Our Roots - Focus Training

Our Roots

Life Before Focus Experiential Training at Clough Bottom Farm

Way back in the late eighties, one half of the driving force behind Focus Training (the half with the demi-wave and shoulder pads) Jane Backhouse, was working as national training manager for Next. She arrived at the position through a graduate scheme in years previous and her responsibilities included selecting and working with external training providers. Along with the red lipstick, Jane was a big believer in experiential learning and often used companies who involved outdoor activities as part of their workshops.

But despite loving her job and the challenges it created, she was getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to continue the development of her people back in the work place following their external training workshops.

In those days, the providers did not encourage their clients to get involved with the delivery of the programmes. For Jane, an activist, this wasn’t good enough.

On their return from training, when she asked her teams about their learning, they described it as ‘fun and interesting’ and that they ‘learnt a lot’, but there were no specifics that they could build on. It was very hard to measure the results of the training. She knew that the trainers at these companies were very good at delivery but they didn’t always have industry backgrounds and so couldn’t always relate to the workplace day-to-day environment of the teams.

Jane was tired. She lived about three hours away from the office and while preaching a work/home life balance, she only managed the weekend at home - the rest of the week she was working away.

Jane lived with Harry, a farmer, on their 360-acre farm in a beautiful area of the Ribble Valley. As he had an engineering background he was able to understand the concepts of experiential learning and his technical brain began to consider the design and construction of outdoor activities to support these principles. He encouraged Jane to think about setting up a management development training company using the farm. Many a conversation ended with “…so what’s stopping you?” There were so many things – her passion for what she currently did, the great perks and of course the security that an employed position gives. Still, Harry did what he did best and began to nurture the seeds of possibility he had planted in Jane’s head.

A few years before Jane and Harry had married, Harry and his father had made changes on the farm. Previously, the farm had been farming sheep and chickens in a traditional and intensive way. Then in 1983 his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On advice from a doctor, the family decided to explore natural remedies as a possible way of prolonging his life. Harry read about the potential health benefits of organic vegetables and freshly made foods and began to make adjustments to the way he worked on the farm. Soon the whole family began eating organically and immediately felt the improvements. More importantly, the new diet extended his dad's life by two months.

Ultimately, Harry switched to organic farming and the result was also an ideal backdrop and environment for impacting behavioural training.

So the Backhouses took a leap of faith: Jane handed her notice in to her employer. They wished her all the best and promised to consider using her as a training provider in the future.

Shortly after, sitting on the edge of her bed, a phone in one hand and a list of potential clients on a BBC computer print out in the other, Jane took a deep breath, scanned the list and wondered who on earth should be her first sales call.

Meanwhile, the portable activities were prepared for the first training event, which, after much hard work turned out to be for The Body Shop.

When the training began, Jane used the farmhouse as a base. Lunch was a social occasion around the large pine table in the family kitchen, and the delegates were drinking coffee out of the Backhouses’ own mugs. Sticking to Jane’s original plan to allow the client to be a big part of the workshops in order to aid the transfer of learning to the workplace, The Body Shop training team were present and helped to brief the activities and run the reviews. The mood was informal and friendly, and the delegates were really open-minded about learning. They made comments about how different this training experience felt.

Things were going really well for Jane and Harry. As well as working with the Body Shop, they were starting to build up the client base – Warburtons and Jane’s former employers, Next Plc were now on board. Just two years later, the Backhouses began the lengthy process of converting the farm’s 17th century out buildings  into training barns; slowly expanding as the business grew to allow for larger group events. The overall feel was to be a mixture of nature with the modern: exposed brickwork and thick oak beams housing the hi-tech multi-media system. Harry set about shaping the farmland and woodland to create large permanent structures for experiential activities. Jane was keen to translate the informality and relaxed atmosphere that was so effective in the training courses in the farmhouse, so they used long pine tables, and a help-your-self basis to refreshments. The style of lunch stayed the same as the meals cooked in the family Aga.

Nearly 20 years on, Jane hasn’t looked back from the day she swapped her power suits for Focus fleeces. Along with his farming activities, Harry is the company secretary for Focus and oversees the maintenance and upgrading of the activities and facilities on an on-going basis.

Together they have made Clough Bottom what it is today - A beautiful organic working farm and the ideal inspiring environment for impacting workshops.

Focus Training remains such a success as it continues to model the principles that it was founded upon. See the site Vision & Values 

 

They look forward to welcoming you here at Focus Training!