The icehouse refreshes business owners skills

By MARK STORY

When looking for refresher training, Andy Hamilton, CEO of the Icehouse, urges small business (SME) owners to find programmes focused on helping to grow their businesses rather than simply running education courses.

Too much time "working in" and insufficient time "working on" the business - it's a common problem for the country's 200,000-plus resource and time-strapped SMEs.

With most of their thinking cocooned in their own daily grind, where do SME owners get the learning needed to make their businesses more successful?

Faced with either moving to the next growth cycle or going backwards, Warren Lewis, director of window and door system supplier ASL NZ Ltd, recognised the need for some form of up-skilling. But after examining what was on offer he struggled to identify training that would help him to improve his business.

Lewis dismissed the daily barrage of course material crossing his desk as either too general, too skills-based or simply too corporate to add value to his business.

After concluding that the time it would take to do a Master's of Business Administration (MBA) would be better spent invested in the business, Lewis finally gave up hope of finding training.

Like Lewis, fellow SME owner Mike Tisdall, managing director of Insight Creative Ltd, initially contemplated an MBA - until he witnessed what its time demands were doing to mates' marriages.

Had it not been for referrals from their banks, Lewis and Tisdall admit it's likely neither of them would have hooked up with Auckland University's Icehouse, a programme dedicated to helping SME owners grow their businesses.

So what can SME owners get through the Icehouse programme that they couldn't find elsewhere?

Instead of just muddling through with their own limited resources, Lewis says the Icehouse programme equips owners with a tool-kit needed to address "threshold" issues, such as how to manage business growth, succession or prepare the business for an exit strategy.

"Having gone through a period of rapid growth, the Icehouse programme gave me the confidence to move to the next growth cycle," says Lewis.

It was managing growth, plus the opportunity to take a "buffet approach" to the learning that led HR consultant Heather Kean to favour the Icehouse programme over full emersion into a more theory-based MBA course early in 2002.

Taking time out from the business was always going to be problematic, especially with two young children. Like Lewis and Tisdall, she also concluded that Icehouse's three days in-residence programme - each month for five months - was a much better proposition.

Having completed a business degree more than 20 years earlier, what Kean was looking for was a different way of thinking about her business.

"The time available during the programme to reflect on the company as a whole gave me the opportunity to apply the learning back into the business," says Kean, co-owner of Pohlen Kean Ltd. "Equally important for me was the opportunity to mix and network with peers facing similar business issues."

Tisdall believes SME owners can learn as much from each other's experiences as they will from structured lectures. He decided to attend the Icehouse after suspecting the business had outgrown his ability to manage it.

"I now have a clear picture on what I need to do to deal with issues. Before I used to let things ride."

He says SME owners need to get to the point where making good strategic decisions becomes much more intuitive.

"Most SME owners don't seek help due to their workload. Those who do tend to go outside for help rather than build expertise internally."

With the universities more focused on corporate and undergraduate markets, Icehouse CEO Andy Hamilton says SMEs remain overlooked in the training stakes.

"Going on a one-day course is great for the functional stuff. But it won't lead to a change of mindset that empowers people to transform their businesses," says Hamilton.

The only two courses he knows of that have come close to the Icehouse include a 90-day SME-owner programme hosted by Massey University, and a Canterbury University programme for Foodstuffs owner/operators.

Where does that leave SME owners who don't know how to make the changes needed to grow their businesses?

Hamilton urges them to talk to their banks, economic development corporations, chambers of commerce, or hire a one-on-one mentor.

Recent SME-focused training initiatives include: Westpac's Beyond Survival and BNZ's Farm First programmes, the EMA's Thrive Network and a high-tech platform run by the Christchurch Economic Development Corporation.

Hamilton recommends SME owners replicate aspects of the Icehouse programme by developing their own business networks.

"They want to learn as opposed to being taught. So instead of constantly 'breathing their own air' SME owners need to put themselves in the stream of others doing likewise."