Fresh entrepreneurial talent, creativity, enthusiasm and risk-taking. Do we really want it?

July 11th, 2010 | Author: admin

Enjoying the sun in July

I love this weather but it saps your energies, doesn’t it? I’m going to tell you a true story, a précised version from a longer article, which celebrates the creativity, drive, and entrepreneurial spirt of a sixth former. I’d like you to read it. At the end ask yourself, as I have done, how much do organisations and businesses (in other words you and me) really harness the talent that is offered to them? Or do they, consciously or unconsciously sap the energy, the spirit and the enthusiasm that is there and that needs harnessing, nurturing and developing?

Picture a boy’s school, in the days when school tuck shops were legal. This particular ‘eatery’ started life as an archetypal tuck shop – do you remember yours? Carrying minimal stock and a few lines to match – fizzy drinks, Mars bars, crisps. Opening at break and lunchtime, revenue was around £100 per week. Until an enterprising prefect, mature beyond his years and well respected by his peers, took over. I understand his name was Gammage. Showing leadership potential from the start, his first day running the tuck shop involved working with his team, spring cleaning and posting up staffing rostas. Everything ran like clockwork for two weeks. A model of efficiency and friendliness it seems.

Behind the scenes though Gammage was not satisfied. Undertaking what we would now call marketing research, his customer feedback amongst the Juniors showed the need for a more extensive and exciting product range. Getting the sign-off from the slightly cautious powers that be led to new lines arriving, with attention grabbing signage raising the profile further. Takings increased, the Head was pleased and the new library appeal fund got a boost.

In fact the Head viewed Gamage as a “young man with initiative” and readily agreed for our intrepid Leader of the Tuck Shop to negotiate with the wholesalers. Lion Bars soon arrived in a one tonner van, the day before the UK launch, at a unique special offer price, negotiated by Gammage. The next day, following the huge TV campaign to launch the said Lion Bars (do you remember these?) the school clawed in the trade, selling the bars at the cheapest price in town. So trade soared. Profit soared. The Head was ecstatic.

The nuts business came a couple of weeks later. The media had been talking about the nutritional value of nuts. The enterprising Gammage began selling these, the tuck shop almost hidden by a huge advertising poster on the wall. A photograph of a nubile Beverley, emerging from the sea in a somewhat scanty swimming costume was proving a great choice of advertising medium, no doubt eclipsing nutritional value! Following a not unsurprising reprimand and the banning of the offending advertising, Gammage still managed to increase the takings even further – by auctioning off the poster!

The year rolled on, stock expanded, queues were longer. The weekly order form was now taking as long to complete as an exam subject entry and it took 20 minutes a week to bank all the money. Was it accidental sabotage from the Biology department when they displayed real teeth dissolving in cola? Gammage did not worry either way – responding to market conditions he swopped lines from fizzy to still, negotiating a discount en route.

No doubt using his relationship management skills, Gammage’s marketing of Cuppa drinks with the now allied Biology department proved a huge success. Had he gone too far though when a 10-wheeled articulated lorry arrived with a delivery of cuppa drinks at knock down prices? The off-loading of the ‘outers’ the delivery cartons, resembled a major airlift! Even his most ardent supporters feared the worst. But no, Gammage had bought in bulk at knock-down prices, with his order book full from all the region’s junior schools, all eager for a cut-price offering. It was Sports Day time, during summer weather hot enough to rival our own in 2010. He had created a win-win for all.

Gammage turned out to be so responsible for the huge increase in income generation and profit, that he eventually had to tell the Head about a serious problem. They were going to have to stop trading by the end of the week. Why? They were about to hit the VAT threshold!

So, everything came to a halt. The tuck shop sold off its remaining stock. The tale finishes on a remarkable note however. The school’s name was top of the monthly retailers for still drinks in the southern counties – and the first outlet ever to bat British Rail into second place.

Gammage decided not to go to University. He had an interview with…….let’s just say a major national supermarket. And that is where our tale ends. We do not know what happened to Gammage. Is he now a key figure in the world of FMCG?

What interests me is whether he was able to keep alive that amazing entrepreneurial talent, the creativity, the calculated risk taking and an inspirational leadership style that made him and his tuck shop such a success? I really really hope that the employer lucky enough to secure such a promising young man did everything they could to enable him to flourish and achieve. Experience tells me that he will have faced many hurdles and challenges once sucked into corporate culture. How much may he have been restrained by regulations, conditioning, prevailing values, rules of behaviour and thought. Let me know what you think. I’d love to publish your views.

This week’s blog was inspired by someone very dear to me, a former Headteacher of a boys’ grammar school. His inspiration came from Andrew MacTavish’s article in the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) recent newsletter. ‘Gammage and the tuck shop’. Much of his article I have relayed in my blog.