I created an ‘open-book’ policy, in which I was absolutely fine to talk through and contribute with my ideas, as well as throwing my team’s ideas into a melting pot to then make the right call on how to move forward.
Andy Reid
Andy Reid, a renowned auctioneer and high-performance coach, has built a successful career leading teams and businesses.
At 21, I managed a $13 million business with 250 staff, doubling profit margins while building a culture based on 360-degree accountability.
Upon arrival at university to study engineering, I had my priorities in the right order and knew that I needed to get a job ASAP in order to pay for the alcohol consumption level required to deem my time at university as a success…
There are two obvious sectors that students like me head to, being retail or hospitality, and so I got a weekend job as a bartender in a soccer stadium, pulling pints for a lot of fired-up fans. I very quickly realised that this wasn’t just a part-time job for me, because the joy in serving people combined with the pressure of service gave me a huge buzz that became intoxicating in itself, and I found that my degree was rapidly starting to take a back seat to my growing passion for hospitality.
Over the course of the three years working, increasing numbers of hours, giving up the holiday periods between terms, building my experience and committing my focus to the industry, I was fortunate enough at 21 years old to be entrusted with the keys of a multi-million dollar operation as the manager upon finishing my last exam at university.
Leading a team twice my age
When you’re young, the one thing that can screw you over when it comes to taking on this sort of role (or starting your own business) is ego.
Now despite operating in the business for that time, growing through various leadership roles of varying sized teams, do you really think that I had all of the knowledge required to run an 8-figure organisation?? Not a chance on this planet was I ready to take it on! For example, my financial acumen was rather average – I had studied business management and contract law as a part of my degree, but outside of that my knowledge of reading a P&L to any great effect beyond ‘black is good, red is bad’ was tremendously limited.
Was I being judged for my age as well? Definitely. There was no hiding from the fact that of the 250+ staff that I had under my wing at various times, more than 60% of them were older than me, a decent chunk of them being more than twice my age!
But I had a few things in my favour that were undeniable, that had helped me to earn the trust of senior leadership and venue ownership.
My ability to operate under pressure had been tested at various times during the three years previously, intensely so at times, when we not only had major operational challenges, but we were also responsible for looking after some of the most high-profile individuals in the world (not an understatement, I’ve had team members heat bottles for David Beckham’s kids!). I had earned the moniker of ‘Mr Unflappable’ from shareholders, which as far as nicknames go wasn’t a bad one!
The nature of the venue meant that I was dealing with multiple demographics from multiple socio-economic backgrounds – from the rich and famous to the blue-collared factory worker. The diversity of my client base meant that I would need to switch communication and service styles within the ride of an elevator, and we had discovered that I seemed to be quite natural at matching the frequency of whoever was in front of me.
But in my humble opinion (not necessarily the correct one), the biggest asset I had proven myself to have was a work engine that could outlast anyone. I could stay switched on for very long periods of intense work, and although Health & Safety would never allow it these days I did co-own the record for the single longest shift, a massive 36 hours that started at 3pm on Friday and ended at 3am on Sunday, and there was no room to relax during that period on account of backed-up business demands. You could argue that I possibly showed a poor degree of leadership in not being able to delegate here, but just because I was wearing a tailored suit paid for by the venue didn’t mean that I stopped rolling my sleeves up, and we had hundreds of boxes full of glassware to clean, polish and reset into rooms overnight!
When you’re young, the one thing that can screw you over when it comes to taking on this sort of role (or starting your own business) is ego. It is impossible to think that, at 21, we know everything there is to know about business, and that we’ll never be making any mistakes now that we’re in a position of leadership or ownership.
Age is just a number
Thankfully, although I was responsible for leading large groups of people, it was never lost on me that time and experience provides some of the best lessons, so my leadership style naturally fell into one of collaboration, in which the opinions and suggestions of others were valued and respected. As a result of both that and the respect that I had earned (and understandably had to earn), I created an ‘open-book’ policy, in which I was absolutely fine to talk through and contribute with my ideas, as well as throwing my team’s ideas into a melting pot to then make the right call on how to move forward.
(Note that this is not just an open-door policy, because that can still imply a degree of inferiority on staff which wouldn’t have gone down well with the team members that had worked at the venue for more time than I had been alive!)
Since then, I’ve learned that it’s ok to not be amazing at everything, which is the preconception for young leaders that they feel the need to be able to perform any tasks that their team can do. If anything, if you can learn to feel comfortable in acknowledging, complimenting and empowering your team members by admitting that they’re better than you at certain tasks, the level of respect soon returns when you draw a line of authority because that small degree of humility indicates that when you need to lay the law down, that too will come from a very authentic and real place.
Age is only a number, as long as you make the effort to earn the respect of those around you with the talents you have, and then learn the ability to give the respect back in acknowledgement of the talents and knowledge that your team can bring to you.
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