A fire that ignited a community’s purpose to succeed

How good deeds, a worry tree and a fast learning mindset helped a husband and wife team problem solve their way to recover from a factory fire that (almost) destroyed everything

7 minute read

A wake-up call you never want to receive

Rosalie Akerman and her husband Gareth were abruptly woken by a phone call at 1.15am on a Saturday morning as the slept in their home in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. 

It was a call that would sink the hearts of even the most hardened entrepreneurs.  

The voice of a security guard was on the other end of the phone who calmly said, "I'm sorry to inform you, but your factory has caught fire and is ablaze. You might want to come and take a look."

The husband-and-wife team, who had spent the past four years pouring their hearts and souls into building their dream business – one that did genuine good for the environment, the community, and their family – leapt out of bed and bundled up their two young children and dashed out the front door to start what would be the most challenging problem-solving exercise of their lives.

From hard-fought triumph to devastating loss overnight

A few days before the fire, there was a break-in at the local electrical substation, located a short distance from the factory. Rosalie called the local municipality and informed them about the break-in so they could come and inspect it to see if everything was okay. After that, she thought nothing more about it.

Unknown at the time, thieves had stolen a 1-meter length of copper cable from the substation.

Following a record production and sales month, and with a full warehouse of pre-ordered stock, Rosalie and Gareth cancelled the night shift and told their staff to finish early on the Friday.  Their spirits were high, and they wanted everyone to enjoy their weekend.  This was just three days after the break-in.

That evening a large storm passed over the factory.  A lightning bolt hit the factory building.  Normally the energy from a lightning strike would be discharged through a copper earth cable.

This time the surge in electricity from the lightning strike caused the large electricity cables running in the factory roof to 'flare’.  The 1-metre length of copper cable, stolen from the electricity substation, was no longer providing the safety of an earth cable to protect the factory.  

Sparks from the electricity cables ignited the wood and insulation in the roof.  A fire quickly spread and engulfed the building, destroying it as well as all their stock and manufacturing equipment.

Destroyed Factory. Image supplied by Rosalie Akerman

Thirty people would have been working in the factory at the time of the fire, had they not cancelled the night shift the day before.

Rosalie and Gareth's business was born to do good. At the time of the fire, every month their business took 500 tonnes of industrial rubber waste products destined for landfill each year and recycled them into usable rubber raw materials they sold to local and international tire retread, conveyor belt and artificial turf manufacturers.

They employed 70 local workers who relied on their jobs to lift them out of poverty. They had a loyal group of suppliers and customers committed to supporting them because of the good they were doing for the environment and the quality of their products.

A rubber recycling business with purpose. Image supplied by Rosalie Akerman

Rosalie was devastated: "Standing there as a parent, having already poured four years of monumental effort and family sacrifice into starting the business from scratch – finally having gained great momentum, ISO accreditation, and huge international clients – we could only stare in disbelief and cry."

Some of their staff arrived at the factory not long after them. They were heartbroken too. "We all cried together, lots of crying," Rosalie said of that time.

"If you have been an entrepreneur of a manufacturing start-up, you'll understand how nearly impossible it is to make the business profitable with a short runway, having to break into a tight local market, prove yourselves and your products' consistency, jump through the accreditation hoops, and finally have momentum going."
- Rosalie Akerman 

They were angry at the unfairness. "Was everything for nothing?" she said. 

It took weeks for the fire department to extinguish the blaze. Nothing was salvageable. Not one tool or machine.

If something bad happens, do something good in equal measure

Rosalie and Gareth had insurance that would cover the costs of relocating the factory and purchasing new equipment. Rosalie knew she didn't have enough belief alone to start again. But with her husband and the motivation of not letting her staff, suppliers, and customers down, she had more than enough to face the months of hard work and problem-solving needed to get the business back up and running again. 

The odds were stacked against a successful restart. Studies have shown that 40% of businesses don't re-open after a disaster, and of the ones that do re-open, 25% fail within one year, and 90% fail within two years.

Rosalie was determined this wouldn't be their story. To start again, she needed a way to keep herself, her family, and her staff focused on positive rather than negative thoughts about what had just happened and the work that was in front of them.

She thought, "What if we make it a core value that when something bad happens, we will do something good in equal proportion?  No matter how big or small.”  

That became their new 'fight stance’.  She pitched her idea to their management team. It was accepted unanimously. 

Studies have shown the brain can't respond to anxiety and gratitude at the same time, which means it's one or the other.  We can feel anxious and other negative states, or we can feel grateful and all the positive emotions that are associated with it.

Rosalie and her team replaced despair with meaning and shifted their thoughts and conversations from emergency, back-foot, 'woe is me,' to active, front-foot, purposeful action.   

They became determined the challenges facing their small business would not drag them down. They used their 'fight stance' to create a purpose-driven momentum and dialogue that drowned out their negative thoughts.

During one of the many discussions of what to focus their purpose project on, Rosalie and Gareth learned that most abuse towards children in their immediate community happened between the time they got home from school and when their parents or caregivers returned home after work.

They decided this would become their focus – to do an equal measure of good to the devastation of the fire.

The idea of creating a ‘safe space' for children in the community was agreed as the way forward.

To make this happen they converted the new factory canteen into a child-friendly space and transformed the outside car park into a play area with swings and a netball hoop to become a supervised safe play area.  They partnered with a local NGO to run the 'Safe Space' every weekday afternoon.

If something bad happens, do good in equal measure. Image supplied by Rosalie Akerman

Children were fed a healthy meal, given help with homework, had a safe space to just play and had access to a social worker if they needed it.  Seventy children, ranging in ages between four and seventeen, used the space every day.

Seeing how much good their safe space project was providing these kids gave everyone an overwhelming sense of pride and gratitude.  They used it to put out the fires of anxiety that were burning all around them.

Create habits to restore energy and let go of negative emotion

Rosalie was all too aware that she and her husband were expending vast amounts of emotional energy on rebuilding their factory and starting again. They worked long hours to keep their dream alive and, at the end of each day, there was little energy left over.

To sustain their motivation and energy, they made work fun.  They watched comedy shows each night, grateful to be sharing some laughs and shifting their state from fatigue to fun.

For the management team they had ‘Friday Teatime’, where they could talk about anything besides work.  It was a great way to deepen their understanding of each other in a safe space.

They took care of their bodies, getting a personal trainer so someone else was telling them what to do to give their brains a chance to rest from decision fatigue. 

Rosalie found “if you pushed yourself hard physically the emotional garbage you were holding onto would release - I seemed to cry during workouts in the middle of a busy gym quite often”.

They also found an ingenious way for themselves and their children to let go of worry each day.  They placed a 'worry tree' at the top of their garden stairs. 

Inspired by Edward de Bono's six thinking hats idea, they visualized taking their 'worry hats' off when they got to the top of the stairs and mentally 'hung them on the worry tree' so they could walk into their home and be fully present with each other.

The tree Rosalie chose was a native Weeping Boer-bean.   It has tight clusters of shiny red flowers and an abundance of nectar that drips onto the ground.   “It’s a generous tree that cries life-giving nectar”, said Rosalie.

"In the morning, we would collect our 'hanging worries' on our way down the stairs," said Rosalie.  The ‘worry tree’ sheltered them from their worries each night, allowing them to rest and recover.

Weeping Boer Bean. Picture: Glenice Ebedes

Never Doubt Your Ability to Learn.  Work on How to Accelerate It 

After 12 months of work finding a new location for the factory, sourcing equipment, installing it, and retraining staff, Rosalie and Gareth were back in business. An enormous relief.

Their customers returned and suppliers provided stock on longer credit terms to help get them back on their feet. Things were going amazingly well for the first few months, until they learned of their next set of challenges.

While they were focused on getting their factory back to full production, two of their key markets had undergone significant change.

 Chinese truck tires were now flooding the local market and were cheaper than the cost of buying local retread tires, one of their major markets, putting the industry into terminal decline.  Demand for retread tyres had dropped by 40%. 

At the same time, their conveyor belt manufacturing customers informed them demand was down 20%, after months of mining strikes.  Reduced machine operating time because of the strike action had extended usual replacement cycles.  This had a direct flow-on impact on demand for their products.

Both issues at once became business-threatening. They had to find new income streams and fast. 

Having conditioned themselves to problem solve under pressure over the past 12 months, they came up with a new plan: create new higher-value products with additional margin to provide a buffer for reduced sales volumes. 

Gareth is a mechanical engineer and had developed an aptitude for learning fast. It was the only way to get through the mountain of challenges he faced starting and rebuilding their factory.

To Gareth failure wasn’t something to be feared, it was just feedback to help him learn.  This mindset sped up his learning process.  Setbacks weren’t setbacks, they were stepping stones to success.

He used his existing polymer and mechanical engineering expertise and fast learning strategies to create a new high-tensile reclaim product that was so good its technical properties exceeded those of the leading global reclaim manufacturers in Egypt and India at the time.

The business would have closed if not for Gareth and his fast-learning mindset and capabilities.

Back on their feet. Image supplied by Rosalie Akerman

A learning experience no MBA could teach

Rosalie estimates she and her husband solved over 500 significant problems during the factory rebuild and market pivot. They came to enjoy the challenge of facing a problem, finding its cause, developing options to solve it, and taking action to solve it.

It became a core value and purpose for them to never step back from adversity and use their problem-solving skills to keep doing work that mattered for the environment, their staff, customers, and family.

Rosalie’s reflection of this time and her approach to problem solving is summed up by this quote:

“We were not scared of problems, because we believed in each other’s ability so much, and because of our ‘do good’ attitude.  When an issue arose we were like ‘ok, so when we have solved this what’s the next fun project we will balance this out with?’ as something to reward us for getting through another thing.”

Rosalie and Gareth’s problem-solving process was:

• Look for the underlying cause of a problem.

• Make sure to have a few knowledgeable perspectives to really understand it.

• Pull in stakeholders to fully understand what needs solving and why.

• Allocate responsibilities for each part of the solution.

• Bravely take action without wasting resources.

"Don't wait too long for the fire in your belly to cool. Some fires can be good," says Rosalie.

copyright thinkclear group 2023, all rights reserved.