Interview with Kevin Yates, Managing Director, Mitchell Phoenix Ltd, conducted March 2005.

How long have you been with Mitchell Phoenix?
Since 1989.

Why did you join?
There is a bit of a story behind that. I had been working with John Mitchell in a Swiss training provider delivering their packaged products in English to their customers in the UK and USA. John and I had left within a year of each other to deliver our own management offering in English and we ended up competing with each other in the marketplace. We had left to start up separate entities. We felt that this was not a good thing. So we decided to join forces. Since he had established a more complete infrastructure around the company I joined Mitchell Phoenix and made an investment in the company.

Where did you get your original material?
We had been working with the Swiss on sales training, customer service and it had some management associated with it, although this was less developed. John and I found that we were constantly being creative about how things should be and could in terms of style and delivery. We became increasingly better read in the subject. So we started with clean sheets of paper, drawing on our experience, reading and drawing on our customers who were a terrific source of ideas and guidance.

Who were those first customers?
As far as I am aware, the very first company to commit to a Mitchell Phoenix programme was Aalco. Aalco are still a Mitchell phoenix customer. On my side it was Concurrent Computers.

What did you offer to those first customers?
Aalco had one of the original five day management programmes that John had worked up. For Concurrent Computers I designed a bespoke four day programme for their service management team. It was a very valuable experience. I wasn't with Mitchell Phoenix when we ran the first programme with Aalco. With Concurrent Computers we build it as we went along. The customer was as much a part of the design process as I was.

Where did the name come from?
Well Mitchell was obviously John. John is extremely well read and knowledgeable about ancient cultures and deeply interested in how they developed, not just over the years but over the centuries. He was intrigued that the phoenix rising out of the ashes was a symbol in many different cultures and was hooked by the lesser known idea that the friction that caused the original fire was the friction between new ideas and old ideas. About the same time, John took a cottage in Phoenix Villas down in Sussex and all that was overwhelming and so called the company Mitchell Phoenix.

How has progress been, has it been easy?
No, not at all. Often very difficult, extremely challenging. We have had to make adjustments. We have ridden out several recessions. Management development is often seen as a discretionary spend within companies. We have often had to work very hard to maintain the business, keep it on the right track. Earn enough to invest in equipment, materials and ideas to keep everything fresh. It has been a big challenge.

Nevertheless you are still operating, what were the keys to the success of the company?
A kind of unswerving commitment is required. A belief that the ideas that you have, the material you have is relevant and useful. Even when it appears that the customers don't seem to be interested, you have to keep going in the belief that it will change. So far it always has changed. If you follow all the good stuff, making sure you are relevant, modern, providing something real and useful. We have tried to avoid fads, they are always short term and they don't often add sufficient value. Something that becomes faddish often lacks depth.

How relevant is the material today?
I think that we have stayed alongside what businesses really need. That isn't always what they want. Want and need are different things. Something we are out of sync with what they want, we have gone through those periods. I don't think we have ever been out of sync with what they need. The type of pragmatic and practical programmes that we provide are needed even more today where managers have to be so multi-skilled, up to speed on legislation, health and safety, the type of modern legislation that we are seeing now; equal opportunity etc.

Leadership is now quite a crowded market, why do you believe that Mitchell Phoenix is still providing what businesses need?
It is a crowded market, there is no doubt about that. One could argue over the word 'crowded', for example in which areas? What I don't see are organizations who are serious in their intent to provide something that is useful and practical. Quite a lot focus on the traditional idea of the charismatic leader, quite a lot focus on a single ‘big idea’ that is peddled. Leadership is complex, multi-faceted, has infinite depth and could be a life-long pursuit for someone who is serious about developing themselves in this respect. Providers who are doing serious work in developing today's managers and leaders are less common.

Why do you believe that Mitchell Phoenix is still providing what business needs?
Mostly from the way that senior people engage with the material and approach that we offer. It is still providing value to these people. There are two stages to the commitment here. There is the commitment to the point of sale. In a crowded market an offer has to be pretty convincing to get the sale.The real test is whether the delegates are prepared to commit themselves to the material. This is a much tougher test. This is the ultimate test. Senior people are demanding, if they commit themselves to a self development process based on your material and ideas, that is a good test of whether you are relevant.

Can you provide some examples?
Aalco was our first customer and we have, three or four of their senior people on current programmes. We have been working with Microsoft at various levels and intensities since 1990. They are busy people, they don't have time to waste and they don't commit themselves to something they don't believe is valuable.

Where do you see Mitchell Phoenix going in the future?
We have to work on a number of areas. The first is if we want to remain as a significant provider we do have to be able to provide development across the timezones, nationalities and locations and we are working on that.We are also working to form partnerships providing development in multiple languages. We have a strategic partnership with Plus Management who provide programmes in French and German.

We think South America will be an important market. India and China are already important markets although difficult to provide for. And we will have to become more interesting and responsive to the very large organizations where management populations are measured in 100s and thousands. I don't think we have found the formula for that yet.

You speak of development programmes across the globe, how relevant are the principles in such a wide range of cultures?
The principles are relevant to all, if they were not relevant they would not be principles. We haven't yet found a culture where the fundamental principles fail to be relevant. What we have discovered in the past year, working with people in Asia is that the use of language has to be understood to get the messages through in a good way. Also there are cultural differences that have to be understood and worked into the programmes so these fundamental principles can be understood in a way which is relevant and useful.

What we have found interesting is the culture in America where training is often an event that has a component of entertainment in it. The classes are often quite large, a speaker is a dynamic communicator. The expectation of the delegate is that they are going to be entertained, they are going to have to absorb quite a lot of information, they are often talked at. There may be a big fat folder of reading material. This is often the expectation. Our style of working in small groups, collaboratively, working up the ideas of the delegates and working with their existing knowledge and understanding. Is not what they expect, but they enjoy it and find it useful. Cultural expectation are what they expect but once they have had a taste of other approaches is not always what they want, or need.