Keith Paxman: “Don’t be fearful… grasp the opportunity and run with it”

Praxis42 was born in 2001 and the management team worked together for many years before that as the occupational health, safety and environment function for a FTSE 100 communications company.

Today they employ over 40 people in the UK who continue to deliver a professional service to national and international customers. Staff share common values, aspirations and core competencies to meet the needs of their very varied customer base which includes Monsoon, Everything Everywhere and Enterprise Inns.

The company structure, with advisers across the UK, enables Praxis42 to provide the very best health and safety, fire safety and environment support for large corporates, thus ensuring that the end product suits the ever-changing needs of their customers.

I spoke with Keith Paxman, Managing Director and one of the founding Directors of Praxis42.

Thanks for being involved, Keith. I look forward to hearing your story so far…

If we start just before the creation of Praxis42 in 2000. I was Head of Health, Safety and Environment at a corporate global business, Cable & Wireless, a telecoms organisation with activities throughout the world. I started initially in a subsidiary company, Mercury Communications, and moved my way up and built a team, but unfortunately around about 2000, not long after the .com bubble burst and things got a little bit tough in the sector, Cable & Wireless found themselves in a difficult place and needed to reduce headcount and manage costs.

I was given the opportunity to outsource my team, form my own business and then provide that service back to Cable & Wireless. After just a very short bit of thinking time, I seized that opportunity, engaged then four of the senior people in my team and formed the business with the five of us initially, myself as Managing Director and a team of four directors. Most of the team came with us and we formed this business which we called Praxis42.

Great name! How did it come to be?

We sat down and decided we needed to have a name that was a little different to what might be expected in our area of work. We went through a long list of alternatives, one of which was Praxis which loosely means turning theory into practice. The second was 42 which is from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and is the solution to life, the universe and everything. Then, suddenly putting them both together, Praxis42 sounded not too silly and a little bit different and we seized on that and tested it with friends and family and they didn’t think it was too silly either. It then stuck and it has stood the test of time, I think. We’ve made a bit of a name for ourselves as well. With our new company name, we then had three months to set it up, negotiate our exit opportunity and then we were up and running. It was a new journey for us. Although we had been revenue-earning within the business by providing our services to other organisations, we were very much in the forefront of the mobile telecoms market, providing services over the years to various providers. We had lots of experience, but we did need to diversify the business given its dependence on one main contract with Cable & Wireless and we needed to build it. From day one we acquired some new customers and continued to do so. We had then, and still have, two arms to the business, one as consultancy for health, safety and environment, and more importantly fire safety as well, and the other was providing our eLearning platform for health and safety courses. Both continue to be good revenue earners for us. Around 2005 we had a difficult couple of years where Cable & Wireless had shrunk so much that their services almost reduced to nothing and they took some services in-house again. They also took some of our people back and at that point we needed to significantly build the business. It helped us to hone in on the marketing and sales aspect of what we do and that then became a springboard for us to expand to where we are now, or where we were say a year ago, at which point we needed to reflect where we were going both as individuals and as a business. That’s the point at which we needed to bring in somebody (an expert) to help us to see the way forward.

In moving from being an in-house service provider at a large company to being an external provider, how did you go about developing the additional skills needed to win your own work and run your own business?

Well, I think a number of ways really. I have previously studied to diploma level in business management, which I think gave me personally a sound business understanding. We did some work as a management team to develop individual skills and I ensured that we had professional support externally. I had a good lawyer, accountant and other support on the HR front when necessary. So, buying in those skills, rather than having them necessarily ourselves and, not that we needed a huge amount, but we did need enough to guide us. We managed to actually put something decent together and between us we’ve been very successful. So, if anybody fears that they haven’t got the experience of running a business, don’t be fearful, just grasp the opportunity and run with it.

It sounds as though you really concentrated on your core strengths, the things you were good at, and then bought in others you needed.

Exactly. And clearly, you learn by your successes, but you also learn by your mistakes as well. I can remember our accountant saying when you bring in somebody external into the business for a role such as sales and marketing, it’s really over a year before you know if it was the right choice or not. And of course you do learn when you bring people in that sometimes it clicks and they work very well and sometimes it’s a cost that you don’t actually see a return on and it’s time to move in another direction.

Yes, so keeping that antenna very sharp and focused. Just going back to that point at which you made the decision, is it correct that you were an employee for all of your previous careers?

Yes, I was.

Can you remember the moment you decided ‘let’s go for it’ and what your thinking was?

I had always felt that I’d like to do my own thing and set up a consultancy, but of course when you have a young family and lots of commitments and you’re on the conveyor belt of corporate world, it’s not that easy to say ‘That’s it, I’m off.’ So, this was actually a golden opportunity. It was handed to us and it was on the basis of providing the service back in to the same organisation, so of course you end up with great revenues in year one. In fact it was even more golden because we had the power in the deal which meant that we negotiated an up-front payment at the starting point, so we didn’t even have a cash flow problem. What a wonderful way to start a business when you’ve got funding for your first few months, you’ve got a team around you that you know and respect and can rely on and you’ve got a golden customer. So, we had a really great business from the outset, rather than needing to build a business from nothing. So, perfect. As a result of that, the business in 15 years has never owed a penny to anybody and has been able to pay its way throughout, pay bonuses to our people and pay dividends to our shareholders. It’s been a very, very successful enterprise.

There must have been times when you were trying to achieve something and were frustrated in your efforts, particularly in terms of where you want to take the business. Where do you see the gap between knowing what you want to do and actually getting there? What did you do? 

The business was led by a team of people who were experienced and expert in their field as health and safety practitioners. At one point during 2005 revenues dipped and we needed to be not just directors, but also managers and undertake delivery as well. I think it’s true to say that during that period the directors’ focus had to be on delivery rather than managing and directing. That led to an approach within the team and a mind-set if you like that we need to get our hands dirty and we need to get in there with the team because of our experience. What that leads you to is a glass ceiling that you can’t break through in terms of growing the business because you’re relying on few people to do too much. At the same time, I think we became mindful that this isn’t going to go on forever, one of the management team needed to take retirement and knew in advance that was going to be the case and we needed to rethink our approach. At that point we realised that if we wanted to grow we were going to need to let go.

What was your greatest personal learning within that journey?

I think it was probably that I needed to lead the management team to change our approach and thinking and daily activities. I needed to do that by leading by example, but I also needed to ensure that we engaged the right support to enable us to change our mind-set, to move the business on so that directors were directing so that we had a management structure in place and that we were also developing the individuals in our whole team, which by this time was around about the 40 mark in numbers and spread out throughout the UK. So, it was that awakening that if the business is going to continue, and to continue profitably, we need to make this move and the only way we can really achieve that is if I take a leadership role in doing that. At that point I looked externally into getting a person to help us in the same way, I guess, as we engaged the right people to help us in other aspects. It was somebody who could help us with change management.

There it is again; engaging externally and focusing on the strengths within your business. You also mentioned role-modelling. What did you notice needed to be done differently?

I found that in general most of the key decisions and also a huge number of minor daily business decisions were coming through my desk. Yes, it was fun and it was challenging, but it’s what I’ve spent most of my career developing in terms of being able to deal with anything that is thrown at you. However, I knew there was also going to be a time when I wasn’t going to be there, and indeed didn’t want to be there, so if I didn’t do something about that at some point the business could have been at risk. I also recognised of course that this wasn’t just me, but my fellow directors were experiencing the same problems. There was also the recognition that we have a lot of good people working for us with lots of competencies and talents and we were in danger of not recognising those and not using them and potentially losing them. So, the whole of that really crystallised that we needed to let go, let the business grow and develop our people.

The key to you moving from doing to managing to leading was stepping out of problem solving and working at ground level and instead going up to the first floor and beyond and recognising the potential within your team…

Yes. We have a team of people that, apart from a few of those in our head office, work either from home or from customer sites and work on their own. All of them are very professional, but many of them actually work in isolation, very low maintenance, just get on with the job and actually we realised that some people have worked for us for quite a while and yet we didn’t know them. We didn’t know what their competencies and capabilities are. We know what is required of them and what they’re demonstrating at the times when we touch what they’re doing, but actually we knew all the experience certain people had, degrees in certain subjects or previous lifetimes and had experience in certain areas before we employed them. Yet we weren’t making use of those, we were just asking them to do what we required of them and some have run their own businesses, some have been managers in other businesses and yet we weren’t making use of that.

Knowing your people and knowing more about their journey and using their knowledge, skills and experience more widely was essential…

Yes, and also understanding what their motivators are, what their ambitions are and their aspirations. At some point you need to fully understand that and what we did with that was engaged somebody else externally who helped us to measure and understand that to explore a little bit more about what they were looking for and where they were going, and that led us to consider who was appropriate for manager positions looking after our teams, who was appropriate for account managing of a major customer, or account managing a smaller business customer which then enabled us to get them to do the day-to-day work and day-to-day management with guidance and support and direction from the directors.

It’s been a great journey so far in terms of personally role-modelling leadership, stepping out of doing and enabling others to step in and, from that, creating opportunities for everybody…

Of course, yes. I think it’s true to say we’re still on the journey, we’ve still got a team of people that are feeling their way and we’ve still got directors who are in the process of letting go and need to let go some more, or sometimes need to bring it back in and need to flex their roles almost on a daily basis. It’s working though, the business now is at a place when it is only limited by our imagination and what we think we can do, but those limits are much wider and larger and further than they might have been a year or two ago.

What one further golden nugget of advice would you pass on to another business owner?

I would say don’t be limited by what you think you can achieve. Find the right person to help you with that, whether that person is internal or external, but use the right people. Open your mind, really consider what your role within this is and what the role of your management team is within this and then just give it a go.

One thing that strikes me from your story is your ability to get higher perspective in terms of recognising what needs to be done. How would you say that you do that?

There are a number of areas in which you can take that perspective. One of them is on ‘What’s our key offering? What makes us different and separates us from our competitors?’ That sort of approach. There’s also the approach of ‘How can we get the best out of our team individually?’ and then moving onto things like ‘What are our values?’ So, I think you can have a higher level approach, but then you need to almost segment that into ‘What is it that needs to be done in this business to take us forward?’ So, that I think is one of the keys; stepping away, finding time and not being involved in doing. Letting go allows you to do that. Finding time to think things through to take an objective, rather than a subjective view on things and trusting those around you to get on with what you want and the business needs from them and giving them the freedom to do it and go for it. I would also say don’t expect it to happen overnight, but stick with it and the benefits will come. After our period of investment we are now seeing the growth in revenues and customers that we thought were ambitious targets only a few months ago.

Thank you very much indeed.

You’re welcome!

In brief

Know your own strengths as individuals and as a board and bring in external support to assist as and when you need it.

Show others the way by leading by example, being open to shifting your mind-set and doing things differently and, in so doing, you’ll see others change too.

Move from the comfort of problem solving, which might make you feel good, but is capping business growth, to enabling others to flourish and empowering them to do it for themselves.

Know all of your employees individually as people. Be aware of their skills, history and aspirations and use that knowledge to create the right opportunities within the business for them and you. This will enable you to engage the right person for the right job by not being limited by your own thinking.

Take a step back and time out to objectively review the business with a higher perspective. Then commit the time to make change happen by showing and trusting others to do more for themselves, being readily available to offer your support when needed without overcrowding and allowing individuals to grow.

We recognise that health and safety management can often be seen as a challenge. Organisations often don’t know where to start to understand legislation or best practice and want a balanced view on risk.

Praxis42’s specialism is sensible and pragmatic risk management. Over the years we have dealt with a wide range of businesses and sectors and are confident we can help with your occupational health, safety, fire and environment needs.

We can help you choose the exact service, training course or strategy that you need to meet your legal and moral obligations and develop a comprehensive compliant management system.

Please visit our website for further information: www.praxis42.com