I’ve been struggling for a while to find a good venue for informal business meetings that weren’t in the City Centre here in Birmingham. I took a bit of a long shot today to meet up with a long established contact of mine at TGI Fridays on the Hagley Road.
Despite the opening times on their website (11.30am) they are actually open for breakfast from 8am. Great staff, friendly atmosphere, very nice refurbishment (following on from a major fire and lengthy closure) and free/plentiful parking. Can’t recommend it enough and I know I shall be using it again.
I went to a meeting this week at Aston University with Professor Michael West who is Executive Dean of Aston Business School. The meeting which, was over lunch, was fascinating. The Business School facilities alone are outstanding and nothing like the rest of the Uni there.
The reason for the meeting being so useful though was not only because Mike was so lovely and gracious but his interest in the process of insolvency from a human point was immense. During our discussions he commented on how painful and raw it must have been especially considering the age of the company and that it was a family business. This of course is very true but then he likened the loss to that of losing a friend or family member. This is something I have also used to explain how it felt and in many ways still feels even now.
Mike suggested that I read a book which details the 5 stages of grief called On Grief and Grieving by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler. Following my lunch I went to buy this book, intrigued to know what Mike was referring to and on hurridly turning to the Contents page I knew exactly what he meant.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
When a business goes into administration these are stages you pass through.
I could even say that added to this we saw ’survivers guilt’ for those who worked under the administrators and have since been given permenant jobs under new ownership.
There are a few other emotions that I have to deal with including relief, trust and guilt – at the top it’s hard to trust anyone else and guilt because of wondering if anything else could have been done, not for my own sake but my mother and employees. Relief that I can move on and carve my own future now as I want to. I am even more determined to use this to help other directors and leaders through the process so watch this space.
When we’re little we have fabulous imaginations, we pretend to be fairies, cowboys, princesses and superheros and yet as we grow up it stops. Somewhere along the journey we take in life we lose sight of our dreams, hopes and aspirations.
Having gone through quite a traumatic time with the loss of the famly business this year there’s certainly been a fair amount of soul searching and trying to identify what it was that I dreamed of.
I certainly realised that recalling what we dream of is tough as an adult and is often influenced by others and society. Even business owners I know struggle to remember why they started their particular company – we shouldn’t lose our vision, hopes and dreams whether in business or life.
As adults it’s as if we don’t give ourselves permission to dream and feel that these deepest desires are possible but we should. We all have the right to have dreams and most importantly to follow them. Afterall, who are we without dreams? Take a moment or two to remember what yours are and start taking steps to follow them now.
I needed to get a new pin for my husband’s wrist watch this week. All very simple and straightward I thought and yet I had a clear demonstration of both good and bad service.
First of all I called into a local and modern looking jewellers. I handed over the watch and asked the lady for a new pin. Her response was to tell me that it would be £12. On entering the small shop I had already been surprised to hear the end of a loud telephone conversation in which her colleague (I’m assuming it may of been her boss) was berating someone on the phone – so I already felt a little uncomfortable. As the £12 was simply for a replacement pin I asked why it was so expensive.
The assistant, who had taken it upon herself to put the watch in a bag, shouted over to another employee “why’s it so expensive?”. The answer came back “it is hand delivered there and back”. After looking rather surprised I asked if this meant they would send it off. This is all with me having replaced a great deal of watch strap pins myself years ago when working in a jewellers shop so I knew how simple it was. Despite the little work shop in clear view, it was confirmed that they would send it off and it would take “at least 7 days” to do.
With the cost, timescale and service being such issues – I left with the watch. I thanked them and said I needed it a bit quicker. As I got to the door the ‘boss’ shouted “I bet they’ll put a cheap Chinese pin in where ever you go”.
I walked past two shops, over the pedestrian crossing to Timpson’s. A late middle aged man sat at a work bench and was in deep conversation with a customer who was waiting on him to complete some repairs. He acknowledged me and apologised for needing a moment to finish serving the lady. We three chatted during this time.
After the lady had left satisfied, he asked how he could help. I explained that I just wanted a pin. He said this was no problem and searched through some boxes. All the way through he chatted and was friendly and helpful. Very quickly he found a pin, repaired the watch and passed it over for inspection. I asked how much I owed him and he shook his head, “pop something in the charity box on the counter and that will be fine”. I thanked him and his parting comment was to wish me a nice day.
What a difference a few footsteps made. Timpson’s is still owned by it’s founding family and their strap line is “Great Service by Great People”. How true!
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