Staffin, in the windswept north-east corner of Skye, doesn’t seem to be the most obvious place to build what aspires to be a world-class leadership training school. But Reverend Norman Drummond, a Church of Scotland minister on Skye who is former national governor of the BBC and former head teacher of Loretto Schoo in Musselburgh, became convinced that Staffin was the place to build such a centre back in the mid-1990s.
In 1997 he started to raise money for the Columba 1400 Community and International Leadership Centre. Three years later he had secured £2 million from a range of public and private sources.
“Norman just kept banging on people’s doors,” said Ian Chisholm, the Canadian-born chief executive of Columba 1400. “The National Lottery gave £650,000 and this was matched by public and private sector funding from banks and from wealthy individuals such as Bill Barr, chairman of Barr Holdings and Sir Tom Farmer, founder of Kwik-Fit.”
Drummond also persuaded Barr to donate around £70,000 per annum to cover the expenses of a team of Barr Instructors who include prominent business people such as James Thomson of the Witchery, Liz McAreavey of Hurricane Restaurants and Rod Liddon, a former squadron commander in the SAS.
Three years ago a new building, designed by Edinburgh-based Lorn Macneal Architects, finally opened its doors in Staffin village. The impressive edifice includes a double-height community centre-cum-cafeteria, plus a range of meeting rooms, library, offices and residential accommodation.
So far 830 people have attended 60 separate programmes at the centre, with corporate delegates paying £417 per day for the privilege. The centre, which had revenues of £441,000 in 2001 when it turned in a small loss of £10,500, expects to move into the black in this financial year.
At the core of is a leadership development programme called Gemini, which pairs disadvantaged Scots with “up and coming” business executives.
The first eight-day Gemini session held last September matched five “fast-trackers” from Lloyds TSB Scotland with five people from the Glasgow’s Easterhouse housing estate each with personal experience of what Columba calls “tough realities”.
Susan Rice, chief executive of Lloyds TSB Scotland, said: “It was a daring and highly effective way of exposing high-potential managers to people who have developed their leadership abilities in challenging circumstances. Sharing goes both ways and the learning benefits all participants immeasurably.”
Lloyds TSB was so impressed that it is sending another group of executives next month and over the past eight months Gemini programmes have been attended by executives from firms including HBOS, Scottish and Southern Energy, Rolls-Royce and Ernst & Young.
Stevie Siegerson, senior programme director at Columba 1400, said: “It’s a reality check for a lot of business folk. It’s fine sitting writing plans and strategic documents and things, but sometimes it’s good to get a wee blast of reality. I would challenge anybody who comes here to say they will get nothing out of it.”
The inspirational 30-year-old Chisholm said he is considering exporting the programme to the Brecon Beacons in Wales.
He suggests that, once they reach a certain level, many business people realise there is more to life than the pursuit of a telephone- number salary. He said: “One question that got asked by an Easterhouse coach to a Lloydie was, ‘Who are your children going to remember you as?’ … and it really rocked this guy.
“He suddenly realised they don’t see the hard work he does, they just know he comes home exhausted at the end of the day and that’s what they’ll remember: this exhausted worked-out guy who made lots of money. HR departments are realising that people will contribute more fully to the success of the organisation if they fill that craving for a purpose in their lives.”
Jim McDowall, 44, a Glaswegian reformed murderer who has served time in Barlinnie prison, has attended two Gemini sessions and will attend another later this year. McDowall told the Sunday Herald: “The advantage of doing this away from the hardships of everyday life is it gives you time to think and clarify your analysis. It’s a healing place which allows you to take a different perspective on things.”
Chisholm believes that McDowall and other delegates from Easterhouse — where only 42% of residents under 45 are employed and 11% have qualifications higher than Standard Grades — have something remarkable to offer as life coaches to business people who attend. He said: “Jim is the perfect person for a Gemini Project. He has this extraordinary talent to connect with anyone he meets. He sees coming here as part of his debt to society, which he has already paid back, but he feels he can give back even more.
“People such as Jim have something to offer in terms of leadership that you cannot buy, that you cannot train, that you cannot develop in a person. It’s a street-smart emotional intelligence. Having that person connect with you, especially when coaching each other, is the explosive part.”
But can this ever give rise to genuine aggro?
Siegerson said: “We have had volatile situations, generally later on in the evening when people are getting tired.” But he adds that substances that could fuel such conflict — including drink and drugs — are strictly banned for the duration of the eight-day Gemini programmes.
But what about the Celtic cross that adorns the facade? I asked if there is an perhaps and evangelical Christian subtext to the Columb 1400initiative? Chisholm denies it.
He said: “It’s a unique contribution of the Christian faith to get people talking to each other… the Celtic Christian ethos of a warmth of welcome and unconditional belief. We’ve had people from all faiths and none coming to the centre. I hope that is opening the Christian faith in a different way to many people who have never experienced it.
“But there’s no agenda of conversion.”
This article was published in the Sunday Herald on 20 April 2003