'Don't isolate yourself, as we all face challenges'
To highlight Mental Health Awareness Week, Shepherd and Wedderburn's Fiona McKerrell carried out a Q&A with Andrew Russell, director of Arran Sense of Scotland on the lessons he has learned over the years regarding self-care
At Shepherd and Wedderburn, we understand that in today's economic climate, many businesses are grappling with a myriad of challenges. Directors often find themselves having to make difficult decisions, while at the same time dealing with the emotional pressures of running a business that is facing financial distress.
This Mental Health Awareness Week, we spoke with Andrew Russell. As a director, Andrew has first-hand experience of what it is like to weather the storm of financial distress and successfully steer a business back to calmer shores. Here, he shares his candid insights and lessons learned.
What are the most challenging aspects of managing a business that is in financial distress?
Staying focused. This is easy to say and hard to do. While the leadership team will all be aware of the details, the rest of the organisation will likely just have a sense of what’s going on and this is very challenging to navigate.
You must believe there is a way forward even if you don't yet have all the answers. I like to think I was open and honest when we were in distress and, importantly, that the wider business and stakeholders knew we were focused on finding a way forward.
What lessons did you learn?
I learned the importance of identifying and addressing the underlying causes of issues to avoid them in the future. Our business faced two difficult periods in the past, one 15 years ago and another seven years ago, each presenting unique challenges. Be sure of whose opinion you can trust. Is it a professional opinion, one based upon significant experience in that area, a gut feel, or an unqualified view? You will likely be going through tough emotions. Is it clouding your judgement or sharpening it?
I realised that there are good people who genuinely want to see you and your company succeed. When you get stuck in your head, you won’t see this. Don't isolate yourself as everyone faces challenges and are often keen to share their experiences.
What was most beneficial about the support you received from advisors?
They provided a calm, unbiased view of the situation. Stress levels can be enormous and impact your health. An advisor can help lay out the options, talk things through, and support you to be more level-headed. Our legal counsel was also able to help protect the company from heavy-handed creditors. This was crucial to enable more time for a better outcome.
What advice would you give other directors facing similar challenges?
Focus on why you are doing all of this in the first place. If you don’t have a WHY then you won’t have the mental and physical energy to do what you need to do. Improving cashflow is often the fastest way to steady things, so if you can sell assets, do it. Consider carefully whose advice you listen to and act upon. Colleagues, investors and stakeholders are sometimes not aligned, and you need to find the best way forward for the business.
Do your best to have a plan that the key stakeholders can all buy into. Don't neglect yourself or those you love. In 2009, I lost over two stone in two months due to stress. Not a recommended diet strategy. During that time, my kids were young, and even when I was at home, I was there in body only. Looking back, this didn’t achieve anything other than a lot of regret. We often take our work home, but if something can wait until the next day (and mostly it can), I try to write it down and focus on my home life until the next morning. This is something I’m still working on 15 years later.
Andrew Russell is the Sales Director of Arran Sense of Scotland. He is the son of the company's founders and has worked in the business for 27 years. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the brand and the team has just delivered their best ever set of results
For more information please contact Fiona McKerrell, Partner in Restructuring and Business Advisory, on 0770 360 7008
This article was brought to you by Shepherd and Wedderburn
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article