Onside Issue 2 - Winter 2014 - 15

ONSIDE / INTERVIEW

"Sometimes it's about what's hurting them, having a
balance, family, relationships, which I find over 25 years is
that by getting these things right you focus on real business
issues.
"If you want to teach your kids, then be the Dad who is seen
as a successful role model.
"We got IKEA - one of the directors worked with me when
we were working with Rolls Royce. They knew me well
enough to let me get on with it. I tell stories, I lift people out
of the mire, they get won over. Be a great bloke and apply
being a great bloke to everything you do."
And his central message, the name of his business: "Treat
the impossible as if it's inevitable."
He says it's irrelevant what the business does. "I don't know
how nuclear fuel works, but I worked with British Nuclear
Fuels for years."
But even though business takes up 95 per cent of his time,
the sports that make up the rest provide him with some
incredible stories. Sport is also a great shop window for i2i.
His stories have certainly illuminated some of the recent
Seneca networking lunches.
"We got an intro to Wigan Athletic through the Bridgewater
private hospital and met with Roberto Martinez who asked
us to do two hours with the team before the semi-final with
Millwall. It was the players who then got us back as they
were daunted at the prospect of facing Manchester City in
the final."
"We used the same exercise we used with Bolton Wanderers
before their play off final win over Preston in 2001."

He tells me what it is and it is so obvious, so simple to
execute and you can see why it was effective, but he swears
me to secrecy.
Then there's the cricket. "One of our first sports jobs was
with a young Lancashire cricketer called Andrew Flintoff.
He had done everything. It was like Alexander the Great,
he had no more world's left to conquer, but we took him to
that next level."
And golf. "With Darren Clarke my mission was to get him
to win the Open. They now have to be hungry to win again."
Eventually he says, the true and full story will come out, but
he's true to his own ethos of not creating alibis for failure
and developing excuses.
Finally, the last word has to go to him. At the Lancashire
Growth Conference in October he said this: "If you were
going to be a superhero, you wouldn't wanna be an average
one. You'd wanna be a BRILLIANT one!"

Contact - Michael Finnigan, i2i
01772 767 577
journey@i2i-121.com
www.i2i-121.com
Tell them Seneca sent you!

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Onside Issue 2 - Winter 2014
