Jack Fallow
Encouragement. Integration. Peace.
Jack is focused on developing people and opportunities.
He is interested in the balance and trust that emerges when people express their capability and organisations and use that capability wisely.
Career Highlights
Jack’s career stretched from shop floor to the boardroom. He was a Trade Union branch secretary at age 17 and had a long, successful corporate career. He is facinated by what it takes for people and organisations to perform at their optimum. He was the co-founder of the Magna Carta Institute at Brunel University, and served as vice-chair of the National Jazz Youth Orchestra. He is a mentor at the Polylogos Association (Romania) and has worked as consultant/lecturer on Leadership and Change at the UK Civil Service College.
Director of HR, Service & Operations in major energy company
Large, complex organisational culture, systems, process and people.
Founder and chair of Gasforce Ltd, an employee buy-out
An employee buyout providing gas engineering to industry and commerce. A startup with 100% employee ownership and deep employee engagement.
MD of Bioss Ltd
A global network of organisation and people development consultanciesHelping people and organisations manage in complexity and uncertainty.
Finding there is no substitute for acquired wisdom
Working before I was a teenager and always having more than one thing on the go have been the pattern of my life. Early education came mainly via my railway and coal mining grandfathers. School seemed boring. However, the benefit of being raised by grandparents was that I learned to focus on the wisdom of the elders, the most experienced people in the room, rather than my peer group. My curiosity and this tendency to listen and respond were key to my career.
An early mentor taught me that deep preparation was the key factor in becoming ‘lucky’. Consequently, I have focused on being prepared, propelled by both exploration and curiosity and the fear of failure.
When I was 47, on secondment to a UK government department, I received a call from my company. They asked me to return and close a loss making division. Meeting a group for lunch convinced me of their belief that their engineering group had potential. It needed to be fixed and well managed.
That conviction led me to negotiate an employee buy-out, create an employee board, and let those workers determine their own pay structure. But, as a ‘senior in a suit’ I realised that some kind of sacrifice would be necessary to establish trust. Consequently, I decided to accept the same salary as the technicians and to be an equal shareholder. Those sacrifices established the platform of trust and created the opportunity to listen.
In six years, that listening, and the actions that flowed from it, doubled our employee numbers to 400 and grew shareholder value from £1.4 million to £21.7million.
And to whom do I give credit? Really. to my grandfathers who gave me the gift of paying attention to wise people, regardless of their station in life. And to my wife, who was willing to accept the reduction in income to let me do something I loved.
In Neos Delta, I am part of a group of experienced and wise colleagues. What am I preparing for? Learning from the wise souls who we will meet in The Neos Delta journey.
