The true story about building a successful business based on basic family values

o·pen let·ter

/?ōp?n ?led?r/noun

1. a letter, often critical, addressed to a particular person or group of people but intended for publication.

The true story about building a successful business based on basic family values

Written by Simon Frigon on Dec 13th 2018

It's that time of year again, where businesses have their annual Christmas parties. Our 3rd generation family business has hosted north of fifty of these events and I`ve had the privilege to take part in the last twenty. 

Our recipe is pretty simple, a few months in advance survey the team with a few top restaurant choices and put out to vote and voila. A glass of wine, a short monologue by myself followed by a nice cheeky dinner and maybe a special coffee to celebrate another year. Nothing extravagant but still very rewarding for the team. It's a time to reminisce and share stories with our people.

As the tradition goes I always raise a glass and offer a short monologue to the team and recap the year passed. I'll admit it it's not my area of expertise and certainly don't ever plan on becoming a motivational speaker, nonetheless I do my best and take the time to thank each individual member of the team. 

This year, my girlfriend of 20 years couldn`t be in attendance since she was on a business trip of her own in Geneva of all places. I decided to bring my youngest of two sons to tag along. Manix is 13 years old, very curious and enjoys observing. So I thought i`d be good idea to switch it up this year and have him listen to each individual member of the team instead of his father rambling on.

So what I did is I sent everyone an email a day before the Christmas dinner and asked each of them to think about what they enjoyed the most since they joined our team. I really didn't have expectations. Wow was I (WE) in for a treat. We heard from a cancer survivor on how he felt supported and loved, we heard from our veterans on how they felt privileged to be part of such an amazing extended family, we heard from our rookies on how they felt welcomed and treated like family from day one on the job. We heard touching stories on trust, freedom, appreciation, openness, happiness all important and essential values in a happy family.

Curiously, it’s only when we were heading back home that it hit me... my son Manix said in French “Le monde aime vraiment ca travailler a RedTeam” which means “People really enjoy working at RedTeam”.

It made me realize that even if the actual work itself is not always fun or enjoyable when you're dealing with a pressing property catastrophe it’s as important to chill and take your time to get the job done right the first time. It made me realize that our careers are not a sprint but a marathon.

Chill. When I was younger I was impatient and rushed to get everything done. As you get older you realize there is no real rush. Life, and the careers we pursue to fill it and pay the bills, needs to be approached on a long-term basis. If you sprint you will wear out and begin to resent work that you previously enjoyed.

It made me realize that it’s good to take time to breathe and grow. Good things will come if we work hard as a team and allow everyone time to get good at things. Always rushing to get claims done in a hurry leaves you empty, and tired. It is OK to give ourselves permission to take some time in the slow lane with our people.

This simple exercise allowed me (US) to observe, learn from my fellow team member on the journey that I (WE) didn’t realize were there.

It’s about working with the PEOPLE, not on THINGS

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that all people are equal, behave the same every day and have a generic capacity to perform. So why not celebrate the competence of the team as ONE rather than the superpowers of the elite.

Crucial to successfully building your family business or any business for that matter is value alignment and listening.

This is the important message I learned through this listening exercise.

We are exceptional ordinary people working with exceptional ordinary homeowners designing and rebuilding their family`s extraordinary 'safeplace. Their HOME.

Nothing ordinary about that!

SsF

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I’ve always believed in hiring smarter more experienced employees and then getting the heck out of their way -- letting them self-manage and entrusting them instead of micromanaging them.

This is certainly not common practice for the majority of top-down bosses who have to call the shots and control people and outcomes. But for me It doesn't make sense to hire smart experienced people and tell them what to do, who to use or why they should do it a certain way.

What’s more important is to communicate a common vision, set of values and trust that everything will work out.

This might look 'counterintuitive but over the years I realized that it cleared the way to make our people better. By having TRUST and FAITH in my TEAM -