Napoleon Once Said:

‘I’d Rather Have A Lucky General Than A Clever One’

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

Whether the quote is true is debatable. I have no reason to doubt it, especially as I’ve worked for some very lucky bosses.

The Luckiest Boss I ever worked for was the Chairman of an Engineering Company who Manufactured Tobacco Processing Machinery. This was back in the 1980's. Then, in the 1990's investing in tobacco products became a ‘dirty’ word, the business suffered greatly as a result.

We often had redundancy exercises where the workforce had to be reduced significantly because the work was drying up. I’ll never forgot how devastating this was for the workforce. One of the more mature employees was absolutely heartbroken, he was sobbing in my office when he was laid off. He’d started his apprenticeship with the Company, at the age of 15 and was a loyal employee for over 50 years.

Eventually, the majority of their new orders came from China. Although they did sell some of their machinery to the makers of coleslaw. After all, chopping up cabbage was similar to chopping up tobacco leaves, except that the cutting blades had to be made of Stainless Steel, rather than the cheaper mild steel.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

As Smoking started to go out of fashion the pressure on the company was huge, so much so that the company believed its survival depended on diversifying into other areas. We all knew that the Company had sold the technology to the Chinese, who could manufacture the machines at a fraction of the price.

The search was on for struggling engineering companies that could be ‘turned around’. If that strategy worked it could be the magic formula, unfortunately, it would take more than a few clever ‘Power point’ presentations.

One of the Companies that was ‘courted’ was another engineering company located in a town, just 15 miles away. The Chairman persuaded the Board to borrow Three million (£3,000,000) from the Pension Scheme for the purchase. Being the Pensions Manager this created a great deal of work for me.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs were concerned over the finer details of the proposals, as indeed were the Unions. I won’t pretend it was an easy time, some employees decided it would be a good idea to make friends with me — it was pretty obvious they wanted some inside information.

The takeover of the Company went ahead, the existing employees were cautious, but at least their jobs were safe for a while.

The weeks passed and everything settled into a steady rhythm. Then, on Monday 16 October 1989 the FTSE caught up with the US stock market crash of Friday 13th, and fell 6% to 7% in a single day.

On the morning of 16 October, the fund manager phoned me to tell me the market had crashed. Immediately I told my boss, who said “well it’s not a problem unless we sell the shares”.

I followed him to his office, expecting to have a longer conversation, after reminding him that we had sold £3 million worth of shares to buy this new company; but he walked into his office and slammed the door in my face — nice.

Undaunted, I had some documents that needed signing by the Chairman, so off I went to his office. Although he was busy he agreed to see me immediately. He looked totally beaten, his shoulders were down he could hardly raise a smile; he looked for all the world like he wanted to give up.

After he had finished signing the papers, I told him the fund manager had phoned me to say that the Stock Market had crashed. He gave me a blank stare, until I said “what a genius you are to sell three million pounds worth of shares, just before the Stock Market crashes!” With that news he sat up, and then I said “absolute genius!” Then he started smiling, and his smile grew bigger and bigger.

From that day forward I couldn’t put a foot wrong, not that I did anything to sabotage the company or the workforce.

Everything was looking hopeless for the company and for him, and then his ‘luck’ turned and he not only saved our company, but also the new company he had encouraged the Board and Shareholders to buy.

Who in the world could have predicted that outcome? Sometimes, we just have to trust in our luck.

Thank you for reading to … the End