| NAME: ADDRESS: TELEPHONE: FAX: E-MAIL: WEB SITE: |
Peter Derek Fryer |
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PRESENT POSITION: Independent Consultant
PERSONAL PROFILE
- A strong leader, with imagination, strategic vision and over 30 years’ management experience.
- A wide range of business skills coupled with the ability to motivate and inspire others to achieve.
- An extensive network of high level contacts, well developed interpersonal skills and personal credibility.
- A national reputation for leading-edge thinking and innovative spirit.
- Hard working, with a passion for learning and a belief that as ordinary people we can achieve extraordinary things.
- A highly regarded public speaker with an idiosyncratic style.
- A clear thinker who cuts through to the real issue.
- Prepared to think the unthinkable and make it happen
CAREER HISTORY
2001 – Present
I am an avid student of learning organisations, complexity and chaos theory, and complex adaptive systems. In particular their implications for organisations of all kinds, and I have established an independent consultancy to share my experience and understanding with other organisations. Such organisations include Pfizer, The Industrial Society, DfES, and Glasgow Caledonian University as well as a wide range of smaller entities.
I have been working with the London School of Economics (LSE) for several years now, initially as a member of project that looked at the relationship between complex adaptive systems and organisational form and attempted to provide a new language to make the concepts available to all. More recently I am an advisor to a new Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded LSE project, which is working with Rolls Royce, Norwich Union, and BT to investigate how complexity theory can help them with their mergers, restructuring, and spin out operations. I have special responsibility within the project for running practical workshops on how complexity functions in organisations and for translating the findings of the project in ‘normal’ language and for disseminating the results.
Through this active involvement in ‘different thinking’ I am often asked to present on the subject examining new and exciting ways of running a business to maximise impact and return on investment. Recently I gave a presentation to an Exystence Complexity seminar in Bilbao.
As well as consultancy in my specialised field of complexity I also undertake more general consultancy including, senior level development, coaching and mentoring; economic development, economic and business research and evaluation; CD-Rom development; recruitment and selection; and general management development.
Specific activities include:
- Producing the stage 2 and stage 3 business plans for the soft measures in Bridlington’s Integrated Development Plan
- Evaluating the Employer Trial of the matrix Standard for information, advice and guidance
- Team building and change management for the top team of a large local authority
- Mentoring a Business Link Chief Executive
- Development a business diagnostic tool for skills brokers and producing an interactive CD for the process and a the associated funding eligibility checklist
- A review of TAP and IAG websites in North Yorkshire
- Development of a Management and Leadership tool to help those seeking training and development provision
- Developing and delivering a capacity building programme for the voluntary sector in Bridlington
- Coaching a national organisation on the journey to complexity
Since March 2001 I have been part-time non-executive Chairman of Yorkshire and Humberside Assessment Ltd, which is a private sector company offering people assessment services against various business standards, in particular Investors in People.
1991 - 2001
Managing Director and Chief Executive of Humberside Training and Enterprise Council including Humberside Business Link.
- answerable to a non-executive Board
- budget of £32m and 200 staff.
Humberside TEC, the seventh largest of 79 in the country, was an economic development organisation concentrating primarily on training, education and business development activities and programmes. It was abolished by the Government in 2001 and superseded by the Learning and Skills Council and various other bodies. I successfully oversaw the transition process ensuring the new bodies were able to get off to a good start and that all the staff achieved appropriate outcomes.
I set the strategic direction and focus of the organisation, managing its key activities through an executive board of six people. I took a lead role in marketing the strategic messages, and negotiated with a wide range of influential people in the region including Chairs and MDs of companies, Chief Executives of Public Sector organisations, Politicians, Trade Unions, University Vice Chancellors, College Principals and Community Leaders.
From its creation in 1991 I took the organisation from being a civil service office into a highly respected entrepreneurial business through adapting the structures, the culture, the pay and reward mechanisms, the activities and systems, and through developing its people.
I introduced a number of far-reaching changes such as taking away the command and control mechanisms and building an organisation based on self-responsibility and trust. This resulted in a highly effective as well as a very cost efficient operation.
I forged a strong team of 200 people who acted for each other, acted for the organisation and who took responsibility for their decisions. Through encouraging each individual to develop sound problem-solving and thinking skills, and demonstrate leadership qualities in their roles, I helped the business become one of the top-performing TECs in the country.
My career has also given me many other opportunities to lead a process of change. For example I negotiated the merger of the 5 independent Business Link companies in the sub-region into a single Business Link for Humberside that was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of the TEC. I also became one of the residual directors of each of the 5 original companies and oversaw their wind-up.
I was active on the national scene and have chaired a number of groups, one of which relates to training providers in the transition from TECs to Learning + Skills Councils. I have also played a key role in helping redefine the national Investors in People Standard.
1967 - 1991
During this period I progressed in the Civil Service, from clerical roles through a range of management posts to my final role as the Manpower Services Commission’s Area Manager for Humberside. The highlights of this period of my career were:
- being a management trainer where I developed and delivered courses on a range of subjects including interviewing, marketing and generic management skills
- creating and introducing a totally new concept for training unemployed adults, which was eventually taken up nationally
- leading the national marketing team which launched TECs back in 1989
- translating complex technical papers on topics relating to learning and development into the Sun newspaper level of English so that they could be understood by all.
OTHER CONNECTIONS - Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts
- Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
- Chair of Governors, Isaac Newton Secondary School , Hull
- Trustee of Humberside Childcare Trust. .
- Member of Bishop Burton College ’s Search Committee
- Member of Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce
- A Bondholder of Hull City Image
and up until March 2001 - Director of Hull City Vision
- Director of the Humber Forum
- Advisor to Hull Common Purpose
- Member of the Yorkshire & Humber Objective 2 Programme Monitoring Committee
- Member of the Yorkshire & Humber ESF Objective 3 Committee
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Since leaving school with two rather poor A-levels I have been fortunate enough to have benefited from an extensive range of training and development activities in a variety of management and business skills. These learning opportunities have also included development in thinking and learning skills, and advanced communication skills, which I continually seek to put into practice.
As well as looking ‘outside’ I also seek to learn from people at all levels. In working to create an environment that maximises people’s potential and capacity to grow, I actively seek direct feedback and personally piloted the TEC’s paperless 360-degree appraisal process, which has gained national recognition.
I am passionate about learning and I am constantly creating my own opportunities for self-development through undertaking challenging projects and seeking jobs in new ventures, as demonstrated in:
establishing my own company to share with others my understanding of complexity theory and its affect on organisations
- setting up and closing down Humberside TEC
- merging five Business Link companies
- removing the command-and-control mechanisms from the TEC
- honing my skills by giving high impact presentations, after dinner speeches etc.
- and I am currently writing a book on the subject of using complexity theory to run organisations.
