Francois Lubbe — Action Coach and the need for business coaching
With Francois Lubbe — Action Coach and the need for business coaching
In short
A conversation with the CEO of the Cradle Nature Reserve and Boutique Hotel, 40 minutes from Sandton, about a career flip from film production into country hotels and about running a commercial business whose proceeds fund conservation, a Westbury education campus and local jobs. Practical detail on green building, wetland pools, aquaponics tunnel farming and staff empowerment. The one takeaway: A total career change worked because the underlying discipline transferred: working with purpose towards an outcome, learned in advertising, applied to hotels and farming.
How does a commercial photographer end up running hotels?
He studied commercial photography in Durban, moved into film as an assistant cameraman and later lighting cameraman, studied lighting and cinematography in LA, then opened a production company making TV ads. When his first son was born he decided to leave the city and chose the hotel business instead.
Why take on a hotel with no hospitality experience at all?
He had a passion for cooking and entertaining, considered a restaurant, but decided from talking to restaurateur friends that it would just replace one bad grind with another. He researched country hotels instead, spent two years finding the right farm and built Blue Mountain Lodge as his "movie set".
What happened when the farm turned out to be in bad shape?
He brought in a consultant and pushed through it. He had expected a well-functioning farm and instead found it in a terrible state, but production went from 5,000 cartons to 55,000 cartons within three years, growing avocados, lychees and coffee, which they marketed under the Blue Mountain name.
What does conscious capitalism actually look like at this hotel?
The owner, Timothy Nash, set up a commercial hotel business whose proceeds are dedicated to community upliftment and nature conservation. Staff are recruited from the local community and trained, so that from golf cart driver to chef everyone understands what the business is for. The first paying guest arrived in August 2016.
What is the African Digital Education Trust doing in Westbury?
It runs a campus for 400 primary school children who come after school five days a week, receive lunch and take online English, maths and robotics classes. On Saturdays there is a high school maths programme, this year covering grades nine, ten and eleven. Hotel proceeds fund it.
How will the aquaponics tunnel farming project create jobs?
Ten tunnels will be run as ten separate companies by people recruited from the local informal settlements, in a mentored environment rather than being handed a project and abandoned. The first phase could create work for 62 people. Business plans have been modelled and remodelled to avoid the failures seen elsewhere.
Why does the hotel count as an eco or green hotel?
Rooms are wooden structures on stilts so the land is not scarred, kitchen refuse is broken down with bokashi powder into manure, and grey water is pumped across the hill into French drains rather than into the dolomite subterranean water. No plastic; bamboo containers and paper straws are used.
What makes the swimming pool different from a normal hotel pool?
It is a wetland pool using no chemicals at all. The pool is terraced, with water plants and pebbles, and the water reticulates through three ponds before being pumped back, so guests swim in crystal clear mountain water. It sits at the entrance to the pathways to the rooms as a deliberate statement.
What can a company do at the new pavilion venue?
The pavilion, launched in November about a kilometre from the hotel, holds up to three or four hundred people across its areas and has a conference venue, chapel, bar, seating and a large pool entertainment area. It has hosted a car launch, a music promotion and two weddings. A 150-seater venue sits beside the hotel.
In their words
They say there's a time in your life when you're young enough, naive enough and brave enough to do something wild.
I thought I was going to go and have this luxurious life in the country, read my books and stroll around the farm. You know, little did I know that this was actually a long feature movie that never stopped.
We turned it around within two, three years and we took the production from 5,000 cartons to 55,000 cartons within three years.
I mean, you have to empower people. You can't treat them like stones. I mean, they're human beings, they work there. They are ambassadors.
If all of our business people take some effort to take one step and do one project to empower people and create jobs in the area, I think we can go a long way.
Key takeaways
- A total career change worked because the underlying discipline transferred: working with purpose towards an outcome, learned in advertising, applied to hotels and farming.
- Never giving up was treated as the only option, on the basis that this was the journey chosen and it had to succeed.
- Empowering and training staff is framed as commercially self-interested, because informed, happy staff become ambassadors who promote the business daily.
- Handing people a completed project without knowledge or mentorship sets them up to fail, which is why the tunnel farming plan is built around mentoring.
- Removing fixed service times, such as breakfast hours, is a deliberate way to strip anxiety out of a guest's stay.
- Even a modest job-creation target matters if every business owner takes one step and runs one project in their own area.
Show notes
On this episode I chat to Francois Lubbe from Action Coach about coaching, what it is and why we would need a coach in the business world.
Frequently asked questions
Is it a game reserve with the big five?
No, it is a nature reserve. There are antelope species, civets, genets and servals, with elusive leopard and brown hyena reported. The animals are not tame and move in their own space and time, so sightings are treated as a privilege.
How far is it from Johannesburg?
About 40 minutes from Sandton. The hotel sits on a 1,680 hectare nature reserve, with traversing rights over neighbouring family farms of a further 7,000 hectares, giving access to roughly 9,000 hectares.
Do you need to book for the restaurant?
Booking is preferred rather than required. It is a 200-seater restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, and while walk-ins can be handled, advance notice lets the team prepare and gives slicker service. It can be found on Dineplan and the website.
Who built the rooms and the wetland pool?
Wayne Anderson has done all the building on the property from the outset, including the pool and the new pavilion. The pool itself was designed by Anthony Fulbrick, described as getting a wetland development right first time.
What else can guests do besides game drives?
There are palaeoanthropology tours, including with Professor Lee Berger and specialist guides such as Lindsay Hunter and Howard Geach, an ambassadors programme at Maropeng, picnics anywhere on the property, and a weekend explorers club for children.
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