Yet for Bob Bannister, managing director of training provider, iManage Performance, it proved to be fortuitous.

He explains: “In the mid-90s, I was working for Philips and doing a lot of sourcing from Eastern Europe, which meant I spent a lot of time travelling between here and unheard of places in Eastern Europe. At that time, the connections were rubbish and there could be 12 or 14 hours between flights, so I used that time to write a book on time management.”

The book marked the end of one career in engineering and manufacturing and the start of another in learning and development. For more than a decade now, Bannister has been building up a solid training business and recently started his own blog on HR and training issues on the company website.

Not only did he find time to write a book (through effective time management no doubt), he also studied for an MBA at the same time, graduating in 2000. Without the MBA, Bannister believes that he probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to set up iManage.

“When I came out of school, I wasn’t academic and I was atrocious at English and much of my life has been about catching up. Music was my thing and I was going to be a professional musician,” he says.

If everything had gone to plan, Bannister would have joined the forces. His dream was to become a bandsman in the RAF, but a diagnosis as diabetic meant that the RAF wouldn’t accept him.

 

 

He describes the situation as a “major life change” for him. Instead of being in military uniform, his first job was as a maintenance apprentice in a pork pie factory.

Following his apprenticeship, Bannister joined lawnmower firm, Qualcast, and from there moved to DuPont and then on to Philips Electronics. But things really started taking off on the back of his time management book. He set up a website and things began to change for him as people became more interested in what he had to say.

 

“I reassured my wife that it was nothing more than a hobby,” Bannister says. But, of course, it was more than that and, in 1999, he left Philips and undertook consulting for a year at procurement specialists, QP Group. “That gave me the opportunity for some client-facing stuff, which was great,” he remembers.

In 2001, Bannister decided to strike out on his own and rifled through his contacts book to search out work opportunities. “In that first year, the only weeks I didn’t have something to deliver were my holidays and two other weeks,” he says.

The business expanded quickly from its time management roots and is now concerned with what Bannister calls “personal effectiveness”. This incorporates a number of different soft skills that are key to leadership and management success.

 

The company has a core team of four people as well as 12 associates. “Our focus is on leadership, management and organisational behaviour as well as helping people to perform in their environment,” Bannister explains.

That includes teaching presentation skills, team management, assertion, creative communication and performance management, a topic that Bannister notes has had the biggest pull over the last 12 months. “A lot of our work is also about helping organisations move their vision down to objectives,” he explains.

Another recent trend is a move away from one-day training sessions. “We’re seeing less of the one-day stuff in favour of little bite-sized two-hour sessions and more of three days or more courses. It’s polarised a bit,” Bannister points out.

 

 

Whatever the length of the course chosen, Bannister has made participants a promise: if they don’t change as a result of even one day’s training, they will get their money back.

 

“Early on, I decided that if people didn’t change as a result of training, then it’s a waste of budget. I still hold on to the belief that people will change when the desire is there – and quite quickly,” he says.

The result of that promise is that the company spends a long time upfront on needs analysis for each client in order to ensure that every training programme really hits the mark.

Bannister’s ideas about learning and development, meanwhile, were born out of his own experiences of working in business and managing people – by the time he left Philips, he had 25 people reporting directly to him.

 

He also drew upon his experience of attending a lot of training courses during his manufacturing career that proved to be little more than simply tick-box exercises. But he wanted training to count.

A lot of what Bannister does now involves public speaking, which holds no fears for him. He explains: “I put that down to my years in classical music and conducting brass bands. From middle school, I was involved with being on stage.”

Recently, he’s added blog-writing to his list of activities and is thoroughly enjoying the experience. “I can’t help feeling I ought to have something to say at the age of 47! It’s a good thing to have opinions,” he asserts.

So, although Bannister didn’t manage to fulfil his dream of becoming a musician in the forces, he’s proof that other dreams do come along, providing that you’re prepared to put the work in – and, of course, are prepared to keep on learning.

And finally…

Who do you admire most and why?
Richard Branson. I find him quite an inspiration in many ways, not least because he left education early. I like the whole idea that there’s not much you can’t do if you put your mind to it.

The other aspect that I like is his chameleon qualities. One minute, he’s talking to world leaders and then he’s down the back of a plane with a little kid. He’s authentic and I like the way he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

What’s your most hated buzzword?
Synergy – only because I really do like plain English.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
It was from Stephen R. Covey, the author of best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, who said: ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood’. I’ve tried to live by that.

How do you relax?
Music, home, family. I used to compete in races and had bought myself a racing car and I do have some gongs in the cupboards. But I haven’t done that in the last 12 months since my son got a motorbike and I became interested in that.

I’m classically trained in brass instruments. The euphonium is my love and the trombone. The first instrument that I trained on was the tuba, but I like anything bass, like bass guitar. I play drums as well and play in a little band.