A Golden Trinity
(usually wasted by leaders)

I want to share some information I have about your employees which you may not be aware of or will be surprised to learn.

I think it’s worth sharing with you because it has the potential to re-invent your business if you need to, for example, re AI and its implications.

It also can transform ‘impossibles’ re your business into realities that may astonish you. For example, in Lubrizol it saved the company from being shut down and tripled productivity in 2 months.

It can create a business that your employees love to work in, have fun and look forward to coming to work even on Mondays.

It helped Pfizer Ireland to build a record-breaking financial results business for 13 years that also achieved award winning enhancement of employees’ satisfaction.

What is It?

Well, I call it A Golden Trinity because every one of your employees brings three free resources to work every day and they have mostly been hidden or ignored by Leaders like yourself.

They are:

* self-managing life skills

* untapped potential

* natural informal leadership.

Let's take a look at each in turn:

1. self-managing life skills:

In Pfizer Ireland’s tablet plant, I mentored the creation of a truly flat, non-hierarchical organisation.

Bettina, Head of Operations, ended up with 121 direct reports. Many shouted “Impossible!” “How on earth does she manage and control 121 people?”

Bettina’s simple reply? “I don’t control or manage 121 people. THEY DO!”

How did Bettina turn the ‘impossible’ into a high-performing, self-managing team?

She nurtured a powerful resource every one of those 121 employees brought to work every day for FREE: their self-managing life-skills.

We all manage our own lives outside work — juggling priorities, adapting to change, staying resilient, making decisions under pressure. Your employees also have mortgages, cars, holidays, caring for parents, community work etc.

We will help you and your employees to channel that same built-in capability into the workplace.

After 35+ years in Organizational Development, I’ve seen it time and again: Managers who rely on ‘direct and control’ styles often overlook or block this free resource.

In my bespoke mentoring and OD work, I help individuals and teams recognise and apply those exact life-management skills to their roles. They love it and the achievements it brings.

The results? More ownership, far less micromanagement, stronger teamwork, better performance — and people who truly help themselves thrive.

One employee from Lubrizol (after 70 colleagues helped save the business from closure) put it perfectly:

“For the first time ever, the entire workforce was assembled in one room and given the opportunity to understand the business, where it was heading, and how each person could make a valued contribution.”

I know that your employees who manage their own lives are more than capable of managing their own jobs and livelihoods. And they would willingly if they had the opportunity to do so.

I know that your employees who spend their own money on mortgages, cars, holidays, children’s college fees, care costs etc. would spend your company’s money equally as carefully if you let them.   And they would probably spend less.

That’s the first of three ‘golden’ opportunities to increase your business performance, move from ‘survive’ to ‘survive and thrive’ and greatly improve your employees work experience.

2. untapped potential:

Most consultants sell frameworks. I deliver what I've proven works – in the real world, pre-AI, and still today. I don’t practice what I preach, I only preach what I practice.

At Lubrizol, we turned a near-closure into an award-winning culture by unlocking the three resources employees bring for free: their self-managing life-skills, untapped potential, and natural informal leadership.

The result? Saved jobs, record performance, and people who actually look forward to Mondays.

That's the power of leading your business as a Complex Adaptive System – not as a machine.

I choose to synergise the human heart with AI's mind to help leaders realise their wings of potential and soar beyond the stars to transform impossibles into realities, as Bettina did re 121 direct reports in Pfizer. (remember: ‘I don’t, THEY DO!’?).

I know that most employees, including you (?), operate at a fraction of what they're capable of — not because they lack talent, but because the environment, habits, or self-sabotage keep it locked in.

Through targeted mentoring and OD approaches, I help mentees and teams gently unlock that potential. I explain to clients that I won’t do anything TO their employees, or FOR their employees. I will do a lot WITH their employees by drawing out their untapped potential rather than pushing in training or new procedures etc.

It's not all about adding new skills; it's also about removing barriers so the abilities already there can emerge.

Barriers can be many fold including: hourly pay and overtime; hierarchy structures; unnecessary rules and admin.; job descriptions not required for regulatory or safety purposes; ‘bosses’ who won’t or don’t listen; latest fads that only confuse etc.

Once potential has been released and realised your employees will astonish you with what they will create and own, including synergy, change and continuous improvement (one self-managing team in Lubrizol saved £40,000 in costs in one month. Even they were astonished).

3. natural informal leadership:

The third free resource every employee brings to work daily: natural informal leadership — the ability to influence, help, guide, support and inspire without a formal title.

Here's how I define a true leader:

someone others naturally turn to for help, advice, and support.

In my 35+ years of Organisational Development (from culture transformations at Pfizer Ireland to transformng 'impossibles' at Lubrizol), I've seen that about 80% of leadership in companies happens peer-to-peer — colleagues supporting each other, sharing solutions, and pulling the team forward organically.

Formal leader-to-employee direction? Maybe 20%?.

Which one would you rather develop in your organisation?

The one that creates ripple effects, builds trust at every level, and releases potential without waiting for permission. Or the one ‘directing and controlling?’.

My mentoring and OD work helps people recognise and step into this natural, informal leadership — turning everyday interactions into powerful drivers of change. And I also help employees help themselves by tapping into their self-managing life skills and untapped potential.

These three powerful resources that all employees have are an under-recognised, under-valued, under-used and under-developed major asset that can and will deliver the ‘impossibles’ in your business.

I think of them as A Golden Trinity because it is from the ‘gold’ these 3 employees’ resources bring to work that synergy, high performance teamwork, self managing teams, creativity, engagement, transforming impossibles, productivity, release and realisation of potential emerges with no central ‘boss’ controlling it or permission needed.

In Pfizer and Lubrizol we ‘legitimised’ A Golden Trinity by empowering EVERY employee to be an informal leader.

The above may have stimulated more questions than answers / solutions so contact me at mds.mentor.hin@btinternet.com to discuss the reality of turning this hidden gold into the jewel in the crown of your business.

Everything you are reading here is true. I know, I was there with the employees involved. It’s not theory, or out of a book, or the latest fad half-baked. It is all real world tested and proved by real world employees.

And if you asked the employees involved about their ‘impossible’ achievements they would most likely quite rightly say, ‘we did it ourselves’.