Madeleine McGrath

Hello, I'm Madeleine McGrath and since I started work in 1978, I've been fascinated with the subject of people doing their best work. What is the subtle combination of targets and rewards that motivates employees to do their very best for their employer.

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Since graduating from University, I have always been attracted to roles that offer people the chance to grow and develop their talent. I think that self improvement is good for everyone - employee, team, company and society. I was lucky enough to work with Business Psychologist Dr Peter Honey at quite a formative stage in my career, and learned a great deal from him about how to design, structure and facilitate learning events. I learned that the most important place to focus is on an individual's mindset. Having set up a small business with colleague Richard King, my luck continued, and we struck up a relationship with the World Renowned Business writer and speaker, Tom Peters. We worked for him firstly as part time associates, and became full time members of his group in 1991. This close relationship with Tom and his writing has helped me to develop my expertise in learning design. When we first joined the group, the only Tom Peters Training Product was a brilliant Customer Focus Workshop, called Creating Value for Customers (CVC). (Incidentally, we still use an updated version of this workshop today, to great effect!). I have been an active contributor to the design of our WOW! Projects Workshop, Brand You Workshop and the Professional Service Firm (PSF) workshop. The publication of Tom's Re-imagine book in 2003 was a watershed. We drew together everything we had learned about Excellence into our Excellence Operating System, the Future Shape of the Winner. Based largely on Tom's PSF thinking, this model attempts to summarise and simplify the various elements of an organisation that contribute to it being excellent. We are expanding our global reach by licensing consultants to use our Excellence Audit and training companies to be able to deliver our training programmes. Our first venture is in June 2012 with the Business Results Group in Johannesburg South Africa. We will be training two of their facilitators in our 2012 version of the Brand You Workshop.

Managing Partner at Tom Peters Company

April 1991 - Present

Madeleine McGrath's role in Tom Peters Company is head of product development. I specialise in the design and delivery of learning events with Excellence as the goal. I have also been an active contributor to the development of our company's operating model, the Future Shape of the Winner, and its accompanying measurement instrument, the Excellence Audit. I have found that clients who are attracted to the work of Tom Peters are typically adventurous in their outlook. This means that they will often be open to learning designs that are less than conventional. I love being able to work in this kind of context.

Consultant at Business Transitions Ltd

April 1988 - April 1991

Start up management consultancy offering training and consultancy for organisations that are aiming to transform their peoples' performance.

Organisation Development Supervisor at Ford Motor Company

1986 - 1988

At a time when the motor industry was catching on to the need to engage more actively with employees, Madeleine was privileged to get to work with some great industry thinkers on people development.

Various HR positions at Ford Motor Company

September 1978 - March 1986

Recruited as a graduate trainee into what was then called Industrial Relations, I was lucky enough to work in the start up of the Bridgend Engine Plant, and then moved back to Essex to work in Group Staff and then Plant jobs in the HR field.

The Open University

2002 – 2011

MA

University of Leeds

1975 – 1978

BA Hons

Concentration: Music

My main hobby is choral singing and I am an active member of the BBC Symphony Chorus.