Timpson Tips

A review of Upside Down Management – a Common Sense Guide to Better Business by John Timpson pub. Wiley £12.99 ISBN 978-0-470-68945-5

How good do you have be at business to be a customer service professional? What do you know about the business you are in? Some of you I meet have come from another part of their business and so you are trained to be whatever.. bankers, travel organisers or logistics people – you understand the bits of the business you have worked in. Imported people will have skills gained from for example setting up other call centres or some such transferable operational skills set. But are you all capable of building a better business? Or do you take pride in not being a businessman and instead staying human and dedicated to a better deal for their customers and users? Is that distinction real?

Has this man got it right? A cheerful John Timpson adorns the cover of his latest book which offers us a common sense guide to better business . He has the appearance of a man who has taken advantage of a special offer on the light tan polish at one of his chain of 850 strong service chain and so looks brown , fit and relaxed. He does know business and has been through the fire putting all his assets on the line to see through a deal and the chapter covering his buyout or buyback of the family firm from UDS is gripping.

But his book thank god is not about corporate finance. He is no accountant but is inclined to what he calls a dangerous frankness, bringing light into some dark times and bad decisions. His account of how his father was kicked off the board of the family company by a predatory professor of business studies and an ambitious cousin (we are talking of a family business here) is a shocking reminder of how toxic and brutal the atmosphere inside a business can get when family, personal ambitions and money are all in the mix. I was not around for those ructions but I was there in the era of separate dining rooms, fierce but dense ex-military managers, extra-ordinarily loyal Timpson troops and colleagues' attitudes that found weird and novel the strength of the Ripley character as she (SHE?) defeated the Alien whilst still saving the cat (1979 for the quiz film question). A strange mix of command and control with someone in charge who could see beyond that and was busy trying to take his co-workers to a different place as the pickets stood outside the warehouse and the deep snow covered all the bin bags in that Wythenshawe winter of national discontent. Did I help and did I learn? – not enough I suspect.

All this is behind JT (and me) now and the book is witness to that transition from a young man who was involved in a business as of right who then changed to being a fleet of foot entrepreneur grabbing his chances when they came up and is now a sage – the guru consulted by son James who now runs the business. A man impatient of the new compliant and rule-bound Britain but ready to embrace and work with our social outcasts and casualties; not scared to judge but respectful of people's efforts to take responsibility and challenge.

What will you learn that will be useful in your world of work where it is unlikely that you will be able to wheel and deal in the Timpson way? First of all, a lesson that crops up time and time again in our world – acknowledge and learn from mistakes. In-bound customer contact departments can be the ones that hear back first from the market and have to pass on the news of marketing's latest failed dream. Mistakes are valuable once you have got past the first impact and the 4am sweats. Be a bit braver.

Second remain human. Yes I know and we have indeed reached the moment when common sense shades into cliché. Advice to stay human strays dangerously near that line but John is unapologectic about this and walks the talk. His connection to the precious reality of a world of humanity beyond work as can be seen in the many references to his wife Alex and the wider family of the many children that the Timpson family fostered and in one case adopted.

Buy the book. It will make you feel better and who knows, you may get a chance to try out some of the advice which will make you feel even better and who knows? Richer.

Colin Adamson 14/05/10