Jon Birchall found the Talent Development Programme an eye-opening experience that offered time for self-reflection, personal challenge and a realignment of his goals.
I’d reached a point in my career where I needed to do some self-reflection on how I worked. I'd only been in the industry for 10 years and never really taken a step back to think about how I operate as a manager, how I work with other people and how I communicate. So attending the Talent Development Programme at Cranfield was really good timing for me, and it give me the opportunity to think about how I do things and how that affects the people I work with. I was also about to embark on a new project which was going to be a big change to how I worked and a big change to how my area of the business worked.
My biggest challenge was how I operated as a manager. I was quite young to become a manager when I first became an Editor a few years ago, and I think that lead to me micromanaging and, being something of a control freak, I didn’t have the trust in people who I knew were very good at their jobs. I often felt a kind of insecurity within myself where I felt like I had to take control of everything and be across every part of the business, rather than trusting my own people, trusting my instincts, and performing in a way that worked for the wider business, I suppose, and not just for me.
In terms of what I wanted to achieve from the programme, I think it was about self-reflection and taking time to think about myself as a businessperson. In my personal life I like to think that I'm quite a reflective person as I'm someone who likes to listen to other people. So it was almost like I put on a bit of a mask whenever I came into work. I also wanted to learn a little bit more about the business world, as large media journalism can be quite insular. So the opportunity to meet people who work in other industries and have different experiences, that was something I felt I’d gain an awful lot from, and I certainly did.
The only thing that gave me pause for thought before applying for the programme was not knowing what I'd be getting out of it. I didn’t entirely believe that I was in a position where I needed management training - not from an arrogant point of view, but as a fairly young manager, as someone who was still fairly junior in the business. I wasn't sure whether I would fit on the course or whether I'd be dealing with other much more experienced people. But I actually found on the contrary, there were people in very similar situations to myself with similar experiences, so from day one all those concerns were put aside.
I wasn't sure whether I would fit on the course or whether I'd be dealing with other much more experienced people. But there were people with very similar situations and experiences to myself.
The Talent Development Programme journey for me was really varied, with lots of different challenges, lots of different approaches and things to think about. The first half of the course was very much about on the ground learning, opening your mind to other industries, other ways of working, even other theories behind business, which is something I've never really considered before. The second half of the week was a lot more about personal self-development and that's where I worked on my own business projects. I also worked a lot with the other people on the course and found that really valuable.
During the programme there was a lot of time for self-reflection. There was also a lot of challenges; challenging myself, the course leaders challenging me and probing for different things, and also the people on the course challenging each other, but always in a very supportive way and in a comfortable environment. It felt like a bit of a journey personally, from the person who I was when I went into the course, to who I was when I came out of it and beyond – and I definitely feel like it changed me quite significantly.
My experience on the Talen Development Programme really made me take a step back and think about how I'd been quite closed off, and it showed me how to be a great manager, how to work in different businesses and different industries - it really opened my eyes. I studied journalism at university and I'd only ever worked in the media, so I've never done business studies or economics or anything like that. A lot of what we learned really just opened my eyes to the fundamentals and the realisation that a lot of those things did apply to me, to how I work, to how a lot of my colleagues work, and to how different stakeholders that we deal with work. So it took me out of myself a little bit and gave me a broader view in terms of how I can work with other people and hopefully make their lives easier as well.
It showed me how to be a great manager, how to work in different businesses and different industries - it really opened my eyes.
The programme continues to support my development, because I now have this grounding of knowledge that I simply didn't have before. I've also got a network of people that I’ve built using the skills I learned on the programme. I had some preconceived ideas of what my job was and what the value I added to our business was, but the programme helped me realise that I could take myself out of my comfort zone, I could meet new people, and I could have challenging conversations with different people which can often be helpful. It's realigned my goals too - what I once thought was success isn't necessarily the case now, and I realised that there's an awful lot more to the business, and also to my professional development, than I really thought was possible before.
I'm now Head of Sport for the biggest sports publisher in the country and I have about 120 sports journalists reporting to me. We restructured our team, which was what I'd been preparing for ahead of Cranfield, and I relied on what I’d learned at Cranfield a huge amount in terms of the practices that we put into place during the process of building this new team, what we changed, the conversations that we had, the planning and strategising ahead of it.
I think we've built a culture within the team where we're constantly pushing each other to try different things, to move beyond the norm of what people expect from us.
I think what's next for me is really trying to broaden my own personal horizons within the business even further. We've got responsibility for a lot of people and I want to make their place of work an exciting place to be, a comfortable place to be, and somewhere that people can challenge my way of thinking. I think we've built a culture within the team where we're constantly pushing each other to try different things, to move beyond the norm of what people expect from us. Hopefully I can try and harness that culture, and continue to work with interesting and talented people.
The advice I'd give for anyone thinking of applying for the Talent Development Programme is to absolutely do it, and to go in with an open mind without a pre-set idea of what a management course is or what it is that you need from it. I went in with an awful lot of expectations around where I could improve. Some of that came to be true, but there were also a huge amount of things which I'd never really considered as a manager. So leave all your preconceptions at the door, and just go in with an open mind.
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