Brij Thankey started out in the corporate world, “a numbers guy” as he puts it, but he grew weary of conventional thinking and jumped ship to create a different kind of business.
A decade on, that business – Precision FM – is a national leader in facilities management across the UK and Ireland, and CEO Publication has recognised Brij among the UK’s Top 20 Dynamic CEOs.
One of Brij’s guiding principles is that honesty and transparency are what connect with people, and as you’ll see he’s still more than happy to give voice to ideas that go against the grain.
For starters, there’s the notion that big businesses can learn a lot from the way that small businesses operate. When he was starting out at Precision FM, Brij believed he could base the new business on the assumptions he’d acquired in his corporate career, but he soon came to realise he’d need to rethink things from the bottom up.
Above all, he says, big businesses get too obsessed about the bottom line. They need to recognise that their greatest assets are their people, and that they’ll get the best return on their investment by nurturing them as individuals. They need to ditch the hire-and-fire mentality and understand that in motivating and developing people, patience pays.
Brij’s greatest ambition is to make Precision FM the UK’s most people-centric company. He believes that the most fulfilling thing about running a small business is your ability to transform your people’s lives – not just in material terms, though the bigger houses and smarter cars certainly help, but above all in a sense of recognition and common purpose. What really counts for them is building something and putting their name to it. To create something for the greater good, that’s magical.
Check out the video above for more.
