Sadly from mid-1996 after returning to corporate ownership, Rearsby began to under-perform. Instead of following what the new corporate CEO declared as his intent. Namely ‘If we knew what you knew, could do what you do…’ I thought what an enlightened attitude, indeed profound insight.
It seemed to me, post-sale, in practice they did the exact opposite. Whether by design, neglect or accident I cannot judge. They instead, set out to establish and impose the Adwest culture upon Rearsby. Not learn from Rearsby. Their culture was top down controlling and I witnessed a blame culture, something I had taken great steps to dismantle.
As part of the deal, I was paid a significant sum to be available for 60 days in the first year. I was not called in once. Not once. Was that misplaced pride?
The new owner, prior to acquiring Rearsby had a variable reputation in the industry. I had been told one Japanese transplant had dropped them as a supplier based upon poor performance -a real black mark.
The sheer complexity at Rearsby, I suspect came as a shock.
Adwest naturally, inherited Rearsby operating under my mantra of ‘never ask for permission, only forgiveness’. That is all decision taking encouraged as low down as possible, with limited top-down control. I see from my 2015 vantage point this was en route to ‘Self-Managed Organisations.’ It seemed this devolving of decision taking as low down the structure as possible, trusting all to do a good job, was viewed by Adwest management as some form of anarchy. Out of control.
My structure was, MD, three directors, six managers and a totally flat structure of team leaders and the balance of my 460 colleagues.
I give you one comparative measure. In a year, 10 company cars quickly became 29 company cars. Notwithstanding whether any of the additional managers were necessary (they were not);
1. To recruit a further 19 managers in a short time is very difficult, especially in terms of quality.
2. To get this new team performing effectively in a short period is doubly difficult.
3. Then there is the additional cost.
4. Employees whom I met around Melton Mowbray, at all levels, said all decision taking had ground to a halt. That was (and is) the worst outcome of the additional layers/control.
Unbelievably, a staggering 38% of salaried staff left the business in the first 12 months. Who left? The best. The ‘new’ Rearsby was not for them. Key employees continued to leave, including first class top performers Jeff Armitage and David Johnson.
It seemed to me leadership evaporated. As did any vision, direction and any goals for the business. Rearsby morphed into being under-led and grossly over-managed.
The new owner didn’t appoint their own man, they instead premediated to replace me at day one. My successor, Les (a good number two), was replaced by a succession of MDs, who frankly in my opinion were barely up to the demands and task required. Some were not, as evidenced by the changes.
Performance continued to decline. The company archive was dumped on instruction of one MD. Unbelievable. Assembly tracks were stopped. One major customer demanded a major recall of product. This cost millions, purely as a result of dumping the archive, as there were no records from design to dispatch. A mandatory requirement. A legal requirement in USA. A capital offence.
Post sale, I continued to sit on the SMMT Industry Forum with OEMs and major supplier delegates. Honda purchasing (post-sale), revealed to me they just couldn’t believe the change of one man would result in such a dramatic fall in performance.
No recall ever occurred under my watch or a track stoppage, even during the time I was Senior Foreman for Bar Automatics producing 1.75 million components a week. Not one. To threaten or achieve a stoppage of production was abhorrent. Even when we ran close to the wire with customer nominated suppliers, such as Lucas, causing chronic shortages.
Unsurprisingly, Adwest were later taken over by the US company, Dura. One of the under-bidders for Rearsby.
Sadly, the last automotive product left Rearsby in 2003.
The one thing I learned?
First and foremost:
Any business is a people business. People make the difference. Select on attitude not skill. You can train the latter, develop and nurture your talent. Let them grow. Let them loose. Lead well and they follow. The better people you have following you, the easier your job is. Who wants or needs unnecessary hard work?