Leading through turnaround and transformation

Few places illustrate the possibility of transformation in the most unpromising of circumstances as the Eden Project. The way a post-industrial landscape in the poorest part of the UK’s poorest county was turned into an iconic destination, educational charity and environmental inspiration shows what can be achieved working as a community and in harmony with nature. A worked out clay pit near St Austell in Cornwall is now a beacon of biodiversity and environmental optimism, welcoming over a million visitors a year, supporting thousands of jobs and inspiring successor projects around the world.

However Eden’s journey was not always smooth, and near failure in 2012-2013 brought about the need for a second transformation. The subsequent turnaround story carries lessons for organisations and brands seeking routes through difficult times, from the three phases of recovery (financial, reputational, and psychological) to the need for 21st century leadership. Humility, decency, authenticity, kindness and an intolerance of hierarchies were the foundations on which the turnaround was built, along with the application of the old-fashioned virtues of focus and relentlessness. It’s the commitment to rebuilding the core proposition that, over time, has provided the opportunity for the brand to be extended and for new ventures to be launched. Those lessons are now being applied to a start-up, the Creative Land Trust, which seeks to bring about a transformation in the arts sector, first in London and then beyond. Faced with the problem of creatives being priced out of the very city they have made vibrant and prosperous, the Trust is developing a new model for the sector, blending funding streams to work with the grain of the market to provide a permanent solution for the benefit of all. This combination of charity and commercialism is the basis not only of the future success of the Creative Land Trust, but of past challenges such as the modernisation of the Royal Horticultural Society.

In this presentation, Gordon Seabright will share the lessons learned from a career centred on turnaround and transformation; what worked, what didn’t, and what insights are relevant to anyone guiding their organisation through a period of essential change.

Speaker: Gordon Seabright.