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“My general manager Russell Winteridge is totally opposite to me. The last thing you want is two people like me running a centre”
HANDS-OFF APPROACH WORKS WONDERS As the first groundworks started on The Flower Bowl Leisure development, GTn met Guy Topping at Barton Grange, Brock. We wanted to find out the secrets behind his successful hands-off management style. Guy Topping admits he was more hands-on when he started out but realised he had to change when the business expanded to three garden centres. After adding Woodford to the centres at Bolton and Preston, Guy realised he couldn’t be at all three every weekend. “Warren Haskins told me the hardest step was going from two centres to three. When you go from one to two it isn’t so bad because you can oversee both. When you get to three you are suddenly a multiple and you can’t expect two shop managers and two planteria managers to pick up the phone and liaise because there is always a third person so it becomes a different game all together. “Once you’ve designed a system that works for three and you add a fourth, actually that’s not as big a step. “When we went to three we went through a lot of pain because we had to get far more systemised than we ever had been. We had to work out what our core values were, what it meant to be a Barton Granger. We had to have systems agreed for everything.” Guy Topping gives his acceptance speech after Barton Grange won the GCA Destination Centre of the Year for an incredible sixth successive year. Was it a difficult process to go through? Working with Lindsay Muir at Cedar Associates helped us to work out what we needed to do to keep the essence of Barton Grange running across three centres. Had we just stayed at one i’d never have done all that. We came up with a very detailed management folder with all the policies and procedures for everything in it which was agreed across the team and then as we downscaled all that stood us in good stead. We’d got the systems of a bigger company and then beyond that it’s come down to having some really good people.
Eddie Topping, Guy’s father and company chairman, visits the centre every day. Here he is with Rising Star Dan Holden keeping an eagle eye on retail standards.
2 May 2017
How important is it to have good people around you? The way i manage only works because of the people i’ve got. i’ve been extremely fortunate with russell Winteridge, the general manager here at Brock.
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i’ve worked with russell for 16 years now and up to that point i’d always thought i’m good at managing a garden centre so i need to go and find someone else like me. That had regularly failed to deliver and when i took russell on he was totally opposite to me. When you think about it the last thing you want is two people like me. You’ve got to find people who can bring something into the business that you don’t possess. i like getting out and about, being away and coming up with new ideas. it’s pointless having someone else like that. You need someone who wants to stay here and be very pragmatic and make sure everything runs day to day. i was never any good at that because i got bored with it. Working closely with russell on the development of Barton Grange, Brock, has played a key part in the ongoing success of the business. He and i spent six years planning Brock.