Inspiration

It was truly inspiring to speak with David. As well as the founder, CEO and chief consultant at The TCM Group, he is also the founding president of the People and Culture Association (PCA).

David is author of two best selling texts. His first book, published in 2017, is entitled: ‘MANAGING CONFLICT: a practical guide to resolution in the workplace’ (Kogan Page/CIPD). His second book, ‘TRANSFORMATIONAL CULTURE: develop a person centred organization for improved performance‘ was shortlisted as 2022 Business Book of the Year.

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

 There’s a book called Discipline Without Punishment, by Richard Grote and it’s about how we create conversations in our organisations, particularly around issues of performance management, building strong, effective teams, and helping people to thrive without using a punishment-based system. I love that book, it really inspired me when I was thinking about retribution and punishment within organisations and our addiction to retribution,, as though it will result in behavioural change, which it doesn’t, it never has, and never will. Blaming, shaming and punishing people just creates trauma and harm and distress and has the opposite effect. So, one of the things I did is I launched a new HR policy to try and move away from retribution and Dick Grote’s book really informs that process. 

The book has got some really great work-through scenarios, practical toolkits, and things you can take away and put into practice and embed into your work as a manager with immediate effect. You don’t need an MBA. You don’t need a social change programme. You don’t need to repurpose the whole system in the organisation. It’s just talking through how to prepare for the conversation, and how to have those quality conversations, but removing that blame that I see within our organisations. It’s very collaborative, and managing performance becomes a shared experience, which is why I love that book, it’s practical. 

The second book is my own, Transformational Culture. I send out a lot of free copies of that. I probably give away a lot more free copies of my own book than anyone else’s. I’m just constantly trying to get traction around my text., so I give it to prospects, and I give it out as prizes when I talk at conferences. It’s the book I genuinely give away the most to try to really raise awareness of the work I’m doing and the space around people, values and culture.  

What purchase of £100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)? (Brand and model, where you found it?)

 Getting some AirPods has given me real freedom because it means I can get on the move and I do my best thinking when I’m on the move. The AirPods have liberated me from my chair and have given me the opportunity to get out into the countryside where I live. I do meetings, calls and every now and again if I feel brave I’ll pitch whilst I’m on the move. 

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favourite failure” of yours?

 I see failure as being one of the ‘F’ words of the organisation, along with ‘fear’ and  ‘feelings’. I embrace failure and believe in going out and doing things and failing but not stopping because you’ve failed; fail fast and draw insights. I am a natural-born optimist, other people will tell you failure should be a cause to stop doing something and that can become a compelling voice in our head, whereas I actually see failure as an opportunity to keep pushing ahead but keep tweaking and changing and give space to reflect on the learning and insights from the failure without seeing it as a pejorative or letting it fill your head with cortisol. 

My favourite failure was in 2008, with the financial crash. I built a business structure which was driven by my optimistic belief that mediation would be the biggest thing ever that existed in the history of the planet. It was different times. We were pretty inefficient, and we weren’t very optimised but it didn’t really matter because we had a lot of cash so I built this overhead that was based on my optimistic desire and aspirations of growth, and it wasn’t until the financial collapse hit me in summer 2011 when the whole House of Cards just went rumbling down. So my biggest failure was building an infrastructure in the business which went unchecked based on my optimistic analysis of what might happen tomorrow, rather than a very realistic and pragmatic analysis of what’s important today and building around that sense of pragmatism built on heuristics, bias, and aspiration. I had the insolvency lawyers and the bailiffs on site, I was making people redundant, downsizing, rescaling and restructuring the business. But I never lost that sense of aspiration. So 2011 to 2015 was a real period of retrenchment and an opportunity to draw that reflection alone. Since then, I’ve built a leadership team, and I’ve got much better use of digital so I can be much more analytical and proactive in identifying challenges.

If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it —metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions — what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph. (If helpful, it can be someone else’s quote: Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?)

 My billboard would say, “Be kind, be compassionate”. With a footnote, ‘this can also deliver high business performance and drive your productivity’.

This billboard is directed at the organisational context. If every manager was just 1% kinder in the way that they interacted with their colleagues, more compassionate, more open to listening, more empathetic and we then aggregated that across a whole site, a whole hospital, a whole bank or pharmaceutical company then that kindness and compassionate scale could turbocharge the organisation and shift the culture.  

What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.)

 I wasn’t a particularly academic person throughout my degree but when I went on to study the MBA, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the learning, the challenge, and the discipline of writing essays, I found myself getting 70% in my essays and it opened up something in me that I really enjoyed. it was a pivot point for me as a person because I was running the charity, the mediation service, doing HR, finance and strategy, I was entrepreneurial, I learnt a sense of self-belief and it was the first time I felt successful in an academic type setting. I got a distinction and I was really proud to achieve that.  In essence, my business and my self-belief as an entrepreneur came out of sitting in my MBA classes driven by that sense of purpose.  

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

 I like fishkeeping, I’ve got a fish tank and that gives me a little moment away from Zoom when I need to. 

An unusual habit is buying domains or buying and selling domains as I’ve just started to have enough of a portfolio that I can also sell domains.  I also love SEO. I find it deeply fascinating to see how you can shift stuff around on the page, look at the hierarchy on a page, the meta tags, meta descriptions, imagery, and snippets, and watch it shift up and down on Google and try to figure out the algorithms that underpin it. I find it interesting.  

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

 I suffer from a bad back and I struggled with it to the point where I was hospitalised a couple of times several years ago. So, I started going to see a personal trainer called Liz, who was a former Olympian who also had a bad back and had to retire from the field of athletics. I went there to try and get my core strength back as the doctors had said there was nothing they could do. So the biggest habit I’ve formed is to go to the gym twice a week without fail and that has multiple benefits for me;  It builds my core strength, which has meant that I have far fewer episodes of my bad back, and I’m just fitter and healthier. So in the last five years, looking after my body has been the best thing I could have done in terms of my physical and mental well-being.  

What one thing could you do that you aren’t doing now, that if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?  What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

 I suppose there’s always going to be that feeling that you don’t spend enough time with the family. I do really try to make that happen and it’s just constantly, working hard to protect that quality family time.

Have you ever engaged with self-help, mentoring or coaching? If so, how?

I’ve had coaching a couple of times where I’ve been in moments of sort of crisis personally or professionally within the business and I loved it, it was a massive gift to have the opportunity to reflect and compartmentalise stuff in the conscious brain with the subconscious working it through. I’d recommend coaching to anyone, both as a management of a moment of crisis which is very powerful today, but also just as a normal exercise.  

I’ve been through mediation as well a couple of times when I found myself in conflict with others, so when the opportunity’s been there. I love it. It’s great to be in the mediation chair but it is so powerful to actually be a participant in the mediation and receive feedback which isn’t driven by blame and hostility, but a genuine attempt to help you understand your behaviours and vice versa. I’d recommend to anyone if you ever get the chance to go into the mediation process or indeed the coaching process, embrace it and don’t see it as a sign of failure or some form of punishment or negative. That feedback is an absolute gift, it’s fundamentally important and really valuable. 

Check out https://thetcmgroup.com/ for more details.