wow, what a busy couple of weeks and i've realised that i haven't posted anything since the end of november. things must be good!

i was having a chat with an ex-colleague the other day and it reminded me of why i didn't miss life at big corp - politically (un)inspired decision making by mid-senior mgmt being one of my biggest bugbears. i swear, if we can make a big success of funky rascal, i shall not tolerate that sort of behaviour. but that makes me think... what is it that fosters that sort of behaviour by people earning big 6 figure salaries? surely they should be big enough to stand by their convictions, it's what they always wanted from us...

it's fear that drives that sort of behaviour and it's certainly fear that i identified as one of the main reasons i chose to leave. everybody was afraid. we were more concerned about what those around and above us would think of our decisions than being able to make and stick by well-informed decision making. "what if the VP doesn't agree?", "i know that's not on his/her agenda", etc, etc.

and that fear only comes from one place - the top, the very top. the CEO was, by all accounts, an intolerably arrogant man. a man who would make decisions and form opinions at a whim, whilst those of us several tiers below would spend weeks and months putting together the rationale as to why we should make a strategic or tactical decision only to see it over-ruled.

all too often, we would hear that VPs and senior VPs would fail to stand by or even make a point for fear that it wasn't what the great chief wanted to hear. how on earth can you run a truly successful business, when fear permeates your entire organisation? it's not exactly motivational, is it? which leads me to my main thought...

several years ago i came across an interview with a very powerful global industry figure, not a man you messed with by any account but not one who ruled by fear and he had a "revolutionary" view of priorities within a business. this man was wendelin wiedeking, then CEO of porsche group and the man who had turned porsche from a niche sports car manufacturer into a company large enough to attempt a takeover of VW audi group. his view (as i remember it) was that if you want to deliver shareholder value, you do not make knee-jerk decisions which will influence the shareprice in the short-term. in fact, he listed shareholders as 4th on the list of 4 groups a company should prioritise and it went like this -

1st - employees - if you don't have happy employees, you're never going to get over the start line, let alone get a look at the finish line.

2nd - customers - happy employees will create happy customers. sacrifice your employee satisfaction for your customer satisfaction and you'll enter a downward spiral.

3rd - suppliers - supplier relations are a core element of a company's success. they can make or break you financially and with respect to your customer relationships.

4th - shareholders - if you keep the first 3 groups happy, then the 4th group will benefit as a direct result. in fact, don't "focus" on them at all, shareholder satisfaction will occur if you deliver success in the first 3 groups on the list.

and that is where my last company fell down. the CEO was (like many CEOs it has to be said) beholden to the shareholders. i'd say is list went more like - shareholders, CEO, customers, suppliers, employees. that resulted in knee-jerk cost cutting announcements and staffing reductions. less staff, more work, increased stress and spineless snr mgmt - i said my goodbyes!

it may seem an overly simplistic view of running a business but really, it shouldn't be that complicated. pay your employees a bit more, listen to them a bit more, give them opportunities to learn and grow, show you value them in a way that means something to them. you could be surprised by the results!

haha. i just "popped in" to the shop this morning to run off some inventory reports and take them home (we're not open on mondays). i didn't account for the number of people looking for proper gloves/ mittens for their kids which can withstand the wet slushy snow we've had in cupar for ther last day or 2.

so i ended up opening the shop and we've had a pretty good day, considering it's been snowing heavily on and off for most of it. no, make that a very good day, considering the above. up there with some of our very best mid-week days in fact and i only opened at 11!

kind of played havoc with our previous plans for the day but at least we have the flexibility to be able to do it. mind you, don't know what we're getting for dinner. i was going to do i spicy beef stew (again, i know, but it's very cold and i love beef stew!).

now this is what it's all about... the kids are at nursery, i'm behind the till and anne is playing golf with a friend. when she's back, she'll take over behind the till, i'll pop home and put on a hearty casserole to keep out the cold and do a bit of tidying up. ideally of course, i'd be playing golf (and i'll get my turn) but mrs b did let me go to the rugby on saturday, so i hope she's enjoying this beautiful crisp, sunny day.

we're aiming to reclaim a majority share of the living room as parental-controlled territory from the insurgent children and their ever-spreading toy army. the kids' rooms now have mucho additional storage installed and if i can get a couple of hours this afternoon, all the boxes of toys we've been sorting out will make the (hopefully) final move upstairs. i can't actually imagine having a tidy living room! maybe we could consider replacing the carpet and getting some new furniture? woah boy, steady on!!

well, life seems to be finding some sort of rhythm. it's a little irregular but then i'm a bit of a jazz fan, so that's fine with me - always good to work your way around a bit of improv!

it's been all hands on deck for the first 2 weeks, getting all the stock inventoried, barcoded, re-boxed and organised in the stock room. yes, you can now tell the difference between the stock room and the office! we've had more lights installed in the shop as the oh-so eco-friendly led lighting just wasn't cutting the mustard and we were getting tired of hearing comments from outside the window about whether we were open or not, even if they were fair comments.

even the children are adjusting to having daddy about during the week. rebecca (2) took to it in her stride (as i expected) but i think liam (4) was a little disconcerted - suddenly very objectionable. however, that seems to be passing now and it's less of a problem for him as to whom takes him to nursery, forces breakfast down him, etc.

you accept that your children will favour one parent over another in different circumstances and that there are 2 parental roles - mother and father. however, i think that this is often just an extenuation of the roles we played in their early lives. anne is their mother who nurtured them through their first months and years and i am the clown/ grumpy, over-worked wage slave who turns up at the very end of the day. now we're breaking those stereotypical roles, ie we're now both grumpy over-worked wage slaves! seriously though, we're not.

i'm a lot less grumpy (believe me, i still have my moments!) and i know anne appreciates sharing the burden more equally in raising 2 children. and neither of us is a wage slave to the extent that i was. we're doing this to make a living, certainly but we're doing something we both choose and (so far) thoroughly enjoy.

as we enter the full swing of the festive season and all it brings for us as novice retailers, i'm sure there'll be many more lessons to be learnt from new experiences but at least i won't be off to the far side of the world for 10 days immediately prior to christmas and we can both prepare together for a family christmas.

well, the first example of the flexibility of our post-modern family life today. i nipped home this afternoon, chucked a winter-warming lamb casserole together and then scooted back to the shop to finish off a very good day's trading for a mid-week. now it's time to pick up the kids, put on the tatties and enjoy a some beautifully slow-cooked lamb, and all before 6pm (i hope).

i really haven't felt this relaxed or happy at work since... well, a very long time. even the good days in corporate world are tempered by some eejit somewhere on the planet making a mess of things and i couldn't often say i was genuinely "happy" at work. "satisfied" perhaps but not happy really. happy moments but i've been happy all day now. hmmm, maybe it'll get a little wearing and i'll start to get grumpy about being happy?

i'm sure however, that this is the honeymoon period in terms of one's emotional perspective. let's face it, it's been pretty stressful building up to opening the shop and when there were several teething problems, that didn't exactly make life any easier. however, i've found i've been able to adopt the CBT theory of "if you can do something about it, do it. if you can't, don't worry about it" far more easily than when in the corporate environment.

hey ho, we'll see how it progresses but for now, i'm looking forward to lamb stew that i cooked mid-afternoon whilst we still had a good day's trade in the shop. bingo!

HURRAH!!!! we're open and making sales. what a great feeling.

very glad that we have uncle paul visiting and granda and grandma nearby to look after the kids on our first day of being open to the public. maybe not so post-modern but needs must...

i think ther first test of this way of life will come next week when we get into the routine (if it's possible!). flexibility is the key and i have to remember that it's anne's store and i'm just the assistant, helper, gopher, etc.

now, off to try and get the till to connect to the receipt printer to connect to the computer, the drivers and all that stuff. who knows what'll hapen when the card reader finally arrives and i have to connect that up too...

well, the great and the good of cupar's retail community were gathered together last night at a special seminar organised just for us. a chance to hear the views of the more established shops in town (some of them over 100 years, hope we can leave that sort of legacy!).

it's funny. anne and i are full of enthusiasm at the moment. let's face it, we wouldn't be opening the store if we didn't think it had great potential but to hear some of the tales of woe from those sat around us last night we could have been forgiven for chucking it all in. thankfully 10 years of "big corp" professional league moaning has toughened my skin. too much traffic, not enough traffic, tesco's upcoming expansion, business rates... and on and on. i'm sure in a few months we'll be able to moan with the rest of them but at the moment it's all positive.

one outcome that we're hoping for is that the retailers of cupar can band together and form a semi-official group to help both lobby for us with more effect but also work together to promote cupar and its retail delights! when you're somewhat in the shadow of st andrews 15 minutes away, i'm sure it can seem a bit of a pointless struggle at times but st andrews has its issues and we firmly believe that cupar is a great place to live and work and has bags of potential to continue to grow in stature.

for now, let's get this shop open! just over 24 hours to the official opening party and under 48 hours until the hordes come marauding through the door.

a brief history...

firstly, i've worked for american "big corps" for 10-odd years. now, i'm taking a leap, together with my wife, into the unknown.

in short, my wife is opening a children's clothing shop in relatively-rural scotland, and i've chucked it all in to join her. there are many reasons behind my decision which i'll explain in the coming weeks and months but in short, we see that we can gain so much more in our lives by taking this leap together than me continuing to be the bread-winner in a global marketing role and my wife struggling to start a business and continue to do the lion's share of looking after our 2 kids.

so, we have 2 children, liam who's 4 and rebecca, who's 2 1/2. we met in germany when i moved to munich with my first "big corp" and anne had been living there for 10 years already. anne is swedish and studied law in germany at munich university. i'm scottish and studied horticulture near york, uk. yep, horticulture, makes 10 years of international marketing a question already!

but why the blog? well, she's a german law student, i'm a british horticulture student. we moved back to scotland (i say "back", it was for me) 4 years ago with our 3 month old son. i took a global marketing role (to follow on from a european role previously) when we found out we were going to have another baby.

now we're cutting loose... going it alone... put frankly, i've got the belief in my wonderful wife and her business idea that it's preferable to work with her in the biggest financial risk of our lives than continue earning the "safe" salary that i was.

so we're job-sharing, child-care-sharing, salary-sharing... you name it, we're now sharing it - risk, responsibility, income, the lot and we believe that it'll be the best way for us to not only achieve our dreams but also to live a more complete life. if we can make a success of the business and earn the equivalent of my salary between us but with a more balanced lifestyle, we'll be happy, so happy. if and hopefully when we can exceed that, then we'll be delighted.

so if this sounds interesting, follow our progress! we open the shop on friday 5th november with sir menzies campbell, our local mp, doing the honours. doors open to the public on saturday the 6th. today was my first day as "stay-at-home-dad", marketing "director", operations and spreadsheet monkey, general gopher, you name it... and it felt good, so good.

tomorrow's another day and by the end of the week we'd better have it all pulled together but that's the joy of trying something so different, so risky, so challenging... keep up and see how we do, how we feel, whether we make it (of course we will!) and whether you too think that you could make a living on your own combined with a life of your own.

bring it on!!