In my previous column (which you can read here), I wrote about ‘learning to let go’. I described then the challenges of transferring some of your responsibilities to others as a director of a fast-growing organisation. That process of letting go also means asking yourself which activities you do want to keep doing. These are things where your strengths lie and – as I described in that previous column – what makes your tail wag.
One of the things I will never let go of is personal contact. No matter how big we get as a company, I will regularly ‘get out and about’ myself to take stock on location and, above all, to meet people. For example, a trip to Portugal, where the factories of our new partner MR MARVIS are located, is on the agenda soon. For me, this personal approach is one of the most important elements of a family business. We are not semi-anonymous managing directors, but we are the name bearers of the company and we are proud of that name, of our people and of our services.
And we share this cultural value of personal contact with our people in Team Van Duuren. I myself am often on the road, but that applies just as much to a number of colleagues. In concrete terms, this means that we often go on site when – for example – a retail customer opens a couple of new shops in Madrid. Then we go to Madrid and go over the situation on site. We see where possible bottlenecks are in that busy shopping street, at what times our driver can unload, et cetera. We get a taste of the ‘couleur locale’, so to speak, and that helps enormously in finding the best solution for that specific situation. And afterwards, we have a nice dinner with our Spanish logistics partner and toast to a great cooperation. You have to combine the useful with the pleasant, don’t you?
And besides: that mix of a solid business and a good personal relationship is worth its weight in gold. I am convinced that – especially in times of digitalisation and advancing automation – that human touch is not becoming less important, but even more important than it already was.
Every month I write a column about my experiences as founder and director of Van Duuren. This column can also be found on our social media. Would you like to receive my column every month? Let me know by sending an e-mail to jeroen.van.duuren@vanduuren.com and I’ll send it to you from now on.