But in the case of Damian Hughes, now running his own consultancy Liquid Thinker, varied doesn’t appear to do justice to the eclectic mix of careers and experiences that he’s amassed – and all before turning 40.

Hughes has been a footballer and Manchester United coach, sports psychologist, HR director, author, youth club leader, public speaker and consultant. Earlier this month, he was also awarded a professorship by Manchester Metropolitan University for his contribution to the business world as a writer and speaker.

Among this long list of achievements, you may have spotted that Hughes was an HR Director. In fact, he spent eight years at Unilever, where he was responsible for turning round the fortunes of the UK’s oldest manufacturing site, the evocatively named Port Sunlight.

But his career began very differently. As a teenager, Hughes had been a promising footballer. He played for England Schoolboys but, even at that young age, knew that a career in the Beautiful Game wasn’t his dream. So Hughes worked for all of the coaching badges that he could and subsequently joined Manchester United as a coach.

 

At the same time, he also continued his studies, picking up a Classics degree from Leeds University too. “I was at Manchester United for five years and loved it and had a really good time. But I wondered about using my potential and whether, in 20 years’ time, I would still have the same feeling,” Hughes recalls.

His girlfriend at the time was working in HR and suggested that he give it a go. So, in his mid-20s, Hughes took the unusual step of jumping from the world of professional football to the corporate HR environment of Unilever.

 

He clearly remembers his mum’s words when he told her about the career shift: “’HR? What’s that?’ I said: ‘I don’t know yet.’ She’d replied: ‘What are you going to do when you get found out?’ Every time, I thought I’d get found out, I’d get promoted!”

Despite experiencing impostor syndrome, Hughes rose quickly through Unilever’s ranks. During his time at Port Sunlight, he managed to turn the factory around from languishing in the bottom three of the firm’s 100 European plants when he started to becoming one of the top five by the time he left, greatly reducing absence figures and improving productivity in the process.

But not content with being on an upward trajectory at Unilever, Hughes also started writing his first book entitled ‘Liquid Thinking’, which outlined the lessons and techniques that could be used to realise one’s ambitions – be they personal or professional.

 

He’d written it for the workers at Port Sunlight in order to show them what could be achieved with the right drive and attitude. But Hughes was also ably demonstrating the same qualities himself, not only because of his determination to write a book in the first place, but also because of the impressive list of people that he managed to persuade to share their advice.

 

As well as interviewing boxer Muhammad Ali and England rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, for example, he also managed to persuade entrepreneur Richard Branson to write an introduction for his work.

But alongside these sporting and business greats, Hughes likewise interviewed the lads from the Port Sunlight factory about some of their own victories, which ranged from beating cancer to building their own house. In doing so, he showed how the techniques that they used were the same as those applied by the likes of Branson and Ali.

After multiple rejections from publishers, meanwhile, Hughes published the book himself and then went off to South Africa for 18 months as HR director. Back at home, however, his book had begun to gather momentum and he kept on receiving calls from companies asking him to come and help along with requests for public speaking.

In the end, the demands on his time grew to such an extent that he decided to leave Unilever and set up his own consultancy, Liquid Thinker, in 2006, the aim being to help companies develop inspiring leaders and thinkers and instigate change.

 

 

But Hughes still continues to work with professional sports teams. In 2008, for example, he joined forces with former England rugby league coach, Tony Smith. His task was to instil the belief in the England team that they could end Australia’s dominance of the game.

 

Smith is now back coaching club rugby at the Warrington Wolves, but the working relationship continues. And Hughes is proud that Warrington has won the league for the first time in 74 years. “I don’t think there are many similarities between business and sport, but where they do collide is in emotional intelligence and getting the best from people,” he believes.

Hughes describes the four pillars of emotional intelligence as creating an environment where people feel involved, where they are in control, where they feel emotionally safe and where they feel they belong. “What we teach in business and sport is that if you chose to ignore these responses, then you get ‘chimp brain’. Your chimp brain basically has the choice of freeze, flight or fright,” he says.

These reactions translate into various behaviours – ‘flight’ will appear as increased absences and attrition, ‘freeze’ as apathy and ‘fight’ as a sarcastic, aggressive and abrasive workforce. “When I go to conferences, I want to see where people sit – if they want to sit at the back, that’s chimp brain telling them they want flight,” Hughes notes.

He remembers one chief executive who talked about the apathy of his staff because the company suggestion box was always empty. “My answer was that they are giving you loads of feedback – that silence should be deafening you. They don’t trust you or the environment,” Hughes says.

So how do you go about building that trust? At Port Sunlight, factory workers were offered the chance to dedicate one day each month to a project aimed at tackling a frustrating work issue or that enabled them to do something more effectively.

 

Within the first year, 10% of the workforce took up the offer and the company saved £250,000 in the process. One challenge took the form of a machine, which required spare parts from Japan that took weeks to arrive, for example. The team’s response was simple – take over its running and buy their own parts from hardware stores such as B&Q.

“Another team ended up negotiating with their own trade union to resolve an issue that had been going on for seven years about the high level of temporary staff,” recalls Hughes.

 

His ultimate goal is to help companies find ways of changing their culture, which includes such simple measures as using positive language to deal with staff. It sounds simple – and that’s exactly the point, says Hughes.

 

“One of the things I’ve always felt is something Basil Fawlty said to Sibil: “If you went on Mastermind, your specialist subject would be the bleedin’ obvious,” he explains.

The problem for many companies is that, because they move so fast, this is exactly what they do – miss the bleedin’ obvious. He illustrates the point with a leaf taken out of former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy’s book.

 

When most senior executives visited stores, they would tend to ask staff whether everything was alright and whether there was anything that they could help with. But Leahy’s first question was: ‘what’s your biggest success?’ “I was able to take that experience from Terry Leahy and take that back into organisations,” says Hughes.

 

As well as writing business books, however, he has also co-authored boxing biographies with his father. One covered the life of Thomas Hearns, while a second on Sugar Ray Robinson was nominated for the William Hill sports book of the year.

 

Proceeds from his business- and biography-writing all go towards the community youth project set up by his father, which Hughes helps to run. Collyhurst and Moston in Manchester is in the third most deprived area in Europe and the youth club has had a profound effect on the lives of the youngsters there.

 

Not only does it help keep them off the streets and out of trouble, it has also produced three world champion boxers over last 20 years. It is his father’s project and boxing is his passion, but Hughes junior also gets involved as much as he can. “The more successful the business has become, the less I can be directly involved. But that’s a good thing because it means I’m bringing in money for it,” he says.

Hughes’ latest book may just have been out for a couple of weeks, but he is not resting on his laurels. He is already working on the next boxing biography with his dad as well as another leadership book, which is focusing on the teaching profession.

While the fantasy of many a teenage boy is to play professional football and Hughes came pretty close to living that dream, ultimately it was not his. Instead he was smart enough to realise that you’ve got to follow your own path. And that meant being and remaining true to himself.

And finally…

Who do you admire most and why?
Bill Sweetenham, who used to coach the British swimming team as he was responsible for changing some deep-rooted problems in British swimming and stuck to his guns in the face of adversity.

Also Tony Smith, who is an ex England Rugby league coach and now coaches the Warrington Wolves’ as he’s a great man who just happens to be a coach.

What buzzwords do you hate?
‘Touching base’ and people ‘bringing their A game’.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
Richard Branson said: “You can never fail at anything – you can only learn from the experience.”

How do you relax?
I write.