With A Little Help From Friends…
It’s funny how our minds make connections. Over the Holidays, I couldn’t get the phrase, ‘with a little help from my friends’ out of my head. No matter where I went, that phrase kept popping into my head.
During the Christmas vacation I visited Leyland, UK. In the 1870’s, Leyland was known as the “Garden of Lancashire.” Hewitson writes in 1872 that Leyland has a “genial, rural appearance…surrounded on all hands by a unique picture of pastoral beauty – by flowers and fruitful flocks, by blooming orchards… by grand old trees and fertile lands…you can breathe freely in the place.” The growth of the light engineering rubber and motor vehicle industries in the latter part of the 19th century changed Leyland in particular.
One local success story is that of The Leyland Steam Motor Company, founded in 1901 by James Sumner and the Spurrier brothers. This was a significant and successful partnership and the company evolved into the world renowned Leyland Motors. Now known as Leyland Trucks (part of Paccar), the company celebrated its 110th anniversary in 2006. “With a little help from (its) friends”, Leyland Trucks made it to the 110th anniversary of its founding and is still going strong!
Later as I walked the grounds of Worden Park, a destroyed Manor Hall, I was fortunate to pass by a Georgian walled garden which has been restored to show the wonderful working gardens that would have served the Hall. In this garden I discovered a Cedar of Lebanon “Cedrus Libani”. This tree, like the Leyland Steam Motor Company, has seen over hundred years and been buffeted by the winds of time and change. It too has been supported by the same people that supported Leyland Steam Motor Co. – the people of Leyland! No entity whether a business or a tree can stand that long without “a little help from its friends”…
So then, if your company – or your garden – is to last one-hundred years and more like those in Leyland, what will be needed to ensure success? Employees will retire and new ones will need to be hired. Those new employees will need to be trained and over the course of time, taught new skills to meet the new demands of the marketplace. Just like Leyland Steam Motors, your company will need ‘a little help from friends’. When the time comes, WIN Programs would be happy to lend a hand…
Sign ‘Cedar of Lebanon’, Worden Park, U.K. The Tree Itself, With ‘Support’ From Friends
Photo Credits: L. Loizidou
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