This is the story of Zac, who with Andrew, built GlobalLink from nothing to market leader in little over 12 years.
Zac and Andrew started out sitting opposite each other at work and soon struck up a friendship. After a few years they started to question why they would go on working for somebody else. The owners were never really receptive to any of their ideas. The bosses weren’t dismissive, they just kinda said, ‘Yes’ when it was obvious nothing was ever going to happen. Andrew and Zac started to concoct how they could do everything better, convinced themselves that the majority of customers would leave with them and they would earn more money than their salaries.
They resigned together and set up GlobalLink. Despite its grand name, life began around Zac’s mum’s dining table. They had to do everything themselves. Zac hustled like mad to get their first few customers and canvassed anyone with a pulse, from family members, friends and cold-calling. One thing they did get very badly wrong was assuming their previous clients would leave with them. None of them did. However, the potent cocktail of Andrew’s ability to figure out what needed to be done and Zac’s charm and ability to sell, worked.
GlobalLink grew every year for the first five years. But, the more customers they acquired, the more operational issues popped up. Over time, Andrew and Zac grew so used to the same customer problems that nobody noticed them anymore. They now consider them as the necessary inconveniences of being in this market. ‘Everyone who does what we do suffers from this’ [quote from Andrew].
To help describe what it is like in GlobalLink today, we are going to ask Pippa to help. Pippa, over to you …
Pippa
Thanks Hay Lam and Deirdre. Hi everyone, I’m Pippa and I am the Office Manager at GlobalLink, the company featured in this fable. I am employee #ONE, and joined 18 months after its conception. I too started at Zac’s dining table and celebrated my tenth anniversary with them this year.
I will paint a picture of why we find ourselves here.
We grew to 42 strong in our first five years here at GlobalLink and have been stuck there since. At best, we seem to operate like a business made of stick.
Despite what looked like several near shutting-our-doors moments with incensed wolves baying for blood, Zac and Andrew have rejected repeated calls to build a business made of brick. Zac especially promised to change on so many occasions but as soon as things returned to normal, the momentum died. Consequently our highly trained managers spend even more of their day checking and correcting team members’ work in the vain hope of spotting all our mistakes before our customers do. Needless to say, we have quite a high rate of team turnover, and only a few internal candidates ever put their hands up to become the next managers here. We have a ‘faulty’ culture.
Zac is an adrenaline junkie, easily seduced by the newest, shiniest thing, and he shoots from the hip. He often says that he likes to drive the business as if it is a get-away car and prides himself on being street-smart.
Andrew, on the other hand, sticks to the tried and tested methods that have worked for him since day one.
Neither like being held accountable, so they have resisted structure, processes and factual measures, especially when it directly measured them. They see it as suffocating and stifling.
Don’t get me wrong, we have our annual strategy days, culture, management meetings, but that is all they really are … a few days and meetings. Zac and Andrew’s opinions trump any previously made decisions. An owner’s prerogative I suppose. The broken record is that every year we ask the same question of how we double in size in the next three years? We come up with some great initiatives, get excited and yet we have stayed the same size.
This story starts with Zac being summoned to a meeting with Graham at Norton. None of us have any idea what it is about. Norton is GlobalLink’s first and now biggest customer. Zac got the contract because when they were starting out, Graham, who is also Zac’s brother-in-law, gave the new kids on the block a chance. Much of Norton’s meteoric growth has been credited to Graham and they made him CEO a few years ago.
Today is another call for GlobalLink to build a business made of brick. Will Zac and Andrew accept or reject
the call?the call?
A quick read, deceptively brief. None of the usual formula of using several examples to support a theory. This is a story about every business which you will be thinking about long after you close the back cover.
Business books are significantly more effective* when they are read in hardcopy. With its bright yellow cover, this one will be visible on your desk or dropped on the coffee table – it will be calling you to read it and implement the wisdom within!
*Big claim, based on donkey's years of experience.
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