Business Stripped Bare Read Online Free PDF

multimillionaires as a result of starting Virgin businesses – and this didn't include the hundred or so musicians who became millionaires through record sales. Since then we can probably say that another eighty Virgin people have become millionaires in our businesses. This reward is just a by-product of success in business.

It's a fact of business life that people come and go. The offer of better prospects or career advancement elsewhere will naturally draw good people away from time to time. But what about the others – the ones who leave in order to do much the same thing, for much the same money, elsewhere? What went wrong?

Managers often assume it's a question of pay. This is lazy of them. Yes, money is important. It's essential to pay people fairly for the job they do, and to share out the profits of a company's success. But throwing money at people isn't the point. When people leave a good company, it's often because they don't feel good themselves. They feel marginalised. They feel ignored. They feel underused. Few people spend every spare hour scouring the jobs pages hunting for a higher salary. Most are driven back into the jobs market by frustration. Their bosses don't listen to them.

If you have a strong business idea and it falls on stony ground, there is only one possible response: 'Sod it, I'm fed up with this lot. I'm getting out of here.'

So – managers should listen more?

It wouldn't do any harm. At Virgin Blue, our Australian domestic air carrier, founder Brett Godfrey's management method dictates that all of the management team have to get out once every three months and 'chuck bags'. This means that they turn out at 4 a.m. and do a full shift with the baggage people. That way they get to understand the problems and the hassles of the job. And because turnaround time is so vital, he also wants to involve and reward the baggage handlers too. Brett has given them bigger incentives to help with getting the planes back on the runway again. He calls them the 'Pit Crew' and has decked them all out in Ferrari red. In some airports baggage handlers have been viewed as the lowest of the low. Not at Virgin Blue.

For my own part, I always make it a rule, when I'm in a city, to stay, if possible, where the cabin crews hang out. I'm a regular at the Holiday Inn at Potts Point, Sydney, which has certainly enjoyed better days, but its location is superb. I'll stay there with 200 of our cabin crew, so I can spend time with them and hear how they're doing, and if there's anything we should be looking into.

But we're still missing the point. Maybe your manager is a good listener. Maybe your manager is listening too much, to too many people at once, in too much detail. The thing is, if you have a good business idea, why should you have to ask permission every time? Why can't you just carry it out? Why can't you show it off to your manager in action? Why won't people give you the freedom to try, to succeed, even (horrors) to make mistakes?

At Virgin, we try as far as we can to make people feel as if they are working for their own company. Our more senior people have share stakes or options in the companies they run and, as a result, we've created a lot of very successful people over the years. But however our staff are employed, every one of them should feel that, in some respect or other, they own their own work.

Within reason, this is more important to people than their salary. I'll give you an example: Qantas's cabin crew earn $66,400 a year on average based on 'seniority'! Virgin Blue's much younger crews get $40,000. Our crews clock in for over 700 hours a year. Qantas's work for just 660 hours. This difference is likely to be eroded over time as the business matures, but in the meantime Virgin Blue's customers are reaping the advantage in lower fares.

How is this possible? Are Virgin Blue's staff of poorer quality?

Not a bit of it. Some people think airline hospitality is an easy job, and maybe it is – on