Case Study
IMPLEMENTING
Tell us your name and what you do
I’m Blaire Palmer and I’m Chief Executive of That People Thing, a leadership development company.
Tell us about your background
I started my professional career as a broadcast journalist, working in my 20s as a producer for BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme and then for the legendary daily magazine show, Woman’s Hour. It was while I was at the BBC that I came across the coaching profession and, in 2000, left the BBC to start my own coaching business. I was only 30 years old at the time and it felt like a massive leap in to the unknown.
What is your role at ‘The People Thing’?
Like any Chief Executive I am responsible for the strategic direction of the business – the brand, the culture, the values, thinking about the nature of the work we do today and in future. Plus I am responsible for the majority of sales, selecting and looking after our faculty of world-class coaches and facilitators and day to day management of the company. I also get involved in some projects myself – I like to keep my hand in – and I speak about leadership to audiences round the world. So I’m pretty busy.
What is your specialist skill?
As a business, That People Thing helps leaders bring about change at pace. We work with boards and senior leaders at a time when their leadership is really being tested – during change. That’s when the rubber hits the road. Leaders lead the change – we don’t do that for them. That’s their job. But we help them drive change in a way that gets them and their people where they are going.
As an individual, my particular strengths are as a communicator and as someone who can find simplicity in complexity.
BY BLAIRE PALMER
22 | TRAINING MAGAZINE EUROPE MARCH 2015
CULTURAL CHANGE