Centric Consultants, a new business founded by former pharmaceutical executive and well-known North East fundraiser, Ivan Hollingsworth, has launched a bid to tackle 'culture-washing' and support business leaders to build strong, sustainable, highperforming teams based on trust and psychological safety - not just pool tables and pizza Fridays.
The company, which has already worked with high-profile businesses across the UK including ITV, Norgine Pharmaceuticals and Gateshead based Media Works, takes a full-team approach to training, focusing on the importance of connection and the power of trust when it comes to increasing performance, reducing burnout and staff retention; all problems facing businesses in 2023.
Ivan Hollingsworth has spent over 16 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working and interacting with a wide-range of different team dynamics both in the private and public sector. This, alongside his training as an elite-level athlete and chair of CHUF (The Children’s Heart Unit Fund) has allowed him to observe and identify what makes a truly high-performing team. Over his career Ivan has raised over £500,000 for charity and most recently made headlines across the UK when movie star Ryan Reynolds publically supported his son Seb, after the 13-year-old underwent open heart surgery in 2022.
Speaking about the launch of Centric Consultants, and why businesses need to take an honest look at what culture really means to them, Ivan said, “In the current economic climate, it is more important than ever for businesses to adopt sustainable models for business resilience and growth. To achieve amazing results, businesses have to take a real look at what their team culture really is – and walk the talk, not just talk the talk on websites and social media channels. True culture is more than the perks that you offer, it’s how psychologically safe your people feel within the organisation, that’s what delivers results.
“I speak to a lot of teams around the concept of effectiveness post-pandemic. Modern day life is making us less and less effective we have become experts in the art ‘busyness’, spending 47% of our time being distracted, but there are methods and techniques that we can learn as individuals and as teams to combat this through changing our mindset.
Outside of work, Ivan was an elite-level athlete and a Heart Dad to now 14-year old Seb, who underwent heart surgery when he was just a baby, and then again as a teenager. He was one of the first recipients of the Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award for contributions to the community, has been awarded the Pride of Britain award for fundraising and led the campaign to keep the Newcastle Freeman Hospital’s Children’ Heart Unit open after more than a decade of uncertainty.
Speaking about how his lived experience inspired him to coach others, Ivan said, “When I talk to teams, it isn’t just theories from a text book – the knowledge comes from our lived-experience as a family and from the training I’ve undergone for fundraising challenges over the years. I talk a lot about what resilience means in practice; resilience isn’t a personality trait or an attribute, it is an output, a reaction to the situation happening in that moment. No-one knows whether they are truly resilient or not until you are dealing with any given scenario. The idea of resilience has been weaponised and is often used to exert power over others which isn’t beneficial to individuals or to businesses. We can’t stop life going sideways sometimes but we can support our people and give them tools to be able to cope when it does.
“Being resilient doesn’t mean not experiencing emotional pain or suffering, it means finding ways to work through it”.
Dominic Timney, national field sales manager at Norgine Pharmaceuticals said, “As a leader of a well-established team, I was looking for an intervention that really played to those human skills that we have all come to appreciate and rely on.
“Ivan’s High Performing Teams session really blew my mind, using his own experience at the forefront of charitable ventures – both as a participant and as a leader, participating in professional teams and his own journey as an athlete, Ivan was able to describe and coach our team on the key attributes of teams who choose to work together, and how to create an inspirational space where everyone is pulling together to deliver more than they thought possible. Ivan’s own experience was backed by in-depth research and theory, I can’t recommend this session highly enough.”
Centric Consultants is based in Newcastle upon Tyne and delivers workshops and bespoke training across the UK. To find out more and to speak to the team directly about the problems you are trying to solve email ivan@centric-consultants.com