The Icehouse and Te Puni Kōkiri created a scholarship fund in 2021 to support the development of skilled, productive and resilient Māori owners and managers. Each successful recipient received $10,000 for approved programmes delivered by The Icehouse. With details of the 2023 funding due to be announced, five Icehouse alumni describe their Owner Manager Programme and Leadership Development Programme experiences.
OMP – Lennon Wiltshire, General Manager, Civil Project Solutions
OMP – Manu Burkhardt-Macrae, Managing Director, Far North Roading
OMP – Kara Thomas, Owner, Focused Physiotherapy (Iwi: Ngāruahine)
LDP – Ed Wilson, Sawmill Manager, North Pine
LDP – Celia Crosbie, Managing Director, Scope Media
What attracted you to The Icehouse/Te Puni Kōkiri Cadetship?
Kara: As a female and Māori business owner, I have always worked diligently to serve my community, my staff and my whānau. In the post covid environment I have been looking at how to better structure my business to meet the challenges that I am now facing, and it was my accountant who contacted me to encourage me to apply for a scholarship to get on the programme.
Manu: I hadn't done any sort of professional development for a while. I'm an engineer by trade and have no formal business training, running a business that was growing quite rapidly. I read the course profile and the content all seemed really practical and applicable to what we were going through in the business at the time, so it was perfect.
What did you have to do to apply?
Kara: The application was very easy. I did it all online and Anthony [Gold, Customer Growth Partner at The Icehouse] discussed everything with me, so it was very simple.
Lennon: A business advisors at Trust Tairāwhiti mentioned that funding was available, through Te Puni Kōkiri for The Icehouse programmes so that was how it came on my radar. I filled out a couple of forms. It was so simple. I was pretty excited once I heard I was on Programme. I’d heard such good things about OMP so I was eager to get stuck in.
Tell us about your programme experience?
Kara: I can’t recommend OMP enough. It was an amazing experience. It helped me consolidate and refine some of the things I am doing already, but it also filled in a few invaluable gaps. For example, the industry is experiencing some staff shortages now, so the programme helped me to develop some ideas I had in place already – around staff retention and succession planning – helping the team grow with us, encouraging them to come on the journey with us, and to think more about the future of the business.
Ed: I’ve been on quite a few leadership courses and LDP was top-line. The delivery and the quality of the facilitators bought along was excellent.
Manu: It’s definitely the best course I've ever done. It’s nice for it to be backed by people who are experts in that field. Running a business can be a bit trial and error, you sort of figure out what works and what doesn’t as you go. It would have been nice to have done the course a few years ago!
Lennon: The facilitators were awesome and I loved the programme structure. It‘s set up in a way to enable you to get to know each other and each other's businesses really well, which opens up the floor for conversation on what issues you’re experiencing and how others have dealt with them. There are people there that have progressed further on their journey and ones that are behind you, so there's lots of different perspectives.
What were your biggest takeaways and how will these help you in the future?
Kara: OMP challenges you to think about how you are going to tackle new challenges while presenting new ways of doing things. It enables you to work on what you already have in place, encourages you to reset and take a fresh look at existing processes and systems, new strategies, and how they can be structured to run more efficiently.
I also got so much out of my cohort. Growing with a group of like-minded business owners was amazing – making some fantastic connections who I can now call friends for life. We have regular catchups where we discuss what’s going on in our businesses – sharing new ideas and challenges, so the learning doesn’t really stop!
Ed: I was so energised after coming back from the first block. Learning about financial literacy was a real eye-opener – especially monthly reports and P&O sheets and so on. We deal with those at our monthly management meetings so The Icehouse has given a bit more understanding of how that side of the business works and why it matters.
Manu: In response to OMP I’ve implemented a senior leadership team. Previously, it was just my business partner and I who ran everything. If we want to free ourselves from the business in future, we need to bring up some of our senior team to be able to run it independently of ourselves.
We’ve also created an advisory board. Again, just to give us a bit more of an outside perspective of what we're doing and to test what we're planning is right for the business. What was unexpected was all the personal development help you get around self-management. A lot of business owners share the same experience of isolation, poor sleep and so on. Now I look after myself more and manage my stress levels better. I got as much out of that as I did about managing the business.
Lennon: There’s been quite a focus on introducing new and better workflow programmes, breaking down the things that we do and services that we provide to give more clarity for the team.
We’ve defined things so that each individual can understand the steps needed to provide their end-service or product, and it becomes a really good communication tool to the client as well, because you can put timeframes against tasks and they can see the progress that’s being made.
We’re also working on creating a value system for the company, internally and externally – actually defining those values because we’ve never really done that before. What really encapsulates our company, and the people who work in it.
Celia: Jo Clayton, [programme director] was really inspirational. She's got a great way of conducting herself and bringing the team together. She delivers what needs to be delivered without any waffle and she's also knowledgeable. LDP was always relaxed and straight to the point.
I've got my Icehouse book and I carry it around with me every week. I wrote down the notes from each slide, the conversation points from each topic and I loved the sections on business strategy, customer-led growth, reflecting on your business generally, while picking up some good business practices to introduce to build a high-performing team. LDP just really sharpens our focus on what we do to help our clients and how we meet their needs.
We’ve made a lot of improvements to the business. We’ve refined our internal systems, and we're still working on those. The timing of LDP in that respect was absolutely ideal because it's helped us to think internally and externally, and set us up for that future growth.
What would you say to anyone thinking of applying for an Icehouse/ TPK scholarship?
Manu: TPK funding really helped because it’s a big investment of your time and your money. I can see why some people early on in their business journey might not be able to do it. If this scholarship hadn't been available, I might not have done it either. Having said that, OMP is a good value for money and a very good return on investment, anyway, and I’d like my business partners to sign-up in a year or two.
Celia: It was awesome. I just I was blown away really. I went into it not really knowing what to expect. A large part of why LDP is so awesome is the people that you're rubbing shoulders against – both cohort and facilitators. It's really inspiring, sharing experiences with immensely talented leaders in the field and in New Zealand, and it's wonderful to be part of it.