Thirteen years after forming the ambition to be part of a company that put people before profit, Denys Laurence realised in December 1995 that he had an opportunity to take control of a small service company, the Monaco branch of which he had been running for nine years. With his legal and accounting training, and many years experience as a lawyer and tax planner in England, Canada, the Caribbean and Monaco, he thought that he could turn Tortola Trust, into an efficient and reliable operation and achieve this ambition at the same time.

Tortola Trust is an offshore trust company specialising in innovative tax plans for Australians, Japanese, Englishmen and Canadians, with its own offices in Jersey, in the Channel Islands between England and France, and in Monaco. In addition, it has out-sourced facilities in at least seven other countries. It provides directors and company secretaries, office and communication facilities, as well as comprehensive administration and accounting services for the companies and partnerships of its clients. About fifty percent of the time, it is also providing trustee services. It does not tell clients what they should invest in: rather, it suggests to clients through what legal structure they should make their investments, in order to legally minimize taxes, and it puts that structure in place and manages it into the future.

Denys says that he knew that the company was a collection of inefficiencies when he took control of it in August 1996 - some clients had not received any accounts for more than ten years - but that he was still surprised and appalled at the seriousness of the situation when everything came to light. He found that within the thirteen employees of the company there were three separate groups of people who kept to themselves and resented the others. Two kinds of transformation would be necessary, if he was to find satisfaction in making Tortola Trust grow: a business transformation, and a cultural transformation.

As the new company Chairman, it never occured to Denys that these transformations could be attempted one after the other. Believing that one of the secrets of success is to draw bright people around you, he immediately called in a series of consultants - people experts, computer experts, accounting experts, systems experts. While the "hard" business types busied themselves making changes in procedures, systems, software, hardware and workflow, the "soft-side", people types dealt with the inevitable staff problems, accepting resignations, finding replacements and planning procedures to make the cultural changes desired. Of course, both hard and soft consultants had to work together most of the time, in order to achieve the delicate balance necessary between making the people fit the jobs and making the jobs fit the people. Denys was constantly involved in all the changes suggested.

The first of several workshops was held just before the end of 1996, and involved all the staff (by then somewhat larger than in August, though without one dismissed member and several resigned members who were on the payroll at the change in control of the company). After two days of intensive work away from the office, the entire staff arrived at the conclusion that the vision to be strived for should be expressed in the phrase: "...enhancing the well-being of clients, employees, shareholders and others, while having a whole lot o' fun.".

That was what would give Tortola Trust validity. It included well-serviced clients, a happy office where people shared each others' joys and sorrows, shareholders whose investment was profitable and protected, and the wider community being supported both by measurable means and by example.

In February 1997, a second workshop was held over a weekend. This was a residential workshop, in an away-from-it-all hotel. It was focused intently on the individual, personal needs and goals, and how those things might be discovered; and it pointed the way toward their achievement. These first two workshops were facilitated by Fred Elford, a Canadian consultant (email: FredElford@Compuserve.com). By the end of this second workshop the staff were beginning to get a good idea of where the Tortola Trust vision should lead, and were being more and more involved in decision making within the company. One of the consequences of this was that great expectations were formed (sometimes unrealistically), and when mistakes were made a swift and voluble reaction was immediately forthcoming. And mistakes were made.

Most of the mistakes had to do with bad communications or putting the wrong people in important jobs. After several bad errors of judgment in hiring, Denys asked Ivan Sokolov (email: IvanSok@Compuserve.com), of the Executive Transformation Company, for help in devising a process which could weed out unsuitable candidates for jobs, and provide a short list of those who should be considered, and a radical way of interviewing them. This has proved very effective indeed, and has led to the practise of involving every staff member in the recruitment process. The Managing Directorship was recently filled in this way. Each short- listed candidate spent the best part of one day with Denys. Then, they were brought to Jersey for two days each separately, during which they were interviewed by Ivan Sokolov separately, then by the Management Team as a whole, as well as by an elected staff interview panel. During the two days every member of the staff had a meal with two colleagues and the candidate; and the whole process ended in open session with the entire staff (by now 24 in the Jersey office alone) asking the candidate their own questions, and in turn answering questions from the candidate. Denys was not in Jersey for these two-day processes; but, immediately after the last one, he took part in a telephone conference with the Management Team in Jersey, during which it was decided to offer the job to the present incumbent.

It was Ivan Sokolov who (with a colleague) facilitated the important three-day workshop for the entire staff which was held in October '97. Out of this effort came this definition of the values by which Tortola Trust would seek to achieve its vision - a definition worked out with the active participation of even the most junior member of the staff:

" Tortola Trust serves our clients, colleagues, shareholders and others with honesty and respect employing a courageous, caring and positive attitude through collective and individual responsibility providing a balanced and fun environment of openness, trust and understanding encouraging, supporting and celebrating each others' commitment to achieving our goals and enthusiastically exploring different ways to improve our services."

This gives a valuable tool by which to measure the appropriateness of behaviour and intentions, making it easier to determine not only the what, but also the how, of dealing with everyday problems, both in and out of the office. The adoption of these values has been of fundamental importance in the development of the company, and its vision of living by the same values in and out of the office. Different staff members have, of course, accepted these values to different degrees: and although the company is patient with those who are slow in this regard, it will help those who sabotage the development of the vision and the company to find their right place in some other environment.

That workshop was followed by a series of coaching sessions for the four Managers and for Denys, some of which still continue. These sessions have served to highlight the need for personal change, and have identified those willing and those not willing to work on themselves. In addition, the company has provided personal counselling from third parties for some members of staff, with the staff member and the company sharing the cost equally.

Further workshops have been centred around team-building and training in communications skills. That and the leasing of bright, new offices, re-designed in open-plan style, has helped to re-organize the staff into client-facing teams of administrator/accountant/secretary, as opposed to the traditional departments based on function. This, one of the latest changes made, has already begun to show benefits in the standard of service to clients.

Asked what he has got now, two years after his take-over, Denys says that he is now no longer ashamed of the standard of service rendered to clients; he has twenty-five people working happily together, many of whom have expressed in writing to the Government their satisfaction with the transformation in the company that is still in progress; the staff and the company are now more aware than before of the wider community, and have started to make a greater contribution to it; and last year was the company's most profitable year in over thirty years.

Asked what it takes to achieve what he calls this limited measure of success, Denys stresses the importance of a very deeply felt vision, a belief in abundance, stick-to-it-iveness, and patience, patience, patience.

Asked whether there were any unexpected results springing out of all his efforts, Denys admits that he did not start the process expecting that it would require so much personal change in himself - but that's another story. And the process continues.