Upside Down Management E-Book

John Timpson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 365

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

There's a lot of hot air in the world of business. Wouldn't it be nice just to hear some common sense?

That's exactly what John Timpson has got. After four decades running his family business and turning it into one of the high street's biggest success stories, he really knows what works and what doesn't. Upside Down Management shares with you all the wisdom he's accumulated in that time.

From being the CEO to his trademark 'upside down management', and from breaking the rules to following your conscience, this book tells it like it is.

Upside Down Management is a fantastic insider's view of what really makes a family business tick.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

PREFACE

Chapter One - THE TIMPSON EXPERIENCE

Chapter Two - UPSIDE DOWN MANAGEMENT

Top tips

Chapter Three - BE THE CEO

Real life leadership lessons

Signs of a second-rate CEO

CEOs who ‘get it’

Chapter Four - DO THE DEALS

The stages of the deal

My deals

The deal dictionary

Chapter Five - MAKE MISTAKES

Business blunders

Closer to home

Chapter Six - CHALLENGE THE RULES

Salary reviews

Employment legislation

Appraisals

Budgets

Management structure

Health and safety

Planning consent

EPOS

Confidentiality

Governance

Box ticking

Business plans

Chapter Seven - SURVIVE THE STRESS

Silly mistakes

Don’t keep it to yourself

Visit the doctor

Take exercise

Clear your desk

Do it now

Lists

The Doomsday scenario

Do the nice bits

Try to keep busy

Beware of minor mistakes

Time to delegate

Chapter Eight - LET YOUR CONSCIENCE BE YOUR GUIDE

Bad business

Look after your superstars

Dealing with drongos

Plenty of praise

Timpson Culture Committee

Giving more back

Our approach to charity

Chapter Nine - IDEAS THAT WORK

1. A perfect day

2. Awards

3. Suppliers’ lunch

4. Annual report

5. Good news notes

6. Summits

7. Activity conferences

8. Chairman’s award

9. The people test

10. Hardship fund

11. Daily cash check

12. Birthdays off

13. Interview form

14. Dreams come true

15. Introduce a friend

16. Training in pictures

17. Timpson Weekly News

18. Company charity

19. The leadership course

20. Write a book

CONCLUSION

INDEX

FINAL THOUGHT

Further praise forUpside Down Management

‘This crisp book recaptures common sense in a way that is both very practical and intensely personal. On every page, you’ll find yourself saying ‘I really must do that.’ Buy it now!’ Stephen Robertson, Director General, British Retail Consortium

‘John Timpson says it like he sees it and pulls few punches. His story, his vision, and his simple, practical ideas should make all business people stop and think.’

Luke Mayhew, former Chairman of Pets at Home and former MD of John Lewis Partnership

‘A refreshing, no-nonsense business book - a must read.’ Charles Dunstone, CEO, Carphone Warehouse

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Timpson is the Chairman of Timpson Ltd, his family business. With 850 stores across the UK, Timpson is one of the best-established names on the British high street. The company was one of the original Sunday Times Top 10 Companies to Work for. It has also been named Retail Employer of the Year, and is in the J P Morgan Family Business Hall of Fame. John was appointed CBE in 2004 for ‘services to the retail sector’.

This edition first published in 2010 Copyright © 2010 John Timpson

Registered office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-470-68945-5

Typeset in 11/16pt Garamond by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited, Hong Kong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Stuart and Matthew Rock of Real Business encouraged me to start writing a regular business column 11 years ago. As a result, writing has become a hobby that has brought me hours of enjoyment every month.

I am grateful to Ellen Hallsworth who had the courage to commission this book and to Christine Hickman who typed every draft (there have been a few).

The content of this book owes a lot to the determination of my son, James, our Managing Director, who has put many of my ideas into practice and invented many more of his own.

My biggest ‘thank you’ is to my wife, Alex, who has not only allowed me the time to write the book (with far fewer complaints than I expected) but has also supplied an amazing instinct and moral compass that has had a major influence on my career and our business philosophy.

All royalties from the book will go to After Adoption, a charity that is growing rapidly from its Manchester base, providing fantastic help to adoptive parents, adopted children and their birth parents.

PREFACE

Until the age of 29 I expected to spend all my working life in a family-run public company of shoe shops. Due to fate, and a lot of luck, I now own a national chain of shoe repairers. It has been a turbulent journey.

In 50 years the shoe repair market has declined by 90%. Of the 35,000 shoe repair shops and workshops that existed in 1960, only 3,500 remain. By diversifying into key cutting, engraving, watch repairs, photoprocessing and dry cleaning, Timpson has not only survived but has consistently strengthened. We now have over 850 branches and are growing more quickly than ever before.

Adding extra services alongside shoe repairs helped us to survive, but the real secret behind our success is the quality of the colleagues who serve our customers. That ’s why I believe that what I’ve learned at Timpson may be of some use to other business leaders, executives and entrepreneurs.

It took me 22 years as a Chief Executive to discover how to create great customer care. Since then our business has literally been turned upside down - that’s why I call the Timpson style ‘Upside Down Management’. Timpson colleagues enjoy a level of trust and freedom that doesn’t exist in any other multiple retailer. I’ve been called a maverick, but I haven ’t done any of this just to be different. Sales and profits have grown rapidly since we had the courage to give shop colleagues the freedom to choose the way they run their branch. Turning your business upside down is good for the bottom line.

Our style of Upside Down Management has made me aware of the modern techniques and forms of ‘best practice’ that get in the way of good business. Management science has gone too far. Too many people are promoted simply because they obey the rules, and many managers are afraid to use their initiative.

It’s time we blew the whistle on all this top-down management; we need fewer directives and less red tape. Managers should cancel meetings and visit the real world to find out what’s going on. Instead of relying on consultants, they should listen to the people who actually do the job.

I’ve written this book in the hope that some people will have the courage to enter the world of Upside Down Management that I have inhabited for the past 12 years. It is an attempt to encourage fellow entrepreneurs to break the rules. In some respects it is a manifesto for business run by common sense.

Every business has a tale to tell, and all business lessons ought to come from real -life experience. A fair portion of this book is the Timpson story, explaining how a shoe shop opened by my great grandfather in the 1860s has developed into an 850-shop service chain with an annual turnover of over £150 million. It is nearly 50 years since I started in the business, and although I’ve made plenty of mistakes, I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way.

I’ve tried to litter the book with numerous ideas that may be relevant to other businesses. I also discuss how to select people with personality and how to praise them; how to deal with poor performance and how to develop new ideas. I have been dangerously frank; age brings the benefit of being candid. I’ve tried to cover some of the things I would never have dreamt of mentioning 25 years ago - the bad decisions, the difficult times, coping with stress - and some of the things I regret. We can learn as much, if not more, from mistakes as we can from stories of success.

I hope there is plenty of passion in the book, particularly in our approach to ethical trading and corporate social responsibility. And, I hope I give the impression that it ’s been great fun. As Alex, my wife, has told me on many occasions: ‘If you don’t enjoy it, why bother?’

I’ve enjoyed being a maverick and still do, and I hope this book will encourage you to try Upside Down Management. If you do, I promise that you will not be disappointed. I also hope to see a change in attitude to authority. We need entrepreneurs with the strength of character to ignore red tape, best practice and official guidelines - business needs people with flair who have the determination to put administrators in their proper place.

This book has no rules, it’s just common sense.

John Timpson

Wythenshawe, Manchester, 2010

Chapter One

THE TIMPSON EXPERIENCE

Perhaps I shouldn’t have slammed the boardroom door but it seemed to be the best way to end the most traumatic time of my life.

My career path was clear cut from an early age. I was born into a family business which I joined as soon as I left school. At the age of 27 I was a director of the publicly quoted William Timpson Limited and two years later, in 1972, I felt I had become a fixture on the board. Although the business was facing a few difficulties, our September meeting was quieter than normal. I looked round the table at my fellow directors - there was no hint of controversy and less than the usual level of tension.

My father, a straightforward, honest man, was thrust into the Chair after his uncle and father had died within three months of each other without leaving a clear line of succession. Snapping at his heels was his cousin, Geoffrey Noakes, the Chief Executive. Geoffrey’s military background dictated his style of management: every employee was expected to follow his standing orders.

The cousins were complete opposites, neither of them appreciating the other’s strengths and never working as a team. My father was comfortable to be the caretaker of the family business and had a strong rapport with the staff, but no passion for ideas. Geoffrey, on the other hand, wanted change. He dreamt of being the top dog and, to further his ambition, recruited Professor Roland Smith as a non -executive director. Although based at a business school, the Professor was developing a new career outside university, offering advice to companies not just through consultancy but also as a member of their board. He collected a number of directorships and was later involved in controversy at The House of Fraser and British Aerospace. He was using his professorial platform to promote a climate of change. He certainly had a stronger character than most of the others round the table.

Bob Kirkman, a Scottish accountant who had recently been appointed Finance Director, seemed technically able, very precise and particularly polite. But I wasn’t sure whether his loyalty lay with Geoffrey or my father.

The Personnel Director, Bill Simmons, was the oldest man on the board. He had started as a shop boy and rose up through area management with a tough reputation for strong discipline. He ruled the field staff with a rod of iron. His son, Alan, the men’s shoe buyer, was one of three other directors appointed on the same day as I was. The move had been designed to strengthen the business, but in retrospect it made the board too big and drove us into detail rather than strategy. Norman Redfern was responsible for property - Norman was one of Geoffrey ’s men, working in a property department that preferred to chase new shops in north-western suburbs like Benchill, Wythenshawe and Belle Vale, Liverpool, rather than have the courage to acquire big city centre shops that the company desperately needed. The last member of the board was Bert Brownhill, another military man, who ran the computer department. In those days appointing an IT Director was seen as trendy, but Bert was not a trendy man, being best described as a ‘safe pair of hands’.

Privilege still reigned supreme at Timpson. Looking back it ’s difficult to imagine how different the corporate world was a few decades ago. As in most companies in those days, dining was strictly segregated. Your place in the pecking order was determined by whether you ate in the general canteen, or the dining rooms allocated to either the junior and senior executives, or the directors.

After the board meeting, we sat round a coffee table in the director’s dining room drinking sherry while a waitress took our order. I saw the Professor lean across to my father and whisper a quiet remark, but I didn ’t take much notice. Over lunch, discussion ranged from the high level of inflation to the poor start to Manchester City’s season. After dessert, instead of returning to sit in the armchairs for coffee, my father, Geoffrey and the Professor disappeared, leaving me with the other directors, who quietly peeled off much earlier than usual. Bob Kirkman, the last to leave, asked whether I could come down to his office in 15 minutes. As soon as I walked through his office door I realised that this was not a casual encounter. Bob was sitting with Bill Simmons and Bert Brownhill - and got straight to the point: ‘While we’re meeting you, Geoffrey and Roland Smith are seeing your father to suggest that he should step down as Chairman.’ They went on to explain that this was the right thing for the business and that my father would be offered the honorary title of President, but would play no further part in the company.

I didn’t hear much more, I was simply stunned. My mind was racing. I hadn’t really trusted my fellow directors and my lack of faith was now confirmed. I didn’t stay for a discussion, I went straight upstairs to see my father, but the sign on his door said ‘engaged’. I returned to the dining room, poured myself another sherry and sat in deep contemplation. Half an hour later I found my father in his office. He was with Teresa, his secretary for the past 15 years, and I had never seen him more determined. He had made it clear to Geoffrey and Roland Smith that he would not retire, and they had made it equally clear that he had two weeks to decide otherwise he would be forced to go.

When I got home that night, my wife, Alex, was even more determined than my father. Her sharp political antenna had warned her for some time that Geoffrey would steamroll the rest of the board and gain control of the business. ‘You’re going to be busy over the next few weeks, ’ said Alex. ‘You had better start now.’

At Alex’s suggestion I went to see Geoffrey at his home that night. After a superficially warm greeting we went to his library where he poured a drink which gave me the courage to be blunt. I told him the course he had chosen would ruin the business by splitting the shareholders in two. There was no way most of the family would support a board that turned against my father. He listened quietly and promised to see me the following day, but next morning made it clear that there was no going back on their decision.

That was the last real conversation I ever had with Geoffrey Noakes; it was the beginning of a long period of silence. I was alienated from the rest of the board and felt the atmosphere every time I joined them for lunch or we passed in the corridor.

We faced a coup from our fellow directors and it seemed likely that I would be ousted once my father had left, leaving us with shares in a company run by people whom we felt lacked expertise and integrity. For the first time I looked at the shareholder list in detail. I knew the family held about 52% but had never contemplated family members being on different sides. I always assumed that over 50% was enough to have control - but I’ve since learned that you need 100% to control everything. After four generations in a fertile family the shares were split among lots of relatives, many of whom might pass in the street without recognising each other. Indeed, a few years ago I held a party for all the descendants of the company founder, William Timpson. Of the 175 invited, 135 gathered together in a marquee in our garden, a visual reminder of how diverse ownership can become in a fourth-generation family business.

My father spent a frantic 10 days gathering signatures to support our side of the argument. We rang relatives and travelled the country to meet them. I took a train to Bedford one evening to see my father’s cousin, Michael, a school master who couldn’t attend the family meeting held at Cranoe (my father’s house in Hale) to hear the arguments and sign in support of our stance. I held 100,000 shares (about ¼ of 1%), my father had considerably more and with the backing of other family shareholders we accounted for 22% of the equity. We had three options: give up and go along with the directors’ ultimatum, join battle and challenge them at an extraordinary shareholders meeting (and probably damage the company’s reputation in the process) or use our shareholding to attract an outsider to bid for the company.

The group agreed that the only sensible option was to try to attract a predator. We were advised that we held enough shares to give an outsider a big enough start to expect success in a competitive bid. While we tracked down family members the clock was ticking. The ultimatum given to my father had a clear deadline. The board meeting scheduled for 20 September promised to be considerably less benign than its predecessor. It had an ominous agenda:

1. Minutes of the last meeting

2. Matters arising

3. W.A. Timpson

4. Any other business

Everyone felt the tension as four directors congregated in the executive lavatory next to the boardroom. I stood at the urinals next to Geoffrey, but we didn ’t say a word. He avoided my gaze by staring at the ceiling - and I did the same.

When I went into the boardroom my father was already in his chair, so I sat at the other end of the table and waited. The others came in together, looking uneasy. They had a single objective, only thinking about today, ignoring the past and with no conception of the future.

We started with the mundane minutes of the last meeting; no one made any comment, there were no matters arising, everyone stuck to their stubborn script. My father proposed an alternative to the proposition before the board. He asked for a vote of no confidence in Geoffrey and the Professor. He said they had undermined him as Chairman of the company and if allowed to take control would not have the backing of most of the family shareholders, who would, as a result, offer their shares to a likely bidder. I looked round. My fellow directors were all looking at the table pretending to listen but closing their minds to any argument that might deter them from the course that had already been set.

Geoffrey then proposed, and Professor Smith seconded, that my father should be removed. Within 90 seconds the deed was done. By a majority of six to two my father was no longer the Chairman. He made a vitriolic parting speech from the Chair, pointing out how each individual round the table had, on the one hand, taken advantage of his generosity and, on the other, put a knife in his back. In the end he stood up and challenged Geoffrey to take the Chair, which Geoffrey refused, claiming that the election of a new Chairman was a matter for another meeting.

The two losers left the boardroom together - and that is when I slammed the boardroom door. Perhaps I should have been more dignified in defeat but it wasn’t a day for dignity. Within half an hour my father received a letter from Geoffrey Noakes requiring him to vacate his office within 7 days, to hand over all papers, and leave his company car (a Bristol) in the office car park. He was instructed only to enter a Timpson shop as a customer and a notice was sent out to all employees:

This is to notify you that Mr W.A. Timpson has ceased to be Chairman and an employee of the company. The Vice Chairman, Mr G.W. Noakes will deputise until a new Chairman has been appointed.

My great-grandfather, William Timpson, had little or no formal education. By the age of 8 he had taken a part -time job making boot laces in Rothwell, Northamptonshire. When he was 12 his father decided to send him to Manchester to work for his elder brother Charles, who was a shoe wholesaler. Life with Charles and his rather severe wife was not easy for the teenager who was determined to gain his future independence by saving every possible penny. He delivered boots by pushing an old sack barrow, but had enough energy at the end of the day to complete his education by attending night school.

One day he was late for work and his brother Charles was so angry that he beat young William with a cane. Following this incident William returned to his native Rothwell to learn shoemaking, working with a cordwainer (an old term for a master shoemaker) who opened the day by reading the bible to his men. In those days shoemakers were considered superior - they were often people with advanced religious and political views - and his boss was one of the intellectuals of the town. When the old shoemaker died, William managed his business for a time. He soon realised, however, that it took a week to make a pair of shoes and only a few minutes to sell them. With this in mind, at the age of 16, he gave up shoemaking and returned to Manchester to team up with his older sister’s husband, Walter Joyce, and together they opened a boot and shoe shop in Butler Street off Oldham Road in Manchester.

Five years later William decided to work alone. He left his brother-in-law and opened his own shop in Oldham Street, not the most fashionable part of Manchester, but certainly at that time one of the busiest. He took a big gamble by picking a prime site and signing a lease for £200 a year - a figure that most people thought he couldn’t afford. He soon had a threat from his next-door neighbour who tried to persuade the landlord to give him possession of William Timpson’s shop. This tenant, without consulting the landlord, refitted his shop. As the building was over 100 years old, rickety and unstable, the construction work brought down some of the shop’s original walls, which gave William Timpson his first stroke of luck. The landlord, unhappy with the damage done, evicted the culprit, gave William the lease next door and the chance to create a bigger shop that everyone started to notice.

William had lots of confidence and the vision to realise that if you are doing something you might as well do it properly. A mahogany shop front and a glazed glass fascia surrounded windows lined with shoes. Inside, the shop was full of shoe boxes with the cheaper shoes hanging on hooks. The assistants wore black dresses with black satin trimmings and the owner and manager, William Timpson, wore a traditional shoemaker’s apron, personally serving as many customers as he could. I would love to be taken back in time to see that shop. It mostly sold boots, as very few people wore shoes in those days. The shop stayed open late at night six days a week, plus Sunday morning before people went to church. The business was very busy, selling over 100 pairs of men ’s boots on a Saturday, with most customers being served by William Timpson himself. The shop seems to have been a success from the day it opened.

William kept a tight control on expenses, especially wages. His sister, who worked for him, not only served customers but also did the cleaning. William knew what he was doing. In the first year the shop made a profit of £1,000 - a stunning figure when translated into today’s money - but as he didn’t trust the banks and thought they were insecure, all his money went back into the business. Even when he got married he persuaded his new wife to live over the shop.

Within five years he had established a winning formula. He owned one of the best-known shoe shops in Manchester and by ploughing his profits back into property he could repeat his success many times over in other shops he acquired around the city. William had the ingredient that every new business craves for: he sold what the public wanted in shops they wanted to visit. He was creating Manchester’s shoe category killer. With his passion for cost control, the business was making substantial profits. His policy of putting all his positive cash flow back into property put the business in a strong position.

There was, however, a potential problem that threatened to get in the way of his expansion. William suffered from ill health. It has been suggested that he was affected by the gas lamps that constantly created fumes inside his original shop, or maybe he was just a hypochondriac! Whatever the reason, in 1880, only 10 years after he had started the business in Oldham Street, his doctor advised him to move away from Manchester for the good of his health. He went on to have 12 children and live to the age of 79, so perhaps he was not quite as ill as he thought he was.

Following his doctor’s advice he changed his lifestyle and moved to Kettering in Northamptonshire. His routine involved spending only four days a fortnight in Manchester, but despite his absence the business continued to grow. He always employed many of his relatives: one of his sisters worked in his first shop and seven of her daughters were shop assistants throughout Manchester. While he was in Kettering, one of his brothers-in-law ran the day-to-day business in Manchester. Despite his health worries, William couldn’t keep away from business and opened three shops near his home in Northamptonshire. He also started a shoe factory, which brought an added dimension to the Timpson brand. Kettering was a men’s shoemaking town and William Timpson started manufacturing men ’s styles exclusively for his own shops.

By 1900 the business had grown to 26 branches, 20 in Greater Manchester plus shops in Northamptonshire (Kettering, Wellingborough) and Lancashire (Rochdale, Farnworth and Radcliffe). Throughout this expansion William Timpson never had an overdraft.

The employment of his relatives took on another dimension when his eldest son (also William) reached the age of 16 in 1896. The young man worked in the factory at Kettering for 2 shillings and 6 pence (= 12½ p) a week, which was dramatically increased to 10 shillings (= 50 p) a week when he moved to Manchester as a sales assistant in the original Oldham Street shop. He was then promoted to run the Manchester-based warehouse, and in 1903, at the age of 23, the younger William, now known as Will, took over day -to-day control of the Manchester shops. It wasn’t long before Will looked outside Manchester to expand the business. He was an extrovert but for the first few years of his career he had to return to Kettering every Friday night as he was not allowed to spend weekends in Manchester (which was considered to be too wicked).

The constant commuting between Kettering and Manchester made the Timpsons regular railway passengers and it was an unwritten family rule that whenever travelling from Kettering to Manchester you took along a case of boots to save the company carriage costs.

Will Timpson was ambitious, but his father gave cautious advice. When Will wanted to expand into Lancashire his father wouldn’t pay more than £150 a year in rent. As a result, his son had to travel relentlessly to find well-positioned shops on a reasonable lease. When Will took on an unusually large liability by branching out into Liverpool, father William was particularly critical and accused him of wasting past profits on his unwise ambition. Will was not deterred by this type of stern advice, however, and opened new shops in Sheffield, Blackburn, Nottingham, Leeds, Hull and Edinburgh. By 1914 he had nearly doubled the size of the chain to over 56 shops.

It wasn’t just in property that Will Timpson excelled. In his early days he had been involved with the buying of ladies shoes, but when the man in charge of men’s footwear was involved in a railway accident Will stepped into his place and helped to turn Timpson into a fashion leader. Will gave Timpson a distinct competitive edge by finding new styles in America and making them in the Kettering factory. The business continued to follow the simple formula established by his father - good value, straightforward methods, interesting looking shops with an attractive window display - plus the right people, dominated by family members and close friends.

In the early 1900s Will was joined in the business by three of his four brothers, Charles, Noel and Alan. Only George pursued a different route, and became a schoolmaster. While Will looked after men’s shoes, Noel assumed responsibility for the ladies’ trade. Being a strong administrator, Noel proved to be a good partner to his elder brother and when the founder, William Timpson, totally retired in 1919, Will took overall responsibility for the business with brother Noel as his deputy.

During the next 10 years the company opened 80 shops, nearly doubling the size of the chain to 136 branches. Will Timpson tramped round high streets looking at shops, and looking at the people to see what they were wearing. He bought individual businesses that he found through personal acquaintances or professional introduction, and very often from the odd chance remark. Establishing a chain of shops in those days was a difficult task; it involved weeks, months and years of travelling by day and night, and many hours of arguing and bargaining with landlords and agents. This was what Will Timpson loved.

The shoes Timpson made at Kettering were an important part of the shop appeal and, as the chain grew, more and more shoes were needed. The 750 pairs manufactured each week in 1896 had risen to 5,000 in 1914 and 7,000 in 1919. As this was still not enough to supply the needs of an ever - increasing chain, a large factory designed to make 17,000 pairs of shoes a week was built in North Park, Kettering, and opened in 1923.

At the beginning of 1929 the founder William Timpson died, and later that year the firm became a public company. During the difficulties of the depression in the 1930s, Timpson continued to prosper. Will Timpson was finding more opportunities as he travelled the country looking for new shops and Timpson was fast gaining the reputation of being the best shoe shop in the north of England. By 1939 there were 191 Timpson shops and, despite many losses to air raids during the war, by 1946 the number had risen to 197. By then, Will Timpson was 66 years old and his younger brother, Noel, was having a greater influence on the business. The next generation of the Timpson family was beginning to get involved - in particular, my father, who took on the purchasing of the men’s shoes, and his cousins John Noakes, who was a ladies buyer, and Geoffrey Noakes, who concentrated on property and the emerging shoe repair business.

Shoe repairing had started in the early 1900s as an extra service to customers in Manchester using a central factory based in Moss Side. By 1939 there were 11 shoe repair factories scattered round the country, and after the war Noel developed several small repairing units in the cellars or attics of retail shops and also began to open some stand-alone shoe repair shops.

The business continued to grow: by 1952 there were 225 shops and more than 240 by 1955, but the chain only increased by 10 branches in the next five years. Expansion was starting to slow down. As the business was being run by a Chairman in his 70s and his brother in his 60s, the company seemed to concentrate on continuing its past success without finding ways to expand to another level.

Timpson was firmly based in the north - the market leader in all the major industrial towns - but these areas had been hit by redundancies in ship building, textiles and coal mining, and there were lots of other family shoe chains that had grown over the same period and reached a similar size. Stead & Simpson, Olivers, Saxone, Lilley & Skinner, Trueform, Manfield and Freeman Hardy and Willis were some of the best-known names among 50 or so family footwear chains of significance. The balance sheet of most of these companies was strengthened by the freehold properties they had bought during the 1930s. These property assets attracted a new player onto the high street - Charles Clore. He did what Timpson should have done. Through a series of takeovers he acquired a massive freehold property portfolio at well below market price and established a dominant national footwear chain in the process.

In 1951 Timpson made a profit of £600,000 (about £20 million in today’s terms), but seven years later profits were still at the same level. The company, which had grown so rapidly, had now hit a plateau, but Will still supplied the flair and was good with people, visiting shops on a regular basis, while Noel kept tight control. Throughout this time Noel’s desire to become Chairman had become more and more apparent. Eventually he got his wish in 1960 but his term of office was tragically short-lived. Within months of taking the Chair he died while gardening at his home in Cheshire. Although Noel was over 60 and Will was approaching his 80th birthday, no succession plan was clear. Only two family directors remained, my father, Anthony, and his cousin, Geoffrey.

As a stop-gap solution the Company Secretary, Gordon Akester, became Chairman; my father was his deputy as well as joint Managing Director with Geoffrey Noakes. Three years later father became the Chairman and Geoffrey the Deputy Chairman - they also continued as joint Managing Directors.

People close to the business thought that the new management structure was an unfortunate compromise. The scene was set for disharmony at a time when the company needed strong leadership. The early 1960s were good for most retailers and Timpson profits grew, but the shift in wealth from north to south took business away from the Timpson heartland. British Shoe Corporation was rapidly gaining market share and footwear started to be sold in other shops, such as Marks & Spencer, Littlewoods and British Home Stores.

Timpson did not do enough to update its property portfolio and it became progressively more difficult to find enough orders to fill the Kettering factory. Shoe buyers were distorting the range of stock to keep the factory on full production, and in 1969 Timpson had a disastrous year. The factory made a loss, a wet summer and mild winter trimmed the shoe shop sales of seasonal footwear, and the uninterrupted run of shoe repair success came to an abrupt end. Cheap imports, synthetic soles and the demise of the stiletto heel all brought bad news - the size of the shoe repair market fell by 15% for three years in succession. With all three parts of the business performing badly, the company issued a profits warning and the share price collapsed.

To kick start our recovery, Professor Roland Smith was invited in as a consultant to lead discussions and produce a corporate plan. A year later he joined the board, my father stepped down as joint Managing Director shortly afterwards, and Geoffrey Noakes became Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive.

Over the next two years Geoffrey and Professor Smith did enough to please the City, by closing the factory and making a major acquisition - 110 shops trading as Norvic. With a modest bit of massaging in the accounts, profits rose above the magic £1 million target, but the core Timpson business was continuing to lose market share and the atmosphere at Head Office was less than healthy.

By 1971 things had got so bad that the two men at the top were exchanging typewritten notes. In one, Geoffrey said, ‘I do not propose to reply to the very personal remarks you made about me on Friday as I do not believe that this would be to the benefit of the company.’ And in another, my father said, ‘I have your letter of 9th September and again I wonder whether you realise how rudely some of your letters read?’

Geoffrey saw little value in a family business or family management. He thought birthright was a bad way to choose a leader. He planned to rebrand the shoe repair business to reduce our reliance on the Timpson name. He was stony faced at the Annual General Meeting in April 1972 when our auditor stood up in response to his appointment and said, ‘I was pleased to see that another William Timpson has been christened. In many ways I think this explains the success of this company, for five generations they have been proud of the name William and, with every reason, proud of the company that bears that name.’ The child he was referring to was William James Timpson, my eldest son and our current Managing Director.

That was William Timpson Limited’s last Annual General Meeting.

If you are born into a family business you start your apprenticeship many years before going to work. I first became aware of the business when I was about 10. Every year my parents took me on a day out to Blackpool, including a trip on the tram from Fairhaven Lake to Fleetwood. My father used this opportunity to visit our shops in the area, and when I reached 10 I was allowed to join him.

His father, Will, had spent a lifetime visiting shops and listening to his employees, many of whom he knew by name. My father did the same, making sure he visited every shop every year. I followed his example and my son, James, considers shop visiting to be a fundamental part of our culture. It’s the way we run the business. I’m not entirely sure why relentlessly going round the business works so well, but it does.

I officially went on the Timpson payroll in 1960. My first real job was as a shop assistant in the Timpson shoe shop in Railway Street, Altrincham, and my first real boss was Bill Branston. I will always be grateful to Bill, who, for three months, was my manager and mentor. Despite an age difference of nearly 40 years, Bill knew how to talk to me - he taught me how look after the stock, serve customers, dress the shop window and wrap up a pair of Wellington boots using nothing but paper and string, though I never did master Bill’s final flourish when he cut the string with his bare hands.

Most of my training took place on the shop floor, but every break time Bill and I went to the basement for a cup of tea. That was where he told me stories and sometimes told me off. He made the job fun and set an example. My 13 weeks with Bill sparked an enthusiasm for retailing that still burns strongly 49 years later.

Most of all I learned the importance of customer service and the influence that a sales assistant can have on a company’s success. Altrincham was Bill ’s shop and while I was there I was part of his team. There were no computers telling us what to do; Bill ordered his own stock and recruited his own staff. There was no self-service; every customer sat down and we brought the shoes from the boxes that lined each wall. It was proper, personal service a million miles away from today’s checkouts, where some shop assistants talk to their colleagues while they scan your bar code. Bill Branston ’s tuition has ensured that I will never take our customers for granted.

Six years later, after university, work experience at Clarks, and an eclectic cocktail of jobs at Timpson, I settled in as a buyer of ladies shoes and learned a big lesson about management. In the 1960s our office was full of status symbols: you could spot anyone’s place in the pecking order by their overalls, the colour of paper they could use for memos, their designated lavatory and dining room, plus their car parking space. It was a four -minute walk from the main car park behind the warehouse to the office building, yet on the way you passed 40 spaces that were allocated strictly according to seniority. As you moved up the company management chart, your car could be parked closer to the front door.

A branch manager from the Midlands had been summoned for an interview prior to being given promotion. Being nervous he arrived early and, unaware of the car parking system, put his car in Bay 2. The space was allocated to Geoffrey Noakes who arrived in his Rolls Royce at 9 o’clock. When the manager completed his interview at 10 o ’clock he found his car was blocked in by the Rolls. Geoffrey didn’t leave until six and the poor manager spent the day sitting in reception. This incident occurred over 40 years ago but I’ve never forgotten it. It serves as a continual reminder of the dangers of arrogance - an example of exactly what big bosses should not do. Parking in our office today is on a first come, first served basis. If it is full when I arrive, I park by the warehouse and have a four-minute walk to the office.