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This was 1995, and after a bit of small talk,
the Chief Executive Jim Harding said that if we really meant our title of the National Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, then our aspiration should be to end
cruelty to children. Now this was an extraordinary thing to say in 1995.
There had been no Poverty is History, there had been no find a cure for this, there had been
no end of another. The idea of ending something, changing something that fundamentally
was completely new and obviously there was a lot of debate around whether that was an
appropriate aspiration for us to have. And half way through the discussion, Jim Harding the chief executive said to me:
"If you were to set up an appeal to back the aspiration,
how much do you think you could raise?" And I thought well, the biggest appeal at the moment is the £100m
appeal for the Royal Opera House and surely ending cruelty to children
is worth more than the Royal Opera House? So I went to the other end of the spectrum and said: "What about £500m?" Half a billion,
and I thought, this was in 1995 remember, that that was simply unfeasable.
People wouldn't believe it, they wouldn't get it, they wouldn't join the committees it would need,
they wouldn't believe it. So I plumped for the middle ground and I said to Jim Harding
that I thought we could raise £250m. And Jim Harding said to me:
"Are you sure?" And I said: "Yes!" [laughter]
So the decision about a £250m
appeal was made by one person, with one other person's agreement, in one second.
Now I was determined that my staff
should hear about this preposterous statement from me
and not hear it at the water cooler through gossip. And so the following morning
I called all of my senior management team into my room. And I was inspired by two
quotations. One which is built on things that
Adrian said earlier is that one of the jobs of the leader is to coalesce people around a common vision.
And I was also very taken with Henry V who is my leadership guru.
If you read the book Henry V it's like a management textbook!
And he said, in a speech to his gentlemen before the battle of Agincourt:
"The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee not one man more. He that shall live this day, see old age will
yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours and say 'tomorrow is St Crispian'. Then he will strip his sleeve
and show his scars and say 'these wounds I had on Crispian's Day".
"And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall
think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap while
any speaks that fought with us upon St Crispin's day".
So the following morning I brought all my management team together
at 9.15. I told them about the aspiration
of ending cruelty children. I told them that I had committed them
to a £250m appeal or at least a
feasibility study for one and I said:
"How would you feel
if we raised £250m
and you walked through other fundraisers
and said "I was part of the £250m appeal"?"
And, following Henry V.
And that worked!
One of the things that Adrian said this morning is that a good leader
appoints a team that is like him, or her,
and one of the things, one of the qualities that my team had is
that they were bold, and visionary as I was
and there was no dissent at all. Nobody even said: "Why wasn't I consulted on this decision?"
The questions that were asked were mainly the ones of the sort
that I was able to say: "I simply have no idea about that!
That is something that WE will have to work on together."
And there was consensus. People coalesced around that vision
that I'd set for them. And so we decided to tell the other
fundraising staff so we called all the fundraising staff together in the conference room at 10am
and I gave them the same speech and they accepted it as well.
And my lesson to you is
if you're a leader be bold.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Thank you.