Where I learn that most founders are dealing with trauma and wrestling with leadership limitations

The stars aligned and we finally got to meet after trying to set a date for weeks. Initially connected by Robin Worrall who had mentioned our Fika to Steve at a networking breakfast (he’d found it ‘cathartic and a little like therapy’) we met on a sunny August afternoon in Bath. On reflection, fika with Steve left me feeling like I had spent 2 hours with outstretched cupped hands capturing gold dust. Some of it got away, leaving the air around us magically glinting.

Steve is co-founder of The House. Simply put, a consultancy that helps creative business leaders solve big problems. A blue-sky thinker with a passion for process, he currently sits at the helm of a newly spruced sailboat on a sea of opportunity. Spending time with him is like spending time with a sage or a seer and I left enlightened, inspired and with fresh wind in my sails.

Key take out from Steve’s story

collectively we have the power to make good things happen
curiosity is king and creative-thinking is a superpower
it is never too late to change course and set sail in a different direction

Starting in the middle

What better place to start then in the middle. The House began as Leisure House, the first dedicated through the line agency for the leisure industry. Thirty years ago, Steven and his new family decamped to Bath from London, where Steven was to head up a satellite division of a Sales Promotion agency.

Bath is the place he now calls home. It’s the longest he’s lived anywhere. Born in Malaysia where his father was posted in the military, on returning to the UK the family moved from Colchester to Carlisle, then on to York, where Steven was an undergraduate at York, St Johns. He married a year after graduating and has journeyed for his trade from York to London, London to Lancashire and back again before putting down roots in the Southwest.

Leisure House was born a year after landing in Bath, when it dawned on Steven that he could be leading his own Sales Promotion Agency. Opportunity and ambition collided, and things happened quite quickly. Graham, a former industry rival was on gardening leave and Peter, a merchandise supplier with whom both were well connected was in the market for change. Together the 3 of them started Leisure House and within 3 years, between Macclesfield and Bath, the business grew to a team of 40 with a turnover of £6.5M. For 10 years they were a retained agency for drinks giant Diageo.

Branded a fool, before being taught by the best

When mocked by the school’s so-called careers adviser (a geography teacher given the extra-curricular responsibility of directing indifferent adolescents) Steven used the deduction method to choose his future career path. Having already ruled out a military career and striking off finance after a droll 2 days’ work experience in the back office of a bank, he was set on being a PE teacher. But if he didn’t get onto the Human Movement, Dance & Recreation Studies course at York St John, he’d join the police force. Whilst being a stickler for the rules (his work is often about creating order from chaos) Steve also identifies as anti-establishment, so life as a police officer might have had its challenges.

Whilst under the tutelage of Lena’s uncle Romano Zavaroni (if you know you know) at York St John, Steven learnt the skills for entrepreneurship. Always impeccably dressed, Romano did not so much teach, as unleash the inner motivation in his students to learn, share and grow as people, managers and leaders. He believed in peer-to-peer learning and put students into competitive environments, whilst encouraging them to gain as much work experience as they could outside of the classroom. Zavaroni had high expectations and filled each of his disciples with the belief that they could go on to achieve great things. And many have. Awarded an honorary Fellowship by the university, he was later recognised as the very best kind of leader.

Whilst an undergraduate, Steve threw himself into experiencing everything and has been everything from a great white rabbit to a tour guide, worked at a service station, hotel and wax museum. ‘If you are going to understand the leisure industry you need to immerse yourself in the leisure industry’ Zavaroni instructed.

When his ship sailed in media sales

His dissertation on starting a leisure industry focused PR agency landed him his first agency role at BSB Dorland, where on the referral of fellow graduates, he joined as a junior media buyer. He hated it. It was 1988. Thatcher’s Britain. It was ruthless. With a £1M budget to secure broadcast media space for Heinz 67 Baked Beans, Steve explained ‘you’d head home thinking you’d secured the Coronation Street ad break, and the guaranteed eyeballs of 20M eager housewives, to find by the time you got home, you’d been gazumped and reprogrammed to the commercial break of a European crime drama 2 hours later’ and likely the guaranteed wrath of his client. Media buying was not for him.

Mastering his craft through sector experience

Within the year, and the week before he got married, Steve quit. Newly-wed and living in London they needed to make ends meet, quickly. He spotted a job ad on the closing date for applications. Quickly wrote a letter expressing interest and ran the length of Croydon High Street to hand deliver it by the deadline. In his new role as Marketing and Administrative Assistant for Travel Markets International he was exposed to all elements of marketing. A one-man band arranging the design and build of exhibition stands, writing press releases, managing media relations and placing advertising. He spread his wings in the States and narrowly missed out on a first-class flight and a 5-star stay in San Francisco due to an earthquake.

“I was well and truly living life in the leisure industry”

He moved to Leisure Times and became the Marketing Manager for Hollywood Bowl bowling centres, a chain of American themed restaurants at the Heights nightclub group. Overseeing the Sales Promotion for funding partners such as Britvic and Pepsico who used Leisure Times venues to drive sales, Steve’s education, experience and creative problem solving resulted in a growing reputation as the innovative Sales Promotion expert in the leisure drinks market. Remember the 7-Up Cool to be Clear campaign? Well, it was Steve who came up with the idea for the crystal-clear Fido Dido bowling balls as part of the Sales Promotion activity.

He was spotted by Britvic’s Sales Promotion Agency HH&S and ‘offered a role in Knightsbridge darling’. Joining as a Senior Account Manager, and a self-confessed ‘cocky little shit’ he slowly learned to listen and refine his professional skillset. A great tenure at a successful agency, Steve began to win clients. On the crest of the wave, his first son arrived and the dream to ‘leave London for family life in a Spa town like York’ resulted in his resignation. It was not accepted. Instead, a counter-offer to open a satellite office.

Meet me at South Mimms

So we return to Bath, and fast-forward a year to the inception of Leisure House, and his first brief for a Malibu because ‘they weren’t getting quality ideas from their night club operator.’ South Mimms Service Station was the emergency meeting venue and after quickly responding with some creative concepts, Steve secured a £35K bespoke promotion which led to Leisure House a roster agency for Diageo working across Duty Free, Jack Daniels and Malibu.

The day they looked into the crystal (bowling) ball

Ten years in the team began to notice increasing poor behaviour and were at the mercy of punishing procurement processes. They leisure industry was changing. Taking a metaphorical look into the crystal bowling ball they saw world they did not like. A financially successful business pumping promotional plastic across the planet

“That was the day we put the phone down on a large merchandise order, said goodbye to our last drinks client and pared back Leisure House.”

It was eighteen years ago the Leisure House dropped the Leisure to become The House and with a newly defined vision & mission they were reborn as a full-service marketing agency with purpose at its heart.

We cleaned up our business to work with clean businesses

Steve was 40 at the time he was shaping his idea around business as force for good. He went to New York to celebrate his significant birthday, with the intention of visiting MOMA. But the wait line was round the block, so he and his wife ducked into The Museum of Arts and Design instead. A Sustainable Art Exhibition showing how creatives were getting involved with big issues such as climate change, food miles, recycling and solar technologies cemented where he wanted to be. A serendipitous detour that was the beginning of the next chapter.

With a new course set, the lever that lifted The House out of sales promotion and into doing good stuff was a brand migration project for Fiskars. One of the most established brands in Europe, famed for its orange handled scissors, standing firmly against a throwaway culture. Further projects for The Princes Trust and Youth Sport Trust helped The House hoist a new sail.

Everything we need already exists

Not long after inception The House crafted a public apology for all the sales promotion material it had given life to. Resourceful, was a sister agency to The House, created to work with brands to repurpose and recycle waste into something useful. It was the beginning of the ‘I used to be’ movement. It resulted in a huge outpouring of creativity and the mantra ‘if you think there is only one answer, think again’. Expanding into a new Bath office on Gay Street, at one point The House and Resourceful co-existed in a creative space that was also an art gallery, exhibiting work from photographers capturing important issues to artists creating work from beach litter picks. Then the recession hit.

The real question is ‘where does purpose take us?’

Reframing is a big part of the work Steve does. Even if just to sense check the position his clients are taking. He is less concerned with the answers these days, and more concerned with the questions. His years in industry have exposed him to leaders wrestling with leadership limitations and often he’ll adopt a coaching role and challenge the, sometimes business inhibiting, expert mindset. All our life we are rewarded for being right, but what if you are wrong. With this came a pivot from agency to consultancy.

“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”

— Ken Robinson

Steve works with commercial and 3rd sector organisations that want to be a force for good. While profit is a fundamental outcome, it’s how you get there that is important. There are massive planetary, social and equity issues in the world, which he believes, business, in collaboration with other sectors, is uniquely equipped to resolve.

He describes Simon Sinek’s golden circles as godsends. All of our work at The House is built around WHY, HOW, WHAT but without casting your WHY into the future you remain where you are today. By working with leaders on fine-tuning their mission, we help them to imagine a future that they wish to be part of. The excitement comes in casting forward the vision, unpacking what’s in the heart and liberating what’s in the head. We help leaders map desirable, probable and improbable futures.

Closing the imagination deficit

‘Using Future Literacy we help people explore what is possible’. Steven cites his work with Brandon Trust as an example. Future lab sessions with members of the progressive learning disability charity inform the direction and scope of their services. Not only have they appointed a Board member with a learning difference but have developed The Adventurers – a team of consultants with learning disabilities employed by the charity to ensure decisions are made inclusively and to the benefit of everyone. A significant outcome borne from casting forward and using those resulting insights to explore the needs and wants of those the charity serves. Steven believes there are far more possibilities in the world that we can really see. We just need to be open to exploring those.

“‘While the good marketing practice of planning, segmentation and understanding customer wants is useful, it’s very analogue’.”

When we speak of who or what, aside from Romano Zavaroni, led Steven down the path of entrepreneurship, we touch on childhood traumas. Steven agrees that a past trauma from which we are not healed can chart our course. For him maybe, the fact that his parents divorced, and never told him why. He blamed himself and for years, believed his own narrative. Resolved now, his lived experience is the subplot in his hero’s journey. It has also equipped him with the skills he needs to counsel others.

“Every leader I work with is dealing with some form of trauma. I’ve done a lot of work on myself to get to where I am today. ”

When prompted for his new elevator pitch, Steven succinctly summarises: we work with leaders, teams and organisations to imagine a future they want to be part of and help them to make it happen. We coach leaders and teams and using the organisation WHY, HOW and WHAT to help identify barriers and how they might be overcome. He believes that’s what founders need to do. And move out of their comfort zone in order to understand how best to lead their business.

“ ‘If you are not leading the business, you are trading off yesterday and past glories, trapped in the idea not the action’.”

And with that, I feel like I have struck gold!

Steven and I met for Fika at Boston Tea Party. Not only because founder Sam Roberts is a visionary and dispensed with single use coffee cups, while others dabbled, he is a founder on a mission to make things better. The BTP Foundation was set up in 2020 to support young people from our most deprived communities to have access to jobs & careers in hospitality. So we enjoyed coffee with a conscience.

Fika with Steve Fuller of The House