David Parkin believes going back Asda work

WHEN it comes to the worlds of business and sport, there is an old saying: “Never go back”.

The received wisdom is that if the chief executive or chairman of a company or the manager or player of a top team has enjoyed great success in a role, then the odds of doing that again if they return to the same organisation or club some years later are going to be much lower.

There have been plenty of examples where it hasn’t worked.

But the odds are there to be overturned and successful people back themselves to have a chance of doing that.

Take Allan Leighton.

The former CEO of Asda, who alongside chairman Archie Norman and a phenomenally talented phalanx of lieutenants, enjoyed great success at the Leeds-based supermarket more than a quarter of a century ago, was this week announced as executive chairman of the retailer.

After the ￡6.2bn sale of Asda to Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, in 1999, Leighton departed and coined the phrase “going plural” to describe plans for the next phase of his career.

Over the last 25 years the now 71-year-old has added non-executive roles at a who’s who of companies to his CV: the Co-op, Lastminute.com, Royal Mail, Pandora, PizzaExpress, Brewdog, Dyson, BSkyB, Scottish Power, mattress retailer Simba, Canadian retail giant Loblaw and C&A (gone from the UK high street but has 1,600 stores in Europe and Brazil).

So we can deduce that he doesn’t need the money or the hassle of adding another role to that glittering CV.

But he clearly sees an opportunity that excites him at Asda and there he was this week addressing the head office team at Asda House in Leeds.

Where it was once regulation suit and tie, Leighton’s trademark outfit is now flat cap and trainers.

You can just about make him out in the photo above.

Asda was drifting for a long time before it was acquired by UK entrepreneurs the Issa Brothers alongside private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021.

Norman and Leighton had taken it to number two in the UK supermarket league behind Tesco but Asda failed to retain its position.

Retail veteran, Lord Stuart Rose, who was brought in as chairman by the new owners, summed up its challenges with a series of brutal assessments including: “We’ve slightly lost the plot in terms of giving (customers) what they want on a daily basis".

That wasn’t the worst of it.

He added that Asda's decline has been “embarrassing", said that stores are “not as nice as I'd like them to be in terms of the experience and the visuals”, said service was not as good as it should be and added, for good measure: "We've probably lost a bit of sharpness on price".

For a company that built a reputation around value and made its name with the ‘that’s Asda price” slogan and pocket-tapping adverts, that’s a pretty damning assessment.

So we can conclude that Allan Leighton has his work cut out.

But that’s the way he likes it.

What we know is that he is a people person with a retailer’s eye for detail.

In a business where morale is on the floor thanks to a succession of job cuts and incompetent management, that is what is needed.

During his first stint at Asda it was a place full of motivated, happy, hardworking people and it attracted the most talented people to work there.

You only have to look at that phalanx of lieutenants who worked with Allan and Archie - they went off to run some of the biggest retailers in not just the UK but the world.

Yorkshire entrepreneur Charlie “Buster” Parker once told me he had Allan Leighton to thank for the success of his business, Parker’s Promotional Products.

Leighton was holding a staff awards event and wanted to give out 50 golden mops as prizes.

That was nothing unusual at Asda at the time where meetings could take place in teepees and head office staff were allocated “golden cone” car parking spaces right in front of the HQ building through a vote by their colleagues.

Anyway, no one at Asda could source golden mops until Charlie Parker stepped in.

I asked him how he solved Asda’s challenge.

“I bought 50 wooden mops and 50 cans of gold spray paint,” he told me.

It was the kind of initiative that chimed with the ‘can do’ approach Leighton had instilled at the supermarket chain.

He has a retailer’s instinct combined with emotional intelligence and a shrewd business brain.

Sir Ken Morrison used to explain that retailing is not rocket science, but plenty of people get it badly wrong.

Keep your people motivated, your customers happy and give value for money.

Somewhere along the line Asda has lost this focus.

If there is one person who can return it, then it is Allan Leighton.

:::

ALLAN Leighton’s appointment at Asda reminded me of a couple of personal stories that perhaps give a measure of the man.

When I was business editor of the Yorkshire Post Sir Ken Morrison, chairman of Bradford retailer Wm Morrison Supermarkets, turned 70 and, typical of the down-to-earth Yorkshire grocer, didn’t want to celebrate by being interviewed about this milestone.

So I decided to ask those who had run the other big UK supermarkets competing with Morrisons, for their assessment of this veteran of the aisles.

Allan Leighton was the first to respond with a generous and glowing tribute to Sir Ken and he recalled: “I used to go and have chats with him and I used to tell him everything and he didn’t tell me anything!”

It displayed a humility that big business executives are often loath to reveal for fear it makes them look weak and vulnerable.

In fact it did the opposite as far as I was concerned.

My friend Martin Ashley (he is part of the group mentioned below who I took on a tour of Leeds recently), lost his father when he was a teenager.

His Dad had worked at Mars with Allan Leighton early on in their careers.

When Martin read about Leighton’s later success he wrote to congratulate him and mentioned how his father had worked with him.

He received a warm and generous reply from Allan with some fond memories of working alongside his father.

It meant a lot to Martin and it illustrates empathy and humanity, something you don’t always find in those who have risen to the pinnacle of the corporate world.

:::

WHEN news came through about the death of John Prescott last week I started to look through old columns and blogs as I was sure I had once met and interviewed the former deputy leader of the Labour Party and long serving MP for Hull.

But then I thought: If I can’t immediately recall when and where I interviewed him, then I can’t have ever met this big beast of politics over the last 30 years.

Prezza, remembered for having an ice bucket of water tipped over him by members of Leeds band Chumbawumba at the Brit Awards and chinning a chap who had chucked eggs at him in North Wales, never had much time for His Majesty’s Press.

A former Yorkshire Post colleague recalled attempting to speak to him when he attended an event at Barnsley Council.

Apparently she was rather offended when he refused, shouting: “Bloody Yorkshire Post, get back to yer business lunches…”.

I remember thinking at the time: I’d have taken that kind of comment as a compliment.

I got more good stories sitting around a table at La Grillade, Sous le Nez, Leodis, Brasserie 44, The Flying Pizza and The Foundry than I ever would have done schlepping around the hinterland of Yorkshire.

I do think I was once in John Prescott’s orbit at the MIPIM property conference in Cannes but he certainly didn’t want to engage with me and I had to make do with some secondhand quotes from his special adviser David Taylor.

Articulate and charming, Taylor - a former CEO of English Partnerships, long-serving deputy chairman of Preston North End and currently High Sheriff of Lancashire - gave me some articulate quotes but applying them to the man who had a particular set of skills mangling the English language made even less sense than if I had spoken to his boss directly.

So if I don’t have any decent memories of meeting John Prescott, who died last week aged 86, then who has?

Easy, the man himself, entrepreneur and founder of the Yorkshire International Business Convention (YIBC), Mike Firth.

“I’ve got a couple of JP stories for you, if they are of any use?” said Mike.

Of course they are Michael!

He recalls: “I first met John just before the successful Tony Blair election win in 1997.

“His good friend, actor Barrie Rutter, persuaded him to open my new factory in Normanton.

“I picked him up from the station and in the car he said: ‘Tell me about this new theatre you are opening’.

“I quickly pointed out it was a factory but John had written a speech for a theatre!

“Nonetheless he opened the factory and gave an impassioned speech on the importance of theatre!

“On the return car ride he took a call from Tony Blair’s PA (personal assistant) - I’ve no idea what the chat was about but he ended the call with “Listen, tell Tony to f*** off, I`m not doing it!”

“In later years I put him on the YIBC Rotherham stage with Michael Portillo as a double act.

“They asked what did I want - I said just go and have a chat on stage and share a few stories - They were brilliant!

“Class Act!!!” he concluded.

Thanks Mike. I always know if I haven’t got a story about someone he’s the man who has.

And invariably they are a lot better than mine.

:::

I’D never claim to be one for missionary work.

But that is how Richard Jackson, entrepreneur and former High Sheriff of West Yorkshire, described my visit to see him last Friday.

‘Jacko’ is currently recuperating from a foot operation and has been unable to drive for several weeks.

I joined Directorbank founder and dealmaker Jonny Hick in visiting Richard at his beautiful home outside Ripon.

I picked up Jonny from his morning Harrogate HQ (AKA The West Park Hotel) and during the journey to Ripon he was able to update me on two of his deals that have recently completed and another three that are bubbling along in the pipeline.

I did think about driving to Ripon via Hull just so it gave Jonny enough time to update me about all the deals he is working on, but Richard did want us to get there during daylight hours.

Over a Morrisons’ sandwich and a bag of Walkers crisps we updated Richard on our respective news and he introduced me to his friend and colleague from The Prince’s Trust charity (renamed The King’s Trust last week) Andy Farley.

Andy told me his wife Rebecca used to be a morning presenter on Pulse Radio in Yorkshire (she was known as Becky at Brekky) but now runs Holmes Cottage on the cobbled main street of the picturesque West Yorkshire village of Haworth, which is let through Airbnb.

He gave me a packet of freshly roasted local coffee which they give to all their guests, which is a nice touch.

It was soon time to leave Richard as Jonny needed to get back to his deal operations centre in Harrogate, but fortunately he remembered another four deals to update me about on the journey back to the spa town.

:::

AFTER a hectic week delivering the event featuring Tony Christie for Danieli (see last week’s blog) and a leadership conference for bus company Stagecoach in Birmingham, I was ready for a restful weekend.

No chance as last weekend was a reunion of a group of my friends from Derbyshire.

They all went to school together and I got to know them through Richard Alleyne, who I worked with on my first job at the Derby Evening Telegraph.

He went on to work at the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph and now works in PR and I went on to write blogs.

His claim to fame is that his family can be traced back to Elizabethan times where one of his relatives was an actor favoured by Elizabeth I who went on to open the Rose Theatre and founded Dulwich College and who was played in the Hollywood film Shakespeare in Love by Ben Affleck.

My family also have strong performing arts connections: my Dad once gave Ken Dodd a lift to the theatre he was performing at in Derby.

Given the last time we all met up was on Richard’s stag do in Brighton and the time before that in Stavanger in Norway (one of them, Ian, lives there), there was some debate about the location for our latest gathering.

Ian fancied Whitby but trying to get seven rooms in a hotel or self catering accommodation in the seaside town for a Saturday night is well nigh impossible.

Other suggestions included York, London, the Lakes but eventually they all decided on Leeds.

And they also decided that the tour guide should be the man who lives there.

Inspired by my dear departed friend, the late, great Rodney Dalton, I decided on a walking tour taking in several hostelries.

But as someone who prides himself on helping people tell their stories I knew that I needed an angle to provide the thread to the tour.

I met the gang off the train and took them to lunch at the nearby Whitehall Restaurant & Bar where we were looked after by the owner and all round top man Fatjon Muca.

We then set off along the River Aire and Leeds-Liverpool Canal where I showed them a series of “firsts”: the site of the world’s first ever case of industrial espionage, the location where the first workplace accident happened and the spot where the world’s first moving pictures were filmed.

I added in some other firsts that don’t yet have their own Wikipedia pages: the first apartment I lived in when I moved to Leeds in 2000, the first office where TheBusinessDesk.com started and the first restaurant bill I’ve ever paid (in the Whitehall a week last Saturday).

In between the sightseeing we called in at The Midnight Bell, The Grove and The Adelphi for sustenance.

There was a request to watch the England v Australia rugby match and so we called in at The Box sports bar in the city centre where a plethora of big screens mean you don’t miss a second of the action, even if you are ordering a round at the bar (I’m told).

The day was rounded off with a fine dinner in the buzzing Grill at The Dakota Hotel which I’m proud to be an ambassador for.

I think I did my adopted home city proud and if they ever put a blue plaque up for me, I wonder what it would be for?

Answers on a postcard.

Have a great weekend.

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