It’s not often that I use a blog post for anything other than updating people with life at Vital but some of the unsavoury events which have taken place recently have made my blood boil. When I accepted the job at Vital I knew that I was accepting responsibility for the working lives of 200 or so people and that the decisions I made had to balance the needs of the business with those of our staff and customers and I have always tried to act responsibly, I’m not saying that I have got everything right but I would like to think that if I have got things wrong it was not through lack of effort or thought. There are times when it feels like some people who are running businesses haven’t spared a thought for the people who turn up every day to face customers and keep the business running, having run a big business I am aware of how easy it is to fall into the trap of making decisions in splendid isolation and forgetting what’s really important and I would like to think that whilst I was guilty of a number of things this lack of awareness of the potential impact of my decisions never made it onto my charge sheet.
Throughout the MBO process I strived to keep our people and our customers at the forefront of my mind and so far in my Vital career, my proudest moment was not the moment when I signed on the dotted line with LDC (there were several dozen dotted lines) but it was the 20 minutes I spent updating an engaged bunch of people on the LDC deal and what it would mean for them and the difference that it could potentially make to their careers. The other point that I made several times during our recent team meeting was that they as managers and assistant managers helped get this deal over the line, in fact we couldn’t have done it without them as they were the ones that made a great impression on the army of due diligence people who have crawled all over our business during the last couple of months.
I don’t try and present myself as somehow one of a kind as many people at a senior level in successful businesses think in exactly the same way as I do, it just pains me when I come across people who forget about their responsibilities.
Rant over!
random outpourings 