Every month we pose 7 questions to a Chamber member: this time it’s Marcus Jones of East Harbour Associates
1. Who are you & what do you do?
I’m Marcus Jones, senior consultant at East Harbour Associates, and lead consultant for our sister business OKR Advisory. Both businesses focus on assisting clients with the development and implementation of strategy, improvement initiatives and agility.
2. How long have you been doing what you do?
Formally as a consultant, about 10 years. But prior to that I helped run a number of family businesses which required me to do a lot of the same things as I do now, just from the other side of the table.
3. How did you get into this?
Ever since I started working I’ve always had a passion for the actual mechanisms of business – what drives them to succeed and how they ultimately achieve that success.
Couple that with my background in Psychology and Neuroscience which obviously focuses on the human side – communication, culture and so on – and it was clear once I left the family set up that an advisory role in these areas would best suit my interests, skills and experience.
4. What’s the ‘why’ behind the work you do?
Every day I speak to businesses that are perhaps struggling, or at least recognise that they could be doing better, and helping them to achieve their ambitions is incredibly rewarding.
Seeing an organisation transform for the better, and being part of that transformation, will never get boring!
5. What’s your process for coming up with your solutions/offers?
It’s so important that we practice what we preach, so understanding our target clients is critical for success. What are the pains they are experiencing and the biggest challenges they are coming up against? Knowing this enables us to identify what skills or experience may be most beneficial to help them achieve success. For this reason creating our solutions tends to be a collaborative process with the client
6. What book has shaped your life and why?
I’d find it hard to pinpoint a single book as I tend to take in knowledge from as many sources as possible, and then make my own mind up about what I believe or practice as a result. To answer a slightly different, but related, question however, “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman was certainly a book that sparked my interest in human behaviour, communication and so on. So that probably set me on the path I find myself today.
7. Tea, Coffee or something a little stronger?
Tea, specifically Yorkshire Tea, but a maximum of 2 cups per day! I’ve never understood the fuss about coffee. As for something a little stronger, it has been known…
