Jeremy Thorn

Management Development and Skills Development

“I find there are few bad companies – just bad managers.”
Frank Cardile – USA entrepreneur

“Great teams need shared experiences as well as common goals.”
Duncan Christie-Miller, ex Royal Marines

Jeremy Thorn offers a wide range of topics for either a key-note speech or for the facilitation of a complete away-day event.

Popular topics include:

• Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders
• Looking Around Corners – strategic planning
• Becoming a Director – essential duties and responsibilities
• Secrets of Managing Change Successfully – and critical pitfalls to avoid
• Team Makers – Team Breakers –what makes for a winning team
• Managing Top-down, Bottom-up, and from Side-to-side
• Talent Management – how to invest in the future most effectively
• How to Negotiate Better Deals
• Bringing Home the Bacon – essential, ethical sales skills
• Purchasing Strategy – balancing short-term gain / long-term advantage
• Sustainable Marketing and Pricing Strategies
• Practical Networking Skills– what goes around comes around!

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

“Another super talk by Jeremy, with practical tips and useful advice from his strong experience in all things to do with Management and Business Development.  He is a real master and a superb speaker.”
Paul Kincell – Branch Chairman, Chartered Institute of Management

“Jeremy is always a pleasure to work with. He gives each project 110% and takes time to fully understand the needs of every client. He is not only knowledgable and an expert in his field, but also has a real passion for what he does, which comes across in all his consultancy work and training.”
Julia Gold, General Manager, Europe & Middle East – Terrapinn Financial Training

“We’re still all raving about the workshop you led. The interest it has generated within the organisation is phenomenal.”
Trudy C, Head of Planning and Commissioning – NHS Healthcare Trust

“Jeremy didn’t just ‘facilitate’ our Partners’ strategy workshops. He engaged us all, drew us out surprisingly insightfully and very empathetically. He built productively on all our own suggestions, challenged us, questioned us and then suggested many other routes we had not considered before.  He then supported us in focusing us on a route I think many of my colleagues may individually have known we needed to take, but had never agreed on collectively, with great clarity and purpose and without hiding or ignoring many personal concerns, to build a really enthusiastic concensus between us all.  I don’t think we could ever have achieved this on our own and we are very grateful.”
DW, Practice Manager, Law Firm

“The morning I spent in Jeremy’s introductory negotiating workshop was the most useful 4 hours I have ever spent. It has helped me and countless friends negotiate better deals from buying houses to selling businesses.”
Stuart Gale, Frosts Photo Centre

“Jeremy’s key-note talk on leadership skills was practical, helpful and most enjoyable.  Running my own business, employing staff and coordinating freelancers, I got an awful lot out of his contribution.”
Stacy Hurley, Cinnamon Creative Events

“All Jeremy’s management workshops I have attended have been enjoyable and entertaining, as well as highly educational, and have always delivered against our stated objectives. Jeremy’s skill set is remarkably broad and deep and we have found great value from his highly professional contributions.”
P Thompson, Managing Director – NavisWorks

“We found the CPD workshop organised by CIMA today, delivered by Jeremy Thorn, was excellent. Jeremy was not only very informative but also made the event highly enjoyable, participative and entertaining.”
Julie A, Financial Controller – Pentex Oil & Gas; Anita S, Training Officer – Corus; Linda S – BT

“I thoroughly enjoyed Jeremy’s workshop at the Chartered Institute of Management yesterday. He got just the right level of audience participation, without making it embarrassing for any of us. I found him to be an excellent speaker and certainly someone I will look to recommend to others.”
Karen Bright – Director Signature Associates.

Understanding Ourselves and Others Better

“Give me a firm place on which to stand and I will move the whole world.”
(Archimedes 287-212 BC)

“Before you can be a leader, you must know who you are and what you stand for.”
(Rudi Giuliani)

Psychometric profiling tools can often offer life-changing experiences at any level, in helping to understand better our personal preferences at work and play and to highlight inate skills that we may never have known we had for further development and personal enrichment.

Such tools can also help employers significantly reduce the risk of making an inappropriate appointment, guide all of us in resolving organisational and team-working issues more effectively, assist in resolving performance management problems, guide any change management or talent management programme, and help other colleagues to find their most appropriate career-paths.

“Jeremy Thorn has the advantage of being an experienced businessman as well as a highly skilled psychometric profiler. As a growing senior team, we have found his skills and sensitive insights to be especially relevant and useful in helping us to build our company over a number of years.”
John Moorhouse, Owner-Manager – Engineering company

These tools should only be conducted within the ethical requirements of the British Psychological Society, which include:

• only fully validated, reliable and well researched instruments should be used;
• only trained practitioners should apply them;
• the results should always be fed back to the participant;
• the results should be kept entirely confidential and only divulged to others with their agreement.

“The insights Jeremy has given us into each of our own preferred behaviours individually, and how we can act best as a team, have been really helpful.”
Isabelle Nanin, Sales Manager – International Materials Supplier

“Thank you for leading a most instructive, enjoyable and entertaining workshop on ‘Ethical personality profiling and making informed career choices’ for our VIth form students. They have all been very enthusiastic in starting to think about themselves in more objective and adult ways. It seems they have never felt so empowered within school, and my staff colleagues who joined us really enjoyed the event too!”
Martin Davison, Head of VIth Form Studies, Gateways School

Jeremy Thorn is licensed to use an array of such profiling instruments strictly bound by the above ethics. Two of the most widely used and helpful are:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®

See: An introduction to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Short Profiles of the 16 MBTI Types

“I have found MBTI® especially useful to understand both myself better and my team. Thank you Jeremy!”
AA, Senior Manager – NHS Primary Care Trust

FIRO-B®

See:   An introduction to FIRO-B®

“I found Jeremy’s deep knowledge of FIRO-B® especially helpful in understanding myself in relation to my team and those I work with.”
CH, Member – Academy for Chief Executives Group

Other instruments

Consider also HOGAN tools for competency-based recruitment; EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EQ); and TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS (TA) for understanding better your own preferred conversational styles, how you might respond more effectively to others; your possibly hidden ‘drivers’ and ‘injunctions’ that may be tripping you up unwittingly; and the “games people play” in the ‘Victim-Persecutor-Rescuer’ triangle we may all unwittingly fall into.

“I find it really helpful to see how several quite different profiling tools can work together to produce a much bigger picture, not just to understand others I might work with, but most especially, myself in working with them.”
 IM, Senior Manager – New Technology company

WHAT OTHERS SAY

“Our 19-year old daughter stumbled during her first year at University. Jeremy Thorn offered her an array of ethical psychometric profiles which he conducted with great empathy, to allow her to get to know herself better and be clearer about her own gifts and talents. She is now much happier in her new course of studies.”
Dr SF,General Practitioner and Mrs DF, School Teacher; Parents

“We ask Jeremy to offer a range of psychometric profiles for all our senior staff as they join us, to help them see where and how they might best fit in with the rest of us.  It is very effective in both attracting and keeping good staff and time very well spent.”
KS, Managing Director, SME

“How people behave at work is often a mystery – most usually to their new employer, but often to themselves as well.  Jeremy seems to be able to cut through this ‘mystery’, without either putting obstacles in anyone’s way or presenting a picture that no-one else recognises. That’s a rare gift.  It saves us recruiting people who might not fit with us, and others from joining an organisation in which they might never be happy.”
Finance Director – University spin-out company

“I wanted to understand better how different psychometric profiling tools work and how they can be used most effectively by the senior members of my Academy for Chief Executives group, especially for their own insights and self-development.  That’s just what Jeremy offers in his half-day workshop session on ‘Team Makers – Team  Breakers” and I warmly recommend it.”
JAM – Chairman, ACE 20 and Leaders Forum 4

Executive Learning

“Learning hath gained most by those books which the printers have lost.”
(Thomas Fuller 1608-1661)

“It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.”
(Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894)

Apart from 1:1 Coaching or Mentoring, senior people in particular often prefer to learn best from other senior executives who have had similar experiences, as long as this may be in shared confidence and trust.

But how?

Two well-proven ways of learning from others are by professionally facilitated Action Learning Sets and Peer-Review Groups.

Action Learning Sets

Action Learning Sets were originally pioneered at Cambridge University and developed by Professor Reg Revans into a powerful learning process. They are about solving problems and getting things done – while also learning and developing.

Jeremy Thorn has facilitated such Action Learning Sets for many years, both in-house for larger organisations across different business-streams, and with mixed groups from quite different sectors at similar levels of seniority.

“I’d like to express my gratitude to you for the enjoyable action-learning sessions you have facilitated. I have learned a lot from everyone and I hope I have become an even better leader as a result!”
Anthony D, Director – Research Company

“Jeremy’s sensitive facilitation of our action learning set has produced a very supportive group from quite different backgrounds, where all are keen to learn from each other. Our discussions are consistently constructive and insightful and my time spent with this set is always rewarding.”
Colin M, Senior Manager – NHS Strategic Health Authority

Peer Review Groups

Peer Review Groups may also apply ‘action learning’, but these tend to be less project-specific and usually comprise senior members from different organisations who want to learn from each others’ experiences in confidence.

Personal development comes from members offering their own suggestions for group discussion, especially by learning from others’ questions and proposals, and engaging expert guest speakers as appropriate on topics of common interest.

“I have especially valued the way our Guest Speaker today, Jeremy Thorn, has added to our knowledge by drawing out our own practical experiences to learn from each other, as well as contributing his own detailed expertise.”
BK – member of Academy for Chief Executives, Group 29

I have booked Jeremy on many occasions for his guest speaker sessions on negotiation, strategic planning, the selling process and psychometric profiling. He has always given exceptional value, bringing structure and challenge in a presentation with intellectual rigour, excitement and humour.
Jeff Monks – Chairman of Academy for Chief Executives, Group 20 & 30

Jeremy Thorn is both a regular guest speaker and also an experienced group facilitator for both such types of group, nationwide.

1:1 Executive Development

“Self-conquest is the greatest of victories.”
(Plato c. 428- 347 BC)

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and, if they cannot find them, make them.”
(George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950)

A serious challenge for many senior executives is that they may be expected to have all the answers.  Even the most accomplished executives and leaders know this expectation is wildly unrealistic, and that great leaders never stop learning…

So how might experienced managers and leaders best be helped, who don’t have time to attend formal workshops or perhaps want rather more confidential and private support longer-term?

Here are two well-proven options:

Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is usually a specific project to achieve a clear objective agreed between
a) the ‘client’ who is to be coached,
b) the ‘sponsor’ if there is one (eg a more senior colleague), and
c) the coach.

While coaching objectives are almost always business-focused, very often they will cover issues to do as much with a client’s behaviour and relationships as acquiring new knowledge. Good practice demands that the coach provides no solutions – these are for the client to establish – but plenty of searching questions. A professional coaching project is almost always time-bound, with rarely more than 6-8 sessions, usually of two-hours duration each and ideally spread 2-3 weeks apart. Both coach and client need to be totally committed to achieving the agreed objectives and the results can be stunning.

“Jeremy has offered me a challenging and safe coaching experience which has helped me to focus on what I really wanted to achieve and then to go out there and create it for myself.”
Linda Mitchell – independent workshop facilitator and coach

“The coaching I have had from Jeremy has helped me to establish my priorities and focus on what I do best.”
John P, Head of Department – international law firm

Executive Mentoring

Executive Mentoring tends to presume a longer time-scale of support, where clients may well seek many more detailed suggestions, new skills, hands-on knowledge and specific guidance from their mentor, in a way a Coaching client might not.

Mentoring by a professional outsider is especially appropriate for senior executives where other more senior colleagues internally are not available, may not have the time to commit or the skills required, or may even be too close.

“Jeremy has been a great mentor and has assisted me in developing my own skills in developing from a relatively junior position to the stage where I have been able to lead the successful management buy-out of our company. “
Dave F, MD – 2nd generation of software company

“The mentoring I have received from Jeremy has helped open my eyes up to see the bigger picture, to develop my skills further and progress my career. He is professional, insightful, very approachable and highly recommended.”
Keith S, Operations Manager – engineering company

Process-disciplines

Executive Coaching is sometimes described as ‘the transfer of knowledge and skills’, and Executive Mentoring as ‘the transfer of judgement and wisdom’.  Both have the same essential process-disciplines, of:

• establishing core goals, by which the support may be evaluated;
• clarity of intention by any sponsor to both the client and the coach/mentor;
• commitment by all to the processes and timescales agreed;
• strict confidentiality and trust between all parties, most especially between the client and the coach/mentor.

What Others Say

“Jeremy has a vast amount of natural skill and intuitive management ability to pass on, both as a skilled coach and mentor, as well as a great knowledge of formal management techniques that he is able to adapt and modify according to his clients’ specific needs and situation.”
Kathleen W, Operations Director – international charity

“My coaching with Jeremy has been some of the most valuable work I have ever done.  He has helped me to learn much more about myself and others, which has been of great value both to the business and in my personal life.”
John S, Quality Manager – metals company

“As a skilled mentor, Jeremy has been very helpful in broadening my outlook and helping me to develop my managerial skills further.  I would recommend him highly to anyone.”
Dr Ian M, Technology Manager – research company

“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
(Oscar Wilde 1854-1900)

“Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought: it is only a virtue where people have it whether they will or no.”
(Lord Halifax 1633-1695)

What is one of the greatest challenges for any successful manager or leader, would you say?

At least one of them is to know just what we don’t know!

“Jeremy’s senior management workshops offer superb take-home value to all manner of organisations with immediate application.
They are well delivered with great pace and plenty of inter-action, perfectly reading the mood and needs of his participants.
Jeremy’s expertise speaks for itself – particularly when responding to challenging questions with thoughtful answers and direct personal support.”
Jane Hunt, Academy for Chief Executives (Birmingham licensee)

Key topics that many find the most valuable, whether through carefully tailored programmes or 1:1 executive coaching, include:

Top Team-building and Leadership skills

“Jeremy took a number of our senior professional staff and, within only a few sessions, turned them from an enthusiastic but disorganised group of individuals into a dynamic cohesive team. Their service delivery has improved markedly and they continue to develop their skills and team dynamics using the techniques he has taught them.“
Kath Braunton, Director – UK Charity

Strategic Planning skills

“Our Board has found that clarifying our strategy so thoroughly can improve our business performance exponentially. Jeremy Thorn has helped us to put together a real mission, to see the wood from the trees – and even to understand and appreciate each other very much better.”
Merlin Tremayne, Chairman – large family-owned retail chain

Marketing and Pricing Strategy

“I rated Jeremy’s Marketing and Pricing Strategy workshop for our company as even more than 10/10. His flexibility of content, obvious expertise and practical experience were all really helpful, the detailed take-away workshop notes excellent, and his engagement with us outstanding.”
Wally Decker, Business Development Manager, Australia & Far East – engineering company

Hands-on Negotiation skills

“Jeremy’s Negotiation workshops should be mandatory for all senior managers in any field!”
Andy Spring, Finance Director

“Jeremy Thorn’s Negotiation workshop helped us save £2,589,000 in 3 months from 7 people, all with good relationships intact.”
Director of Primary Care Commissioning – NHS Primary Care Trust

“The morning I spent in Jeremy’s introductory negotiating workshop was the most useful 4 hours I have ever spent. It has helped me and countless friends negotiate better deals from buying houses to selling businesses.”
Stuart Gale, Frosts Photo Centre

“Jeremy delivers highly practical and incisive advice on Negotiating Better Deals. In my Gold Forum, nine members reported £780k of benefits within four weeks.”
Mike Wilsher, The Executive Foundation, Bath

“Jeremy scored an average of 90% on the question “how valuable did you find this Negotiation Workshop?” The comments received included:-
‘Excellent session, proves the need for planning.’
‘Great Speaker, really practical, great delivery.’
‘Excellent negotiation planning template – thank you. ‘
‘Speaker very clear and to the point, involved all the group, case study very helpful.’
‘I’ve picked-up some valuable tips & techniques – Jeremy was very informative.’
‘Really opened my eyes to the psychological elements of negotiation.'”
Bob Battye – Chairman Vistage Group 5

 Ethical Influencing and Persuading skills

“Thank you so much for leading such an enjoyable and entirely positive event Jeremy!”
Louise Hunn, Co-ordinator – a NHS Local Research Ethics Council

Recruitment, Selection and Performance Management

”I suspect all experienced employers think, as I used to, that you can spot a good candidate when you see one, and then expect the best from them once recruited? Not so! Jeremy Thorn has shown me what a gulf there is between best and worst practice, and I only wish I had known this many years ago!”
John Foreman, Finance Director – engineering company

Personal performance-enhancement

“Our delegates to Jeremy Thorn’s recent Management Master Class scored over 95% in completely meeting their objectives – a remarkable score from such a discerning group. Jeremy’s workshop style was highly professional, consistently engaging and all his practical examples and exercises were well-researched and greatly valued.”
Nick James, CEO – Fresh Business Thinking

‘Bringing Home the Bacon’- professional sales skills

“Jeremy’s Sales workshop hit the mark and was much the best I have ever experienced, by being tailored to our specific needs.”
Mark Jinkinson, Sales Manager – Engineering Company

Strategy, Top-Team Development and Change Management

“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”
(Robbie Taylor – Owner-Manager)

“Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted.”
(Lt Col George Custer, US Army 1839-1876)

Where does the successful development of any organisation start?  Most would answer: at the top!

“Jeremy has worked with our company for six years as a non-executive Director and Chairman. His input in enhancing the professionalism of our business has been immense, whilst at the same time assisting us in developing our strategic direction and ensuring that the Board focused on the key issues of the moment.
I have no hesitation in recommending him.”
David Forrester, MD – software company

Projects in which Jeremy Thorn is regularly engaged in this field include:

• Strategic Planning and Facilitation
• Top Team profiling, Benchmarking and Team-development
• Director Development, for both new and existing board members
• Change Management programmes
• Core Corporate Competency Mapping and performance-management support, to guide future business excellence
• Non-Executive Directorships

What People Say

“We have welcomed Jeremy’s experience and wisdom as a skilled and professional adviser to our board; particularly in guiding us through a critical period of our company’s succession-planning and in helping our strategic development. He has consistently demonstrated a wealth of sound business expertise, sensitive relationship-building skills and deep commercial awareness.  He has contributed enormously to the development of our business which has resulted in a period of exceptional growth and profitability.”
David Wheatley, Chairman – Pacy & Wheatley Ltd

“I worked with Jeremy when he was a Non-executive Director of NavisWorks Ltd for 6 years. The success of that company in growing from a tiny enterprise to one worth $24M and a world leader in Computer Aided Design was in no small part due to his contribution to our Board. He has an ability to delve into detail whilst maintaining a strong strategic overview, and he is particularly skilled in the art of encouraging others to examine different possibilities and to ask searching questions, to ensure the very best possible solutions.”
Peter Thompson, Director – NavisWorks Product Line, Autodesk Inc

“As the founding director and Chairman of a town planning consultancy that was steadily growing to become the largest private practice in the region, I needed to plan for my eventual retirement.   Through a series of top-team development workshops, psychometric profiling and one-to-one executive coaching, Jeremy introduced us to a method of strategic planning that not only helped us to establish a succession-plan with an expanded board but also prompted the tripling of our company’s turnover and profitability.
After helping to facilitate a management buy-out by my successors, he was then appointed a non executive director of the company where his considerable business expertise and breadth of experience has continued to offer the company a beacon of wisdom and insightful support.”
Peter Spawforth MBE RIBA FRTPI – Founder Chairman of Spawforths, Planners, Urbanists and Architects of Leeds.