The pivotal moment
“The first piece of work that J Gadd Associates did for us was to explore how ready our owners were to make the move to EO. Jeremy and his associate Garry ran workshops to help us better understand employee ownership and explore in more depth what we wanted for LDA Design. These certainly helped the owners to understand the shift better and feel comfortable with it – in fact this was something of a pivotal moment for us.
I remember we had people coming from all parts of the country for the original workshop, but heavy snow prevented quite a few from making it. Jeremy was happy to continue re-running the event until all the owners had gone through it. I liked that spirit, working with us to make things happen.”
The very best advice
“The best advice Jeremy gave us was to be realistic about the length of time to allow for the transition, if we wanted to do it properly and create the optimal environment for our new structure to work.
“Back then, two years seemed a long time for us all to get ready but now, two years on, I see we have needed every month of it in order to build a solid path. There are a lot of decisions associated with this kind of structural change, and we wanted our people to feel involved. We set up an Employee Involvement Group as a conduit, to enable people to have the conversations: for example, the entire business has been closely involved in writing our charter, describing how we will be run.
“Our aim is that on the day of transition, employees will feel they already have a real say in how LDA Design is run and feel able to take responsibility for its success from the start.”
Empowering the cultural transition
Andrew Harland, Director of design consultancy LDA, explains how JGA’s knowledge and practical support empowered the cultural transition to EO.
Someone who understands
“I met Jeremy Gadd at an event run by the Employee Ownership Association which we attended to start to work out what employee ownership would mean for us. We had recognised it would involve a major cultural shift for the ten owners but did not know what that would look and feel like.
At one of the workshops, I heard Jeremy describing the kind of emotional processes involved. When we met up afterwards, I remember thinking, here is someone who understands and who can advise from practical experience in the real world, not least from his work within John Lewis.”
Bringing the realism
“Since that first piece of work, we have continued to use Jeremy as a sounding board. He’s advised us on expectations and built our confidence. We have worked together through some of the strategic changes needed and tested our thinking and ideas. Whenever I was thinking “oh goodness, how am I going to do this?”, I had someone there, offering clear advice rooted in experience.”
“Jeremy Gadd was influential in the early stages of our transition to employee-ownership in getting our thinking sorted out. Whenever I was thinking ‘oh goodness, how am I going to do this?’, there was someone there, offering clear advice rooted in experience.”
ANDREW HARLAND
Summary
J Gadd Associates (JGA) began working with LDA Design in early 2018 when the business began exploring a move to full employee ownership. JGA supported LDA to understand the reality of employee ownership, facilitating top-level discussions, which supported the original owners in aligning their thoughts and helped leaders to plot a way forward in support of the business’s values.
LDA is an award-winning independent consultancy of urban designers, landscape architects and planners, working together to connect people and place through landscape. It was established more than 40 years ago and has around 160 staff. It is on track to become fully employee-owned shortly.
