How Derby’s historical greats helped inspire millions of better workdays

We all have people who inspire us. For Pete Schofield, chairman of Ford & Stanley Group, he takes inspiration from some of the city’s local legends. Next week, his business, which provides leadership training, recruitment services from shop floor to boardroom, performance coaching and mental fitness support, celebrates 35 years. Here, in his own words, Pete explains how Derby’s historical greats inspired him to build a business that can ‘compete with the big boys’ and create ‘millions of better workdays’.

As an 11-year-old boy, my team, Derby County, were champions of English football.

Three years later, they were champions once again.

I wasn’t yet aware of the accepted postcode norm associated with football – that only teams from the big cities won things.

I knew my team were the best in England – twice in my formative years.

I therefore knew nothing of the inferiority complex that legendary manager, Brian Clough, later went on to lament; how sections of the Derby County fan-base and club directors were just happy to exist and be grateful to everyone now and again to share a league with the so-called ‘big clubs’ but without ever expecting to win anything, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is relevant in the context of this piece to acknowledge that the city of Nottingham also shared this ‘we can’t hope to compete with the big boys’ mentality until, much to the chagrin of Derby County supporters, Clough moved to the other side of the Trent valley.

Here, he went on to even greater achievements in English and European football, thanks entirely to the attitude demonstrated by the management duo of Clough and his equally talented partner, Peter Taylor.

When it came to embarking upon a business career myself, competing with ‘the big boys’ had already entered my subconscious psyche.

I say subconscious because I just got on with doing what seemed right rather than any notion or desire to emulate.

It was simply that I never saw the size of the competition as a barrier to success, providing I, or more accurately ‘we’, did the right things.

It is not uncommon for business leaders to deflect praise for success to their colleagues or employees.

In some cases, this is false modesty, but often it is a genuine acknowledgement of reality.

In my case it is the absolute truth. From early schooldays I was branded as the person who despite apparently being ‘smart’ and having plenty of drive, energy, and good ideas, was useless at concentrating and following things through. And it was true.

Faced with any arduous task requiring long periods of concentration, my brain simply shut down as if drugged.

Whilst I could see a path through situations of complexity faster than anyone I knew, once the right path was embarked upon, I would routinely lose interest and be onto the next challenge or big idea.

For teachers, employers, work colleagues this is entirely unacceptable behaviour – and boy do they let you know it!

Given these traits it was very hard for me to hold a job down for long, but I was lucky enough to meet someone whilst living in Jersey who was very successful in business.

He recognised that my creativity around problem solving was valuable so employed me as his business trouble-shooter, which eventually led to me advising successful organisations all over the world as a consultant.

One consistent theme that emerged from consulting was the people factor; that every issue I was brought in to resolve had poor recruitment as its root cause and every consistent good performance was brought about by good recruitment.

So, when I returned from working in Italy and, completely by chance, was offered a job by a major recruitment consultancy, I instantly recognised it as an opportunity to make a real difference.

What a shock it was, then, to realise soon after starting that, despite its size and apparent success, the recruitment company didn’t see it that way at all.

Rather, it was a case of matching CVs to job descriptions and trusting to luck, with the real focus on ratios and volumes of sales calls and interview targets.

Rather than follow the norm I just focused on doing the job properly and was fortunate to find a new work colleague who thought the same way as me, so we ignored the company diktat and enjoyed incredible success as a result.

One would have thought that not wasting the time of employers and candidates by only introducing one to the other in the right circumstances and, in turn, making the recruitment company rather lot of money, we would have been congratulated.

Instead, they disciplined us for not hitting our call targets, so we resigned on the spot and resolved to go our own way and do recruitment properly.

Today, Ford & Stanley Group services comprise leadership development, performance coaching and occupational mental fitness services alongside recruitment from shop floor to board room.

As a direct result of the services provided to an international client base, the Ford & Stanley Group teams help people to enjoy better workdays.

Although the company’s stated mission is to create one million better workdays, this has been exceeded several times over already, so now the team is setting new goals of one million better workdays per year, per sector and per international territory.

Ultimately the absolute key to any relative success I have enjoyed so far is down to surrounding myself with brilliant people who are so much better than me at completing and finishing things.

I found out through a recent diagnosis that the underlying reason why I have been criticised my whole life for not being able to concentrate on long and detailed tasks is down to me having ADHD.

If I was advising anyone on how to enjoy business, I would say that an inspiring mission and a reason for being beyond just making profit is key to surrounding yourself with brilliant people.

In my experience, good people want to be involved in something they can be proud of.

And because people thrive on structure, certainty and being nurtured, behaving with integrity is also key to building great teams.

On 1 May, it will be 35 years since the business journey began.

I’m not going to pretend it’s been easy, but in addition to being inspired by Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, Florence Nightingale’s achievements were also a feature.

As a child I recall reading about her Derbyshire connection, and how she set off from the area and changed the world of patient care saving countless lives; not by inventing a revolutionary new medicine or medical procedure, but simply by setting down strict operating practices around cleanliness, consistency and ‘doing the job properly’.

So, I must express my gratitude to Florence, Brian and Peter – three diverse individuals, all driven by similar principles – a strong work ethic and a belief in ‘doing right’ in their roles.

Local heroes and trailblazers who have helped inspire millions and place Derby firmly on the map.