Partner Article

Behind the business with Peter Ryding

Executive business coach, Peter Ryding, CEO and founder of DOIT, takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

DOIT specialises in helping busy, ambitious people achieve more success with less stress at work and at home. This means increasing productivity and profitability at work and more time, more money, and a richer quality of life at home.

We do this via executive and team coaching, board level strategy workshops and other services based around our tried, tested and proven approach called the “DOIT Success System”. The major challenge we’ve faced has been delivering the DOIT Success System as a new online service, providing professionals with the power to succeed from anywhere in the world, 24/7.

The DOIT Success System has been under development for more than 20 years, carefully refined through the coaching CEOs and their boards through periods of change, rescuing companies on the edge of bankruptcy and enabling people to achieve more success with less stress at work and at home.

The new digital offering has not been designed to replace the face-to-face element of our coaching, but rather to provide a force multiplier. It combines all the skills and knowledge that went into designing the DOIT system and provides members with instant and constant access to them, structured around a “system of success” that has never let me or my clients down.

Some years ago the DOIT system was used to rescue the business set up by John Cleese, Video Arts, from the edge of bankruptcy. They had lost focus on three of the seven critical factors for success in business - customer focus, staff motivation and inspiring leadership. They had got into e-learning and lost the humour associated with their fun mini films. Customers had stopped buying because their people no longer used the products, even though it was still good content. We were able to help them take stock of their core ideals and realign their approach and change the business from a good but failing one into a profitable one once again.

We had to make sure that our new online service did not suffer the same issues that Video Arts had. It had to be fresh, easy to use and practical in helping people achieve more success with less stress every day.

So we applied our own “D.O.I.T.” methodology to ourselves. It’s a simple 4-step process that underpins everything we and our clients do.

You define the Desired Outcome that you (and other stakeholders) seek, identifying both the Outcome (what needs to happen) and the Desire (why it needs to happen) separately.

Next you pin down the critically Important things that are critical for success. There are usually only six or seven of these.

The final step is to Take action. This is about professionally planning the work and then workingthe plan. There’s a lot more to it than that although that’s at the heart of what we do - whether its improving productivity and profitability or helping a busy business person enjoy a much better life work balance.

DOIT always and only works, as long as you follow every step of the process. Not only has this approach helped all our clients achieve more success with business, but it has also helped us to develop and deliver this online service.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

Our biggest achievement is actually making this new online service simple and intuitive for members to use, despite the enormous behind-the-scenes complexity.

The DOIT system offers over 50 interactive exercises and examinable programmes for selfdevelopment, over 200 specially commissioned videos and over 1000 inspiring quotes.

All of these items are integrated to provide a seamless and intuitive online experience. For example, someone who is interested in discovering the secrets of body language is able to naturally flow into connected areas such as negotiation, influencing skills, conflict management, dealing with underperformance, or accelerating rapport building at work, at home or socially.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

Our biggest focus in the coming year is to bring the DOIT Success System to the global digital market.

DOIT is now targeting new members; individuals, small companies and whole corporations as well as trade and professional bodies. Key to DOIT’s development will be establishing strategic partners to provide more high value services to our members. In addition we will be offering affiliate status so that members can benefit financially from recommending the DOIT system to their contacts.

Our long-term ambition is to help 20 million people across 20 countries achieve “more success with less stress” by the year 2020. This is what we call the “DOIT 2020 Vision”.

As part of this vision we give free weekend membership to the families of Gold and Platinum members and we’ll also provide free membership to charities as chosen by our paying members.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

Live the 80/20 rule – at work and at home! This is an old adage that 80 per cent of your results in any endeavour usually come from 20 per cent of the input.

To achieve this you must first be crystal clear on your Desired Outcome. Then work out the 20 per cent of critically Important things you need to do to make it happen, and then Take action, devoting 80 per cent of your time to the 20 per cent of things that really count.

Or in other words, DOIT!

It’s worked for me for over 20 years as a venture capitalist at 3i, within large corporations such as Mars and Exxon, within a range of SMEs and even sole trader consultants. It’s underpinned all of my successes including winning national awards and crucially in managing my life work balance.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in your region or generally, and where your organisation sits within in it?

The current economy is a real test for leadership. It’s a fantastic opportunity for inspiring leaders to excite and motivate their people to help and delight their customers better than anyone else. It’s also more important than ever before to build reputation, trust and loyalty and to be faster and more nimble than the competition.

This means everyone in business has to step up and to do new things in new ways. And this in turn means people need instant access to new skills and knowledge, as well as new tools and techniques. There’s no time to wait because the opportunity will be lost. And of course it’s useful to do all this whilst also having a life.

That’s why we are totally committed to providing all the elements that enable people to achieve more success with less stress both at work and at home, online as well as our traditional face-toface offering and why we are on a mission to provide 20 million people in 20 countries with the power to succeed by the year 2020.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .