It's all to do with strategy – interview with Glyn Jones, Palletline
That Glyn Jones is an academic, very bright, a workaholic and some kind of all round trouble-shooting high-flier can be of little doubt.
And the fact that he's been around the block – make that the world – a few times in the course of his work also can't be denied.
And neither can the equally unshakeable truth that his previous employment and history sounds a damn sight more exciting than his current role in what he admits is on the face of it an "unsexy business".
Glen, aged 46, is the managing director of Palletline, a company which is dedicating to sending hundreds of loaded lorries hurtling around the country in the middle of the night, making sure trucks "a" and "b" go from points "x" and "y" to arrive at point "z".
Then trucks "a" and "b" reload and make return journeys to points "x"and "y" ensuring neither vehicle travels anywhere without a cargo and and also providing a business model which many years ago, before Glyn's time, rivals happily pinched.
Some of us may be wondering, to borrow from Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker series, what's so all fired important about points "x ", "y " and "z" and wonder why they don't stop off at point "q", which might well be a quiet little village pub, where the drivers can have a pint and call it all a day.
The answer to that it would, however, soon become blindingly apparent if the supermarket shelves were empty.
Or the building industry failed to receive its raw materials. Or all those other bits and bobs, large and small, which generally travel in the still of night to make the wheels of our economy spin in a largely frictionless circle, failed to arrive.
In fact, the more you think about it, and please bear with me here, logistically, its all a bit like the airline business.
You're kidding, I think I can hear you say say. But trust me, it's true, and I know this again to be the case because Glyn told me so and if anybody is in a position to know, he is.
That's because among the highlights of a career which glitters more than most, he can chalk up notches on the CV bedpost including positions in the British aviation industry which have marked him out as one of the country's most important players in the sector.
He was, for instance instrumental in the development of BA's "world club product" in the mid-80s which changed the way the industry thinks about demand analysis and allocation of aircraft seats.
You begin to see, the link, albeit in principle, to his current Palletline role: efficiency, the logistics of the whole thing, making sure everything in a complex operation is in place, and operating seamlessly, efficiently and safely.
And Palletline is without doubt a complex operation. It employs 130 people at it's biggest UK hub at Tyburn Road, in Birmingham and a further 3,500 across the country in 60 separate "membership" sites and two further hubs.
They are the individual operators who shuttle 200 trucks between the hubs (that's hubs – not depots, I'm reminded,) every night, covering the entire country.
Not one lorry should ever travel unloaded.
It's like one of those Christmas cracker games in which you try move little blocks around until they fit in a perfect jigsaw, but of course they decline to be where they should be. Unless of course you happen to be good at it.
"Everything's to do with strategy," he said.
And that's Glyn's role. He spends much of his time in Birmingham but is also based in London and elsewhere. He's in charge of getting it right. The strategy.
Which is ironic because on a personal level, it doesn't appear that strategy played a huge role in this early career.
He says: "I've had many jobs over the years. Bits and pieces. I worked as a DJ in Italy for a while when I was doing a degree. I started at BA as a cleaner and went into sales and then into marketing and became a business analyst. The training was superb. It was a great place to be and it taught me so much. It taught me how to operate in a corporate environment."
However, he points out he only started at BA because it was a major employer and he happened to be living near Heathrow at the time. Strategy? Perhaps.
Glyn's a worker, though. He landed his first job at the age of 13 – cutting peat to be dried on the moors near his Doncaster home.
"Back-breaking, that was", just a faint trace of South Yorkshire accent remaining.
Glyn reckons that there are different ways to get a jobs done, and the fact that some are more unconventional than others, does not mean that the job doesn't get done.
Like gaining his English and Italian literature degree, without ever having to resort to stepping foot in the university when the course was being run.
Glyn, peat cutting as a youngster aside, had his eyes set on being an academic – perhaps a teacher or lecturer, and had no initial drive to go into business.
He said: " I don't think many people do just 'want to go into business' it certainly wasn't my first thought…"
He reflects that his father was a miner, his relatives were miners and in fact, much of the community he was born into were in some way linked to the industry.
And, born into a working class Yorkshire mining family, the bitter strike of 1984/5 brought a startling reality check.
He said: "I was busy writing a thesis on English ghost stories and my family was on the breadline. It hit home. I thought, I really ought to do something more useful."
He did however stick to his academic guns to come away with a Masters Degree in English which sits alongside his English and Italian literature degree.
So, the process to pallets continued with Glyn striding into British aerospace where he was integral to the negotiation of a string of major contracts – like the sale of ten jets to Thai International airlines and 14 turbo props aircraft to the domestic arm of China, as well as the sale of Jetstream aircraft to Japan, the first such deal since the 1960s.
And selling an aircraft is no easy feat. You can't wander along, open your jacket and, say "hey there, fancy a brand new Jetstream, mate…"
"How do you sell an aircraft?" I ask.
"An interesting question," says Glyn. "Ultimately the answer is you have to have a good team. Its not just about convincing the money men, it's not just about convincing the pilots, it's not just about convincing the the technical people – and then there is the political dimension which is crucial in places like Asia and Japan as a British company."
And he points out the whole process can take years – and sometimes it ends up with no deal.
"I wouldn't say it was hugely stressful – but I would say it was a rollercoaster," he said.
Glyn decided to hop off that particular ride and moved to express parcels firm DHL where, as commercial director, turnover grew from pounds 100 million to more than pounds 200 million in under five years, although he cheerfully points out "the environment" was very favourable for the business at the time.
At this point Glyn's personal strategy fell slightly awry with a year at Hayes DX as commercial manager. "It wasn't right for me and it wasn't right for them, these things happen."
So what does a chap do? Well, you become MD of airport. Admittedly a small one.
However, under his stewardship the operation at Bournmouth more than doubled traffic numbers and was transformed from loss-making to profitable.
"It was great fun and I'd like to think I put the firm foundation in place to on which the current team are successfully building."
He was offered the job at Pallet-line in the summer of 2004 at a time the business was going through " a difficult time".
In that period he's overseen an expansion of the Birmingham hub, revamped the company's national IT investment, and helped the business onto an even keel.
Glyn's got good reason to be happy with this efforts. The company recorded a strong trading performance in the first half of its 2005-06 financial year.
Against demanding trading conditions and a low growth market, it generated unaudited pretax profits of just under pounds 500,000 in the period.
The company has radically reduce costs by consolidating at its extended Tyburn Road site.
That has led to improved throughput and Glyn believes the signs are that the first half success story will be replicated in the second period.
He believes the business is "very well positioned" for the future
Glyn said: "Across the country we employ 3,500 people – we've got 130 in Birmingham and overall we've got a good culture. It's not perfect, but what family is?"
And while on that subject, how does he manage the work-life/business-home balance. "What work life balance? I admit it's difficult. I'm away from home an awful lot and I'd really like to do better but it's not just me its the story everywhere."
Home, which he shares with wife Gerry and daughter Francesca, is Hampshire.
Glyn's in the enviable position of being married to a counsellor and adds "drugs and alcohol, which is good"!
But he concedes that with school "starting to get serious" for Francesca, he's seeking ways to be a home more often.
Here's a thought: "None of us is as stupid as all of us."
That's the neatly written whiteboard note sitting on the Birmingham office wall where Glyn explains, at least some of, his philosophy.
He keeps it there to remind him that in management it's important to listen to all concerned, and to then take a personal decision on the best way forward, rather than relying on consensus.
Perhaps like the old football adage from Brian Clough, I suggest.
The one that goes – "If a player disagrees with me I take him to my office, we sit and we talk about for half an hour, and then we agree I was right…"
"Ah yes, that's a good one from 'Ol big head…" says Glyn.
However, he fixes me with a managerial eye and adds: "But, no it's not like that at all…"
Central to the office is a T-shaped wooden desk with groovy rounded corners, if you can have such a thing as a rounded corner.
At Glyn's end is a neat array: computer, phone, scanner and fax. At one side are toy models of green animated movie star Shrek and his sidehoof Donkey.
Perhaps a little defensively, Glyn smiles. "They were a present to me from someone. And anyway, it's one of my favourite films."
Reaching forward he finds a smaller model. "They're all here – here's (co-star of the second movie) Puss-in-Boots."
And then, unconsciously, it's back into no business mode as he hold's up a chess piece, a black knight, and explains: "It's all about strategy."
Across the country we employ 3,500 people – we've got 130 in Birmingham and overall we've got a good culture. It's not perfect, but what family is?
