HFL
“Saying we wanted to be the perfect company seemed a bit cheesy when we first thought of it” says Dr. David Hall, Chief Executive of HFL, “but as we played around with a vision, people kept referring to the idea of A Perfect Company. We realised we don’t always know what ‘perfect’ is, but our staff know what it isn’t and that is how we move on.”
HFL was born in 1963 as part of the Horserace Betting Levy Board. It checks illegal substances do not affect the performance of racehorses and greyhounds. The company has recently broadened its services to support drug development activity for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
Because of a change of ownership the company needs a cultural revolution because it is ending the company’s outdated civil service ethos and requires a more commercial focus.
The Revolution
David, the leader of this major change visualises a company whose commercial success and growth stems from exploration, improvisation, and knowing its own strengths, rather than strategy. Part of his radical approach is for the company to “come to terms with not knowing how it will reach its aims, whilst getting comfortable with what it is and is not good at.” So the emphasis is less on the ‘how’ of strategy, and more on the ‘what’ skills people possess, which is where Maynard Leigh comes in.
The alignment between Maynard Leigh and HFL soon became clear to both sides. Our focus on bringing out the authentic, holistic individual at work exactly fitted HFL’s drive towards knowing itself and its people better. With his passion for improvisation in business, David Hall instantly appreciated the value of theatre-based skills at the heart of Maynard Leigh training. Both companies share a commitment to living and breathing innovative, radical, business practice.
Initially, HFL asked Maynard Leigh to enhance the self-presentation skills of the top board and senior managers. From this emerged four areas of development: immediacy, responsiveness, creativity and pro-active approach. The top team was invited to be guinea pigs for the one-day Personal Impact course and its success led to four more programmes across the company.
Personal Impact
The Personal Impact programme helped HFL to get to know its strengths and weaknesses at the grass roots by holding a mirror to the individuals who made up the company. “We give people the opportunity to see how they come across – to make new choices”’ says Nigel Hughes the Maynard Leigh lead consultant on this project. One memorable way this occurred was by filming participants as they arrived in the morning. A playback session followed, setting a benchmark for new and honest feedback to continue through the day.
Against the backdrop of looking in the mirror, Nigel led exercises on teamwork and awareness. In one session, participants received make-believe Communication Impediments in which some were blindfolded and others instructed to behave dumb or deaf. This handicapped group then formed a chain, joined by balancing long, thin, sticks between the tips of their fingers. The brief: To go on a journey: down stairs, up in lifts – and then return, without dropping a stick!
Why do this? As one participant said, “The best thing about the course was that it didn’t have an agenda to impose”, so there were no right conclusions to draw. But by placing people in a situation so intense that collaboration was essential, the exercise provided a physical, not just intellectual experience of what teamwork was all about.
Personal Impact is designed “to shake people up a little”, says Nigel, “This helps them look at things in a different, possibly new way.” Towards the end of the day, participants gave a speech about a person who inspired them. As each of the speakers glowed with admiration for their subjects, they themselves inspired admiration from their colleagues, leaving an open question: is it a good thing to exclude so much of what excites you from work, if this is the impact that bringing it with you can have?
Several months down the line attendees say the course has made a difference to how they do things. HFL’s Clare Kingsley says: “One thing I’ve taken from the experience is it’s not just your words that get the message across, it’s your enthusiasm. I now use more enthusiasm when I’m talking to clients, and I’m learning to be myself more. The feedback from the course helps me remember I’m not as limited as I sometimes think”.
