Here’s a controversial idea: run your company with fewer people. It’s counter to macro-economic trends - record numbers of jobs are being created and unemployment is falling. But most of you will agree with me that the majority of organisations have substantial amounts of slack in the system. And look on the bright side - if you use the rising economic tide to have a really good weed out, you won’t feel guilty because jobs are plentiful.

Downsizing enables companies to focus on the superstars. I’m always gobsmacked by how over-manned companies and organisations are. Small private businesses run much tighter ships than most, but I know I could have run Gü better with two-thirds of the people. It’s always interesting to see what happens when someone leaves a company and their role has to be shared out while someone new is being recruited. Nine times out of 10, overall performance improves. Think of it like a football team. If you say 11 people is the optimum number on the pitch, most companies run with a team of 20 and a lot of them then get in the way of each other.

What a fantastic opportunity to improve the quality of your gene pool, reduce your overheads but reward your key people better. The reality of organisations is that we are all programmed to think more people are the solution to a problem - and in big organisations (and some small ones) it’s human nature to build little empires.

In my experience, the only real solution to our problems is to have an exceptional team of people in the key roles and reward them well. Support those people with good back-up, and involve them fully in the company’s destiny.

What are the personality traits of these human equivalents of super food? I was lucky enough to learn the ropes working for one of the best managers in the food industry (who is also now running a yoghurt business). His mantra was to find bright, optimistic and resilient people - all the other skills can be trained, he said. A testament to his skills as a manager is that many of his team over the years went on to key positions in the fmcg sector.

What if this happened on a macro scale? Productivity would improve, real wages would rise… and our standard of living would go up.

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