, and finding out who they’re looking for in their own businesses, and whether some of our own, might be better suited to their business.
This isn’t about terminating an employee. It’s about recognising that, at times, our own business can’t offer the pathway to allow our people to develop to their fullest potential. It’s acknowledging that, if we truly wanted to do the right thing by our people, then the journey for their progression might well be outside of our business, and with another organisation whose values you align to, yet whose trajectory is at a different pace, or gradient.
This Week’s Tip
“As managers and owners, we’re one of the five most important people in someone’s life,
at any one point in time. What are you doing, to ensure this isn’t transitory, and that, instead,
you’ll be long remembered, for guiding people on the path to, ultimately, where they want to be?”