Family Business Week – Sir John Timpson

everyone.

And welcome to the final bonus episode for family business week.

And we have a really special interview for you now, , is one from the archives.

So if you are a long time listener, you may recall that, , back in November,

2018, I was lucky enough to go to see John Timpson's office and spend

some time with him Interviewing him about, , Timpsons, which if you're

in the UK, you will know very well.

They are on every high street.

They have a fantastic reputation here in the UK and incredible

culture within the business.

, and.

Some very, very impressive leadership from both.

So John and James Timpson, , and the rest of the team there, , it's a fantastic

organization and I dig into some of the, , aspects of how that's come

about with sir John in this interview.

Another important element of this interview is the fact that so John

and his late wife, Alex fostered children, they fostered a lot

of children, um, over the years.

And I actually grew up in a household where my parents fostered

lots of different children.

And I can appreciate from that the impact that having foster parents has on.

Um, young people's lives and the positive impact that is

had, um, as a result of that.

So it really resonated with me.

Um, it brought back some very happy memories from my childhood

of growing up in a home where we looked after some foster kids too,

so a really enjoyable aspect to it.

And there's a link at the end of the show.

If you do want to make a donation to the, um, Alex Timpson trust, uh, there's

links at the end of the show to do.

Um, this week is about celebrating family businesses and in order to

do so, you can head over to social media in particular, on Twitter

using the hashtag family biz week.

Um, also follow the accounts at family biz week and at IFB underscore UK.

And share with us, your photos, your stories, what it is that you're doing this

week to celebrate family business week.

Um, in addition, you can tag the family business podcast, Twitter

account, which is at fam biz podcast.

Um, without further ado, I will hand you over to the

interview with, so John Timpson.

Enjoy.

Um, I hope there's a lot to take away from it.

If it's the first time you've listened to it.

, I really hope you take a lot away from it.

So, um, that concludes the bonus episodes for family business week.

, and what a way to end that with an interview with John Timpson, , enjoy.

I'm really, really excited to bring you this episode.

Um, is it a bit of a preamble which I'm actually recording after the interview?

Um, but I have.

Interview today.

So John Timpson of the Timson group, now our UK audience

will know all about Timpson's.

They won pretty much every high street, a very well-known family business here

in the UK, um, for our non UK listeners.

Um, so John does give a, an overview of what the business is.

Um, but if you are unfamiliar, I would suggest looking it up and having a look

at the type of things that they're up to, and also having a look at some.

John's books.

Um, so yeah, just wanting to record a little bit of a, a preamble, um,

to introduce a show because I was a bit nervous and excited when I

started talking to, uh, to John's Hodges come and got straight into

the show with no real, um, intro.

Um, I.

Talk to John about, um, the business, obviously I'm also about the family side

and also his, um, fostering, which he did for many years with his late wife, Alex.

Um, and, uh, I think you'd agree when he starts to talk about that.

You can hear the passion and how passionate he is about that still.

Um, so it was great.

It was really enjoyable.

The, I went up to Tim's and house in Manchester to have a chat with him.

And, uh, I hope you enjoy it as much as.

Well, hello and welcome to the family business podcast.

A very special episode indeed.

This week.

I am delighted to be joined by none other than so John Timpson, um, firstly,

John, thank you very much for your time.

No problem.

This morning.

Um, Uh, and perhaps we have a global audience.

And so perhaps the best way to start is to give a bit of a background on

yourself, the Timpson group and how you came to be where you are today.

Well, should we start with what the business does now?

Because that's quite unfamiliar to people who don't live in the UK.

We describe ourselves as a multiple service business.

Um, and, uh, and it's truly that.

Uh, the coal business is shops that do shoe repairs, key cutting watch repairs,

engraving, and a lot of them do dry cleaning and we do a possible photo.

So it's lots of services under one roof.

We've got about a thousand plus of those shops.

Uh, a lot of them are in supermarkets.

Some are on traditional high streets.

They've got another business that does photo called max Spielman,

which is on high streets and also in supermarkets as well.

Uh, we got another photo business, which is a franchise

business called snappy snaps.

We've got a dry cleaning business called Johnson's to cleaners.

A small, dry cleaning business called , which is based in London and has a

number of international franchisees.

And then we've got a locksmith business, which has got lots of ads going around.

So we've just started.

It's a very small amount, but it's starting to grow a barber shop barber

shop in supermarket carpark business.

So it's lots of different things, but the core business is, is something

which you didn't see anywhere else in the world because no one developed

from shoe repairs quite as we did, but.

So, how do we get there?

I guess is, well, how do I get that?

Because it's only by your great grandfather.

My great-grandfather was the reason why I never had an interview for a

Um, like, like you do one shop in central Manchester, a lot more shops

around Manchester and then spread from that to Liverpool and Sheffield.

So by that time, My grandfather was running to the business who

built it up to, oh, by the time I started 260 shoe shops, but they

started to repair repair shoes.

In the late 19th century, but not repairing themselves to start with

getting various cobblers around UK, but collect shoes from our

shots, brought it back again.

Then they started having a central shoe repair place, gradually regional shoe

repair diapers, and then they started doing separate shoe repair shops.

I would go into the family business.

Uh, it was 260 shoe shops and about 80 or so shoe repair.

And, uh, but I was really voted in as the shoe retail side of

things did, did a buying job.

Bought lady shoes, became a director far too young, and then we had, uh,

a complete bust up in the boardroom.

And that's because by that.

I mean, I was fourth generation, lots of family shareholders all over the place,

most, most, not involved in the business, but, uh, somewhere on, particularly my

father's cousin who was very keen to use an ambitious guy, he was a director

with my father and I was on the board.

And in total there were nine directors and cousin got all the other directors

on his side and, uh, It asked and then forced my father to reside as chairman.

So how did you feel at that time?

They feel filter you're you're sat on that board.

And did it feel like the whole of the board of directors were against

you and how did you manage that with your relationship with your father?

Is it felt pretty, pretty accurate as well?

I brought my father and myself close together than any time before,

because I was going to support him.

I, I didn't think they, the rest of them knew how to run a business, frankly.

Right.

Uh, and it was pretty inevitable.

If we let that all happen, my job wasn't going to last much longer.

And, uh, so w we, weren't going to stand around.

And my late wife, Alex, wouldn't, let me start stand around.

So you've got to get back in there and sort it.

And, uh, there are only three things we could have done in that situation.

The family in total owned about 55% of the shares.

But then of course the family is now split.

So, so there, there was three options.

One you could just give up, let them take over.

You know, find something else to do.

Secondly, you could go and have a, uh, an extraordinary meeting and try and get the

shareholders to back us, uh, as opposed to uncle and the rest of the directors.

Probably not a very clever thing to do because you know what I

mean, it's not going to do the share price much good, all that.

And the third possibility, which is what we did was to actually offer

our shares to, as in eventually sell our shares to a possible bidder.

So, um, so then we had three.

Takeover battle because it wasn't another one came in to try on our bed.

And so.

And then was all over and I'm still left there.

I sort of survived through that, not difficult, but, uh, and then I,

I went to work for elsewhere in the group, the as managing director.

I wasn't it with, well, first of all, I was doing, I was

working for a business school.

John Collie is doing not very much.

And I went into hand, I went hand handed.

My notice, actually, I could, couldn't see a future with.

And they said the chairman said, uh, do you live anywhere near Liverpool?

A strange question Wilmslow was near enough for him.

So, uh, he said, well, look, we've got a business there which sells Thurs

and leather clothing in 60 shops.

And week before last I fire the chief executives, the finance

director and the bind director.

Right.

So.

If you live that close, why don't you go there and look after it for a

bit until I can find someone decent.

So, so that's what I did.

I did that for best part of two years.

And, uh, then it taught me an awful lot.

Uh, and then they asked me to go back and take over.

Father's cousin to run, look, look, or business for them.

Right.

So that's how I got back into, into the, what was no longer a family

business, but that was all right.

And then you led a management buyout to, to get it back into the fact.

Well, eventually, I mean, What are the things that if you're part of a group

as I will, and he wants to survive one of the things to make sure I visited

somewhere else, some other part of the group who's doing worse than you are.

And then you're fine.

But, and that wasn't difficult in that group because a lot

of businesses were struggling.

It's not, when you went away from a bay, you only have to be the second slowest

person, Tony that's right, exactly.

That's absolutely spot on.

And.

But eventually the course of the group was doing so badly because

I have so many bad performing bits that it eventually got taken over.

And, uh, I'd already spoken to, uh, by chart.

I never knew what a management buyout was Mets up.

So all my, my wife met someone who did and said, why don't you talk about it?

And so we did, I didn't ask.

The original group, whether they'd sell it to me.

And that was a quick, no, and as soon as we were taken over, it suited the

new lot to, to, uh, get, get the cash.

Uh, and so that's how we came out of, and it was, but of course,

when you do a management buyout, I mean, like you're not your bosses.

You've got to go to a very small share in it normally, but we had, we had.

Piece of luck in the way it was negotiated some odd mistake on the

way in our favor, I'll be finished up with 80% for the management.

So it was that I got over 50% of that.

So it was getting back to being a family business now.

And was that the motivation at that stage?

Because obviously you mentioned when the.

Dispute, shall we say, within the family happened and, um,

your dad was effectively, forced out, but you and your dad closer

together, you had those options.

If, for example, you chosen their shareholder option and they

potentially back the other board, it could possibly have closed off

the option for the MBO later on.

I mean, at that, uh, at that stage when we had the boardroom bust up, no one

had ever heard of management, not me.

Yeah.

I don't think the rest of the world knew anything about it.

This was basically as when we did a bar and it was the second biggest in the UK.

It's a very new thing.

Uh, no, the motivation by that, uh, it was the best way to secure

the right future for the business.

And to be fair, uh, top of my writing, my wishlist was to try and look after

the people who have been loyal to the family that all went terribly

wrong refractive because of the next.

Four years after we did the buyout, the shoe retail business got in.

Struggled.

And it was always there.

They're often very clear it was got a struggle a bit.

It's a bit like if you, uh, if you're looking at some of the businesses

that have got into trouble on the high street, recently, shoe retail

was in the same position then in the, in the eighties, as a lot of the

department stores have been in since, since, uh, for the last decade and.

So I came to the conclusion that we could afford to open another shop level.

We couldn't develop the business and it was maybe going to go into loss.

So I ought to sell it right.

Which was totally against what I wanted.

And in terms of looking after my people, cause I, and I did sell that.

And the one that was quite the worst moment of the whole career

was standing in front of the.

Down the road from where we're talking now with and sure.

Uh, uh, telling them that I just sold the re retail shorts.

Cause I do in actual fact, I sort of sealed their fate as far as

that future was concerned and they would become redundant, not nice.

And I felt awful about it really, but I kept, I kept the shoe repair business,

which was then 140 shops, 145 shops.

Making a bit of money, 300,000 turn over about 6 million.

So a nice little business, bit of a hobby.

And so that's where we started the company, the new, new SIG, and

that was without venture capital.

So I'd become a managed the other should directors.

Two of them hire, they had shares.

I have to.

And then about three, four years later, I bought what them out.

And also it's what you do.

Um, you spoke earlier about the diverse range of businesses that you have with.

The group and the scale of the business has grown substantially has an essence

that time you took about 140 old shops.

Yeah.

It poses a couple of questions from, from my perspective.

Now, as you mentioned, we were in your, um, head office.

We don't have a head office.

We, we strongly tell her we do not, this is Timpson house.

This is where we support that.

This is part of the support we give to the people working in the branches.

We don't run anything.

So this is part of my, um, question, in fact, yeah.

Is the culture within the, the Timson group is, um, envied.

It is something that is very apparent.

And I came in this morning.

Everybody says, hello to you got offered a couple of cups of tea

from people just walking past as a, as I was sat in the waiting area.

How do you scale that culture?

Because it's, it's not easy to do sometimes on an, on an

individual site, let alone.

2000 sites.

And it's something that Timpson groups seem to have achieved quite easily.

I don't want to say that, but, but quite consistently, well, it's taken

us 20 years to get to where we are.

Now, if you come on on a special day, by the way, this is our perfect day.

Perfect day here we have, we only have one perfect day per year.

Okay.

And because why do we have it?

Because this is the day when every office is perfect.

You might've seen a couple of guys go around with clipboards.

So everybody gets Martin.

There's a prize for the one with the most perfect office.

But we do that in the shops as well.

We pick a perfect day for, for each of our chains of shops.

And on that day, each of those shops in that chain have got to be perfect.

Right.

It's a way of keeping up standards.

Um, how do we.

As I say, we've been doing something a bit different for 20 years all started

from the fact that, um, we realized that if the success of this business

depends on giving a great service to our customers, doing a great job.

And that the only way we can actually do that in every case is to give

the people who serve the customers, the freedom to do what they want.

You can't create great service by having a set of rules, uh, having training courses

that say, you've got to do it this way and giving people the words they've got

to use, and everyday you'll have to do it.

By giving people in the shops, people who serve the customers, the freedom, right?

And so we set off for the campaign to do it.

And it took even the people in the shops where we look up to them

to do what we wanted them to do.

So we said, look, just to illustrate what we mean by freedom.

You can spend 500 pounds to settle a complaint without talking to anyone

else, even if you started this week.

Wow.

We also said, you can, you, can, you got a price list, but

just treat labs as a guide.

You don't charge what you want.

If you've got a customer who deserves a discount, we want to do something

special for somebody that's fine.

Uh, they were very wary of doing that to start with too, because that the

problem was that the area manager or whoever they reported with the

area manager in those days, um, they thought was going to tell them off.

They started to do what I wanted them to do.

What would have happened?

So we had to, um, spend a lot of time trying to get the, the whole managed

people in management roles for the bosses to change the way they were

being a boss, which took five years.

No boss in art in this business is allowed to tell anyone what to do.

Right.

Which is counter-intuitive for the term boss, isn't it that they said to start

with or explain, how can I be responsible for the job that you've given me to do?

If I can't tell my people.

But we explained that being, being a boss is about helping the people who work

for you to be the very best they can be.

Your job is to look after your people.

Uh, But then the other thing we discovered is to run a business the way

we do it only works if you've got the right people, the right personalities.

So we had to try and train everybody to when they're integrate,

interviewing to, to recruit on personality and nothing but person.

Fantastic.

And am I right in thinking that the misdemeanor make an appearance in

that's where that's where the little Mr.

Man came in.

That was my, uh, initial device to explain to people what I meant by the house.

So they have this interview form, which has got, which is happy, Mr.

Keane, Mr.

Mr.

Punctual and so on.

And then there was another lot of Mr.

Scruffy was to dull.

Right.

And, uh, Mr.

Dodgy, and you just, all that.

Just get him to talk.

Don't I'm not interested in what the CV and so what they've written on their

application form or the normal sort of questions, just to get them to talk about

the sauce, what do you do at the weekends?

So they're revealing what, what their personality is like, and

then tick the boxes about fits.

The person, you get an impression through those type of conversations

about someone's values as well.

Don't need it.

They're all of that.

You know, if their, um, weekend activities are not particularly

inspiring, then they might not be the type of person that would answer.

And then if you, if they took it off boxes, we say, please cover

work in one of our shops for half a day, with someone who knows.

Actually I was out around shops yesterday and there was one person who was

working half a day and I checked her.

Last night to see whether they had employed her.

Right.

And I was very pleased to find that they hadn't, she didn't look me in their eyes.

She was a really sort of, she would not have been anywhere near it.

We describe it another way is we want a business full of nines and taps

people who rate nine or 10 out of 10.

And I mean, too many of us put up with the sixes and sevens.

That's not good enough for us.

Right.

And it's not good enough.

The nines and tens we've already got, because if you got to look after your.

Which is that the very important job that the boss has got to do?

One of the most important things you could do to look after them is to

make sure they don't have to work alongside people who are going to

have sick is pretty boring planning all the time and generally a pain.

Uh, so bring it down if you surround yourself with negativity.

So, so another important job of the bosses to get rid of the people who know good.

Yeah, we think that's very important.

And they've got the freedom again to do that.

Yeah.

I mean, we, we try and do it by an honest conversation.

We don't like warning letters or performance management programs.

We like just to sit down and to explain to someone we've we've we've made a mistake.

I mean, we, we obviously, I don't think you're right for this business.

I don't think your best or ever be good.

Good enough for us, right.

We may, we both made the wrong choice.

I think it's right.

That we should help you to find your happiness elsewhere.

And we'll be as generous as we can, but we want to get on with this.

And that that works in a lot of cases.

It's not what the traditional HR department, I can imagine.

HR professionals listening is going.

Now we have, we don't call it HR.

We've got a colleague support who is there to support our colleagues to help

them make sure we've got really great people right through the business.

Look after the.

None of that involves helping people with problems.

We should nothing to do with work.

I mean, where therefore, when you went through stress,

divorce, money problems, uh,

if someone shoved one's runs into, uh, into financial difficulties,

as long as it's not too, too big.

Uh, we'll let them lend us the money.

We'd rather do that because we, we only have two rules.

The people in the shops, one is look, the part and the others put the money

in the tool and we have hardship fund helps them solve their problem without

having to break rule number two.

Very good point.

And there's holiday homes and everyone gets sad birthday off and everyone's

had their best day off since oh, now for 14 years, we've done it.

That would be the 15th year.

Wow.

We, we, we decided that it was.

Because we wanted to 17, really, we decided it was a hundred years.

And just part of the celebration was to give everyone that birthday.

And it was so popular that that's, that happens.

So we, we also now give parents the day off if one of the children is

having their very first day at school, which is a new one that we've started.

Yeah.

The holiday homes have been really popular.

We've we started with one.

Near Blackpool.

Then we got the other one, which is abroad, but we've now got,

we've done about 19 holiday house, all, all scattered around the UK.

And there's a process for them to be common and they can go, uh, Around

September, we book up for next year and you've got to be a nine or a 10 generator,

or sometimes that might be there's.

Sometimes we're using holiday homes to help people.

Who've got difficult problems at home and to give them, give

a break, but normally it's just.

So that's what you want to do.

You're a great one yesterday to a holiday home, a great Yarmouth of half term.

So, uh, loved it.

That's why we keep getting more and more because it's such a popular benefit.

And that's where you get the desire from people to be the nines and tens

is because, well, you look after them, they're going to do a great job.

The whole thing sticks together.

I mean, it's just the.

Like a club of people who are like-minded people.

Uh, and you get the feel of that here when, when you're here as well.

It's, it's a very vibrant, um, environment to be in.

Um, if we can, I'd like to, to just take a step back to when you

joined the business, because did you come straight into the business?

You've had some time at Clark's.

Uh, my father wanted me to be an accountant.

So he sent me into an accountant's office at the age of 17.

Right.

And so I left school a year early, but fortunately I got some

levels which came in handy later.

Uh, I hated the counselor.

So I walked out after about six weeks.

And so my father said, okay, we better work in the business.

And so I got, I started as a shop assistant in a shoe shop in altering.

Um, and then I spent a little bit of time.

Cool with that repair phone, two hours useless.

I'm I'm practically absolutely hopeless.

Uh, but I worked on the counselor serve customers.

That was all right.

Yeah.

Um, uh, so I spent a year, but during that period, I applied to go to university.

So I went to university for.

The three years doing industrial economics as it happens, uh, working,

working in the shops and doing stuff during the university holidays.

And then I went for just about six months on a graduate training scheme at

C and J Clarkston in street, uh, which.

Uh, I did actually have to work in a factory, but I, they gave

me the simplest possible job.

They could find which didn't involve any machinery.

Right.

And.

But then I that's when I left.

Okay.

Ever since then, I've been working in this business or, but for the

short spell I had working elsewhere.

When we were part of another group, the experience you had,

because it was a family business.

When you joined and you were customer facing, so you.

Either directly or indirectly had the freedom that you now allow your

colleagues to be able to make decisions without perhaps the recrimination

of a boss in the background.

Do you think that's, what's helped shape the culture now, is that having

that freedom showed you the impact that it could have on business?

I mean, every business is.

In the sixties with pushy, uh, command and control.

It had lots of rules.

We had the standing orders for shoe repair shops, standing, all of the retail shops.

Everyone had to do it in a set way.

Okay.

Pretty rigid.

Uh, so I don't think it really came from that.

Now.

I, I thinking about it.

The fact that I'm so useless at doing practical stuff.

I don't know.

My wife banned me from any decorating.

Brilliant.

If I knocked an alien out, cause I do one job at home and that

meant about three, three CROs who had to come declare up the match.

So I couldn't when I started to run those shooter purposes, which I'd never been

anybody involved in, although I was.

Chief executives a whole thing, but they were very, they're a very

self-contained unit and, uh, very well.

But when I, I got more involved in it, I probably realized.

I could cut a key and I couldn't repair a shoe.

And so, but it was a business that didn't have the sort of

strategic thinking or marketing.

So I could do that bit.

And I worked out that to survive a cobbler, had to cut keys and then

that moved on to watch repair.

I mean, that's how we got to where we are.

We didn't have ahead of anyone else.

So that was good.

Um, but also I think.

As I couldn't do the job, uh, I, wasn't going to tell them what to do.

I give them the freedom to do it.

And I think that helped, but it was also very much this thing, realizing

that it depended so much on great service, that you could only get

that by freeing people up and hiring the right personnel just to do it.

Absolutely.

And your son, James is now the chief exec has been for 17 years.

And how easy or difficult a transition.

Was that for you and him?

Cause you, you wrote a book called I wrote a book called dear James, and

this was before he took on the role.

This was really, that was the first book I wrote about.

I wrote the book, actually, this is the oldest fish.

Uh, I, I wrote the book because, uh, uh, guys working with on the sort

of general image of the business, I said to him, well, there's

lots of really interesting stuff.

We're quite innovative.

And yet everyone thinks with a sort of, uh, Um, Peter, the high street hidden

in back corners with a smelly ones where the noisy ones were unacceptable

and they were quite difficult to attract people to work for us because.

Uh, he said, well, why, what are the things we could do to improve the

images, to write a book about it?

I'll get someone to do it.

I said, you weren't right.

I was going to write a book about this business.

I'm the one who's going to write the book.

And so, but then I wrote this book about all the good things we

do to make the business happen.

And I sort of asked bit Erica, really?

So that's why I, but then I thought about the title for the book, big DJ.

And suddenly it wasn't arrogant because I was just writing, writing down the

things that should never be forgot for the benefit of my son who was going

to eventually take over the role.

So that's why it was called dear James.

And, uh, it wasn't long after that, that James took over.

So probably about three years later when he became chief.

Exactly.

Right.

I was helped a lot by non non-executive director.

Patrick.

Who's a really close friend as well, who also was very

well-respected by my late wife.

So I'm very keen.

Suddenly you find that if I've, once my son becomes the chief executive, I'm

living with the chief executives mother.

So she's got an interested, I mean, yeah, so.

But it was, I mean, it was, it was no brainer really.

Cause James was so talented.

I mean, he, I knew he was better than I ever would be much more

hands-on and, uh, and quicker is younger, you know, by that time.

So, uh, so that was, I mean, I was over 60, so it was just

about the perfect time for him.

Do you think the process of writing a book helped with.

Transition.

Was it a coincidence?

I think that the, I spent a lot of the time chatting to this mate of mine, who

non-exec about how the problem really was in terms of the rest of the people

in the business who, who needed to be brought up to speed is realized to realize

that a 31 year old can run a business.

Because I ran the business lounge 31, so I knew it could happen.

And it's kind of a natural time when his predecessor was about to retire.

So it was the right time to do it.

And, um, it just put more patients and James is.

Just just, uh, I believe we believe in the, exactly the same culture.

That's so important.

It is, I think, quite different for most businesses.

I agree, which is why, you know, we don't recruit from outside

other than into accountancy and it.

Maybe just the odd specialist role, but as far as the field is concerned,

we do not have not one of our area team or area managers, assistant

area managers, regional managers, a whole, whole lot sales directors.

They are all started at the bottom of the business.

Because it's such a unique way.

We just couldn't, everyone gets it.

They know that you, you to tell people what to do.

You look after the people, they recognize what a nine or

a 10 out of 10 has all that.

Yeah.

And then that helps again with the retention of those.

And if they see a progression in front of them, then yes.

Yeah, no, I mean, they, they, there is a clear route for most of them

to go a long way up the ladder.

Fantastic.

And you mentioned your late wife and the influence that she had on when

you personally and the business.

I think what's often forgotten in, um, family business or when people are giving

advice to family business is the influence of somebody who is such an instrumental

character in the family's lives.

Directly involved in the business.

I mean, in terms of ownership or role, would that be fair to say

that Alex had a very positive impact on the culture and the work that.

She made an enormous difference, uh, in all sorts of ways.

I mean, one, I mean, she did work for a few weeks just before we got married.

I was a shop assistant in one of our shops.

That was it.

But she came along to a lot of events or sort of long service things.

And we had, which we changed from being in hotels.

We started to bring people to our house.

We had lots of marquee events, presentation awards.

You got to know the people really well.

Um, She made some really, really big calls in terms of critical times.

When I had big decisions to make, like whether I was going to a float

or the buyout, she was absolutely convinced it was thing to do.

Uh, when we had the big boardroom bust up, she just threw me into the battle.

She would not let me lie, lie down.

Uh, and when I wanted to float the business on the stock market, she told

me I was an absolute idiot and stopped me doing it because, because she said, you'll

never be able to get on with these people.

And that would have been the right decision.

God, we would have lost about three years.

I mean, I don't think the city would have understood this sort of business

so that we wouldn't have been able to just use this sort of, I suppose, quite

Maverick style that we used to run.

Um, so that, that was very important.

Um, but she was very, she was a role model.

She gave the business quite a social conscience because she spent her life

looking up, helping other people.

I mean, particularly as a foster carer to 90 kids, but there are plenty

of other things she did outside.

She had, she just sat, sat at the end of the kitchen table most

days with a note pad and a phone.

And.

Too, as a helpline for those people, but there's no doubt that that

attitude is one of the reasons why we do lots of different things.

So like, like we're doing a lot of work with schools to make

sure schools understand how to look after looked after children.

And I think slowly we're having an influence on the way schools are run.

Um, uh, but also of course we.

Part of that attitude came, the reasons why we been enthusiastic about employing

more people from direct from prison.

Uh, so, uh, that was very much, but she, James has got a lot of Alex in a

similar way they think, and obviously the influence of parenting influence.

And I think you probably notice that you look, look at.

On, uh, on our badges for most of it says part of the family sense

and that's, uh, my semi retired,

but we do regard the colleagues and the business.

And then I, colleagues, not staff because we're all, we're all in this together.

Um, but that part of the family, yeah.

Um, although we do things with schools that we do things with prisons,

we have interest in outside things happening outside the business.

Number one for us is to look after the people who work with us.

And there are a number of things that we do, uh, to help them through that problem.

And you mentioned, um, fostering and, um, it, I have a.

Um, a vested interest, I guess, in this subject because my

parents also foster parents.

So my childhood short, short term, short term, um, so during my childhood, I

had many different children coming into the house that then were part of the

family and they were various different.

Um, Stages in their development.

I guess there were some that had obviously come from very difficult backgrounds.

Some that had been passed from foster home to foster home, and

we're finding that very difficult.

We had one child from four months old until they were two and a half.

So they had very familiar with it.

It's, it's something that, uh, Know, it's not, it's not easy.

Um, I know you, you were saying Alex probably bore the vast

majority of that was really her job.

I was very much a support role, but it would have still had, um, an impact when

you both, both positive and potentially negative in terms of the time and

Canada's needed in, in doing that whilst also running a successful business.

So it it's.

Was it a difficult balance to find, or was it something that you found currently?

I don't, I don't remember it seeing it being a conflict.

Uh, I, it became quite that the fostering actually sort of was the priority because

if it, if, if it had to go to, uh, a planning meeting or whatever it was.

Cancel what was happening in the business to go to that, because that's what,

that's what you do for your own children.

So where in that role, uh, it taught me that all north get equipment better to

look after the people in the businesses.

I've no doubt about that.

I look, I don't know how you've felt as being a well, what are the children whose

whose home got invaded and having to share your parents with, uh, with more children?

It must in some ways not been, is that welcome?

In the end, all why the children that were born with it, they all do things which are

very much connected with what happened as the caring say, my daughter's a teacher.

Uh, my other son, Edward went into a first, the law and politics all

about, he was, he was a minister for vulnerable children and families.

So.

One of the, probably leading experts on the whole childcare thing.

And that came out of the fact that he lived with a lot of, a lot of

foster and I think it is difficult.

I mean, obviously I was relatively young when my parents foster

said to me, it was just normal.

It was, that was how life was it?

Wasn't that I'd known this life before.

And then all of a sudden it was, it was being taken over.

But, but it is also difficult with.

Th those children are there temporarily, they dissolve.

And then what you get used to that extra bit you'd know that they're

there for a short period of time.

We got quite attacked.

Cause we, we, although the short term, we had some years where

they changed the system change.

It was only, it was six months.

That was the end of it.

When we started right at the last lot we had, there was simply a group of three.

They stayed for certainly two and a half years.

Not far off three.

It was because the whole machine, so it took longer to wide, but also they

didn't tend to the ones we had didn't tend to move on to another foster home.

Another foster home.

They mostly went on either back to Bob, back to dad or to long-term

foster hub or to be adopted.

So that was good.

We were just a gap between one part of their life than the next.

And there are synergies, I think in terms of.

Uh, management style and culture within the, the Timson group

and the fostering environment.

Not, not precisely, but in terms of the fostering is it's creating a, an

environment that is safe for the children to be able to grow and flourishing.

And it seems as if not in a childlike way, but in a very adult way, you're

creating that within the group to say that you've got permission to say

yes, if you're going to say no, that's probably very smart of you to spot that.

I wouldn't say we, we didn't.

No one told us about when we started fostering and adopting, adopting as well.

It was about attachment and how a poor attachment to daily life can be the

reason why this behavior starts and that these kids do not feel confident about

themselves or the people around them.

And there's lack of self esteem and self confidence.

Uh, and people need that attachment complainant, not just as a child, but

they need it from the family all the way through, from their neighbors,

from their friends and also from work.

And.

There is no doubt the way we do it because people tell me when I go, right.

I, I feel so much better coming into a job where I'm trusted to

look after my own show and I valued.

And so you want a business to feel like home, which is where the family

bit comes in because you are providing some of that attachment, which is

really good for someone's wellbeing.

And again, that would be harder to achieve if you weren't a family

owned it's yeah, no, it it's easier.

It's easier because a family business tends to be very consistent in leadership.

I mean, Jane has been running for 17 years.

I started actually running the business 42 years ago.

So between, between the over the last 42 years, people have

known nothing other than myself.

Most businesses, they change every what, three, five years.

And it could be a completely different culture.

They all come in with own.

We won't do that.

We will only bring in people who understand our culture.

Uh, so, so that makes a big difference for family business.

And also, I think you tend to get in family businesses.

Uh, filling up, getting to know people and actually wants you to meet people.

Like, you know, we go around all the shops.

I'll be, I've got a group coming today.

We call it the residential.

They're a bit new people who started with us in the last six months.

We come and come in groups of 55, something like that.

And right.

So either myself or James go, we're going to do the first hour and I

go have a word with all of the past and where they're from now, tell

them something about their shopper.

Then we do a few questions, a bit about the history of the business.

So, so that they're hearing it, they're actually meeting

us and you don't get that in.

Not the family business thing does create that, I think.

And also.

Well, there's just consistency and the higher profile of the colleagues

you don't, we certainly don't have outside shareholders of any sorts.

Right.

We don't even have to worry about the bank because we've got, we

always make sure we got cash.

And so we are totally responsible for what we do.

We have no one saying you can't do that other than.

I suppose the government health and safety, all these risk and compliance

people who I, a lot of that way.

We look to see what really is required and if, if it is absolutely required

and we're not going to go into prison and we don't agree with it, we're

going to, into it our way we have the site by day, I'm a financial planner

and we have a set of regulations or standards we have to abide by.

And then in the middle, we have compliance teams who tell us

different versions of that.

And I imagine it's the same in any.

Particularly health and safety.

There's the norm.

And then there's, people's interpretation of that.

And actually spend that time.

If you're not careful, it's gold plating, it's called isn't that the

lawyers, the cult consultants who are trying to make money out of you

by adding much more to it, to make sure that you're, you're totally

safe, protected from the legislation.

They're not liability.

Fantastic.

So.

Just conscious of time and you very generously have given

us your tongue this morning.

Just a couple of things I wanted to ask you.

If you were rewriting the dear James book now, would you change anything?

Well, I have written a few more books and stuff, so I've probably.

I think I've I've I hopefully have made it that the latter was a bit

less complicated, uh, because I think simple is terribly important.

And if you're finding it difficult to describe, then it's probably

there's something wrong with it.

And an actual fact.

From the outside, don't realize how sick, how simple our business is.

It's a very complicated business doing all these services.

Uh, when you think about it as probably another reason why that easy way

to do it, to say, get on with it.

Yeah, you do it your way.

I.

An example of how complicated it is, a large number of our branches only have one

colleague working in it at any one time.

Right?

We, we have an area in our tubs.

We've got 50 something hours.

So it is generally about 50 60 shops.

And there's one person in the area team.

Who's responsible to make sure that we've always got someone in one of

our shops every day from eight 30 in the morning, we don't have a system.

Okay.

Other business will have a great computer saying.

But it's so much better to leave the individual who knows those, all the

people, those who could drive a car now, who's who likes, likes working Sundays

has an objection to working Sundays, uh, these, the money, because they're trying

to save for whatever reason will work.

Seven days if necessary.

Uh, All these quirky things, those where they live there.

So who's the nearest to do.

As long as people are sick by after seven in the morning phone in we'll

make sure that every one of our shops has got someone cause they do it.

They all do it different ways.

But that's, that's an example of how you make it simple.

We also lose the personality of the brand.

If you then start bringing a system that we use as an

algorithm to tell you the same.

I think that interesting thing has happened.

He's talking about the brand, you know, we don't, we don't have a marketing tool.

We don't want a marketing award.

Recently.

Uh, last week, James went to talk to the box on marketing.

I really don't know why I'm here because we don't have a marketing department.

Um, but in actual fact, we've managed without marketing a tool, probably

to build up a very strong brand.

I guess everyone seems to have heard of us.

And mainly by talking like we are now, and I have a column in a newspaper.

I do the old radio program.

Either one facet or the business and, um, Decided some time ago that the graphics

in the shops, there's no point in talking about shooter person keys, our graphics

talk about the way we run the business.

Customers interested in that.

And they know us for the fact that you're, you're the company

that employs people for prison.

Jordan, people do have this upside down management say they don't quite know

what it is, but they've heard about it.

And the nice thing is so many who say, oh, you're the business.

Got that really nice, man.

And I shot down the road.

That's what you're after.

That's gold dust.

Oh, that's fantastic.

So brilliant.

Last question for me then is if you could disseminate your years of knowledge

and experience into one tip for other family businesses, what would it be?

Oh God.

Well, I mean, I tried it one tip, uh, well, I think.

It depends at the second assess of every business, depends

on picking the right people.

And that also includes the family.

Right?

You've got to pick the right person from the family to do the job.

If there isn't anyone for the family who can run it, then you might,

you probably think as to whether you want to continue to have it as

a family business, but be brave.

And if there's someone in the family who ain't right.

Suggest going to do something else.

Fantastic, John, thank you very much, indeed.

For your time.

It's been, , incredible, , interview for me a real privilege

to be able to talk to you.

So, , thank you very much, very much to, well there we have it.

That was my chat with John.

, again, I think you'd agree.

It was a very insightful.

, chat with him.

I love his attitude to management, to empowerment, to creating an

environment for employees to thrive.

I think that's something that we can all take away from the interview today.

, as we mentioned during the show itself, so John's lately.

Annex was very, very passionate about, , fostering and helping children

from, , perhaps, , poor backgrounds to, , get, a better start in.

And, , following her death, they established the Alex Timson trust.

So, in thanks to John for his time, I've made a small donation to the Alex

Timpson trust, and I have provided links in the show notes to allow., who's

listened to this and, , it was touched by, , John's interview to do the same.