Jonathan Schagen, interim director and former CEO of the Schagen Group: “The emotional process of letting go has already begun.”

How do you explain to a child what you do?
Dad talks a lot, all day long, and solves problems. That was the short explanation I gave my boys when they were little. There is always something going on in a construction company, and at some point it ends up on my desk. Often, it comes down to miscommunication: friction that arises because people have different ideas about what needs to be done.

Usually, it is simply a matter of going back to what we agreed. Fortunately, we have documented those agreements in a way that leaves little room for interpretation. Then it is just a question of getting everyone on the same page, and that is where the human side comes in.

It helps, then, that you studied psychology.

I have yet to meet anyone else in my sector with that background. Most people come from construction or engineering, or have studied business management. Psychology simply seemed interesting to me. I was never destined to join the family business. It was not my ambition.

In a family business, isn’t it almost inevitable that you’ll end up playing a role in it?
When I was choosing what to study, my father and uncle were still directors of the company. When I was fifteen or sixteen, my father asked whether he should keep a place open for me in the business. I said, don’t ask me that now. I wanted to find my own path. Then an unusual situation arose. My uncle suffered burnout and my father bought out his share. My father was in his fifties, and I was nearing the end of my degree. By then, I knew I did not want to become a psychologist. Why would you buy half a company when you’re already in your fifties, I asked my father at the kitchen table. And what about you, he replied, studying psychology when you don’t want to become a psychologist? That was when we started exploring the idea of working together in the family business.

I spent a year in South America, where I learnt what entrepreneurship really meant. A cousin of ours had a company in Paraguay that was in serious trouble. The company eventually went bankrupt and had to be relaunched, a process I managed to steer through successfully. I oversaw a controlled bankruptcy and reached agreements with the bank, suppliers, creditors and the company itself.

My cousin was glad I was there. He could no longer see a way through it himself. Today, the company is part of the Schagen Group.

What is the best piece of leadership advice you have ever received?
Always be friendly, but not necessarily nice. Being friendly means being fair, open and approachable. Being nice can turn into trying to please people, and that can mean losing sight of the interests you are there to represent. That advice came from Leo Hoff, my mentor during my first few years after returning from South America.

Leo and I would meet every few weeks. His role was to help me find my place in the company more quickly. I could not start at the bottom, on a construction site, and simply see how far I got. And while I was never a huge people pleaser, I was sensitive. Leo saw me struggling with that.
I realised that, in the position I had stepped into, I still did not carry much weight among all those experienced men with strong personalities. Mostly men, unfortunately. We would very much like to see more women in senior positions.

What is your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?
How do you find enough people to achieve your growth ambitions? The labour market is a nightmare, and not just in our sector. At the same time, we do not want to grow by acquiring other companies. You cannot preserve and protect your company culture if you buy other businesses and then try to integrate different cultures.

But experienced people are almost impossible to find now. The only way we can grow is by hiring young people straight out of education. We identify potential candidates by offering plenty of internships and graduate placements. That gives us a good sense of their talent and whether they are a good fit for us.

What was your first job?
Washing dishes in a small restaurant in Zwolle. I wanted a job in the family business, but my mother thought I was too young. When I was seventeen, she decided I was old enough.

That summer, I joined the Special Products department and travelled to Germany with a crew to apply wearing courses to asphalt. At four o’clock on Monday morning, we would drive to the Ruhr area and come home again on Friday evening.

I spent the entire week in a motel with a group of no-nonsense guys from the east of the Netherlands. Eating schnitzels, drinking beer, smoking roll-ups and playing klaverjas.

That is where I learnt about camaraderie. I saw how a group of men like that treated one another, but also how they treated me, because as the boss’s son, I was definitely put to the test. I got all the dirty jobs. Fortunately, I was good at klaverjas. That helped.

What is your big dream?
We have been around for 75 years now, and I dream of being there to celebrate our centenary in 25 years’ time. I hope I’ll still be around to see it, of course. I’m fifty now. But above all, I hope it will still be a family business.

That does not mean I expect my children to automatically come and work for the company. I stepped down as managing director this summer. That has everything to do with the expectations that come with succession in a family business.

I have always told my children that they need to find their own path. My eldest son is nineteen and has just started a degree in Commercial Economics. When he graduates in four years, I will be fifty-five. If he were to join us without any experience elsewhere in business, we would need to agree on a similar development path to the one I went through. That would give us about ten years until I retire, and by then his younger brother would be coming up behind him as well.

They are both great, intelligent young men, but with only ten years to work with, I do not think that is realistic. Everything would have to work out perfectly. I need to be able to let go afterwards with confidence. That is why I have now made sure the company is in safe hands. After all, 525 employees and their families depend on Schagen’s success.

So what do you do now?
I am currently serving as interim director until the end of the year, after which I will move to the Supervisory Board. I will remain an owner of the company, as well as an actively involved shareholder and member of the Supervisory Board. But I no longer want operational responsibility.

As for my children, if they want to come and work here, they are very welcome. They can develop and prove themselves within the company, and where they end up is not particularly important. If they enjoy project preparation or operating a wheel loader outside, that is all fine by me. And regardless of whether they work here, they will one day become owners of the company. I will train and coach them for that responsibility.

When have you felt guilty?
There is a lot changing at the moment, both because of my succession and because of the growth and development of the company. Some colleagues have been working in the same way for a very long time. They are finding these changes difficult. I sometimes feel guilty about that. Did we do enough to challenge and encourage them along the way?

How have you changed over the past ten years?
I have finally grown up a bit. I was somewhat reluctant about the professionalisation of the company at first, but I have also matured as a husband, as a father and as a member of my family.

At the start of my career, my work was much more operational. Later, my role became more strategic and I focused on the growth of our company and our position in the market. My perspective has broadened. I have a better overview and more confidence. In the past, I could still get caught up in details or consumed by the pressures of the day.

What do you still want to learn?
Who or what I can still become in this life. In a way, I am about to retire. As a member of the Supervisory Board, I will have six meetings a year. Once I have completed this period as interim director, an enormous amount of space will open up. I could make an impact somewhere else, but I do not yet know what that will look like. The emotional process of letting go has already begun.

My office has already been taken over, and in true construction-company fashion, they did not waste any time: ceiling out, walls out, new flooring in. There is nothing left to show that I ever sat there, or that my father and grandfather did before me.

That was painful, but it also made me laugh. It is so typical of how things work around here.