Mabon Consultants is a partnership between Peter and his wife Helen. Helen, with a background in Financial Services, runs the office and all of the administration..

The next five years were spent working for a major electronics company as Total Quality Manager, PR and Communications Manager and Staff Development Manager.

In 1988, Peter left employment to set up and run his own consultancy/training business with Helen.

Influences
During his first 20 years of work Peter had many different supervisors and Managers and was Supervisor and Manager to many people. During this time many people and events influenced him. Latterly it was clear that seven hours out of an eight hour day were spent on people issues and one hour on engineering matters.

The people issues concerned managing people, communication and personal development - Mabon Consultants' three main areas of work.

Good and bad managers of people were observed during this time. The good remembered as those who took an interest in you and your development. The others were the threat, fear, macho, elitist type etc.

Fortunately, the organisation where Peter worked had its own academic college and its own management training centre both manned by permanent staff. Peter spent much time in both places and from age 22 onwards attended hundreds of courses in Management. A whole new world opened up in many subjects run by the permanent tutors and outside speakers.

Working next with the Industrial Society Peter travelled extensively and met many people in very different situations. The realisation came that whatever the geographic location, type of organisation the 'people' problems were much the same.

John Garnet, Director of the Industrial Society and Dr. John Adair who researched and created 'Action Centred Leadership' both influenced Peter and his thinking, beliefs and attitude. The link created with John Adair has lasted over the years and Peter is still in contact with John.

Recruited then into a major electronics company initially as Total Quality Programme Manager Peter returned to his engineering roots which had latterly been spent on the study of Quality Systems and procedures. In this advanced electronics environment another new world opened up - 'the Japanese miracle'. Many Western organisations were clamouring for information on 'How did they do that? Peter's job was to study TQM and introduce this to his new employer.

The work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming - the acknowledged creator of 'the Japanese miracle' - was the first to be studied. This was the next big influence on Peter. Many other people, books, videos later, the 'thinking' was available throughout the organisation.

At this stage other people within the company had influenced Peter - Dr. Guy Barnes the MD, Iain Duffin who became MD and in years to come - World President of ITT Cannon and Bill Cuthbert the Quality Manager. Peter is still in contact with Iain and Bill after all these years. Guy is retired.

TQM has two sides - the quality systems and the people systems - the people part interested Peter most. Bill Cuthbert took on board the quality systems.

Leadership, Communication and Personal Development were Peter's next areas of work within the company. Action Centred Leadership courses were run as a Company course. Oral and written communication skills were developed within the organisation. During this time Peter became the Public Relations Manager in addition to his other duties. This meant new training by the British Association of Industrial Editors, the Plain English Campaign etc. and attending some expensive media courses in London run by BBC presenters and other speakers.

The final 'hat' to be worn was that of Staff Development Manager and this introduced a new influence - Positive Thinking and the work of Lou Tice and the Pacific Institute in the USA.

This training had started in the USA with the Company's US parent and was 'flown' over the Atlantic to Scotland. Peter was greatly influenced by this programme which took him into the area of habit, attitude, conditioning, programming, behaviour, how we became us, how to change us, using your brain to your advantage etc. Peter was privileged to spend time with Lou Tice and became a Facilitator of the programme.

Around this time - five years in the electronics company - and using the new techniques of Positive Thinking, whereby you can do what you want to do, Peter decided that what he wanted to do was run his training/consultancy business.

It was 1988, Mabon Consultants was set up and Peter set out to look for work and an income to sustain his family, home, and new business. A new learning curve started where positive thinking paid dividends by helping with the highs and lows.

The main influences since 1988 have created course material based on reading Richard Bandler (NLP), Stephen Covey, Meredith Belbin, John Adair, Jack Black, John Harvey Jones etc and from people in organisations worked for, Paul O'Brien of PCI, Dr. King of Silberline, Geoff. Hood of Thorn, Allan Sneddon of Mitsubishi, Bill Cuthbert of Compugraphics, the staff of Eaton Hydraulics, Peter Coombes of MTL and many, many more.

Through his experiences from previous jobs and from running his own business Peter has found principles and values which are based on the best practice that works.

influences and best practice which drives Mabon courses
The need for economic survivability within our organisations · people give of their best when managed well - not by the macho, elitist etc type · the need to openly communicate - face to face - down the line, effectively · the need to consult and involve the staff in an organisation · staff on the shop/office floor can tell the management what needs to be done to improve quality, output etc. · quality of our products and services is not No. 1 - it's the only one. Quality not quantity. · quality costs nothing - as quality goes up costs come down · change the old attitudes and therefore the culture · managers/leaders need to understand what really motivates people · leadership is action not position · it's about what leaders do not should be · the great end in life is not knowledge but action · imagination is more important than knowledge (A. Einstein) · the working environment should be blame-free, no witch-hunting, no territorialism · people don't resist change, they resist being changed · we have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it · the SAMURAI code - help and protect the weak, be equal to the strong and crush the wicked.
..........and much, much more.