Headhunter inspired by his staff

Richard Boggis-Rolfe: Getting the right people is the key

Richard Boggis-Rolfe bought Odgers, Ray & Berndtson eight years ago, with the aim of making it the best headhunting business in the UK.

He began his career in the Army, which helped pay his way through university at Cambridge.

Ten years later and he was on the move again, taking a course at the London Business School.

Halfway through the course, he met a friend who was in the headhunting business, sparking his interest in a sector he has now been in for more than 20 years.

What was your first car?

I'm not really a car person, but my first was an old Triumph Herald. The car I really wanted at the time was a BMW 6 series - a very fast and low model with two doors - a most beautiful car.

The Triumph didn't exactly have star quality.

What was your first job?

It was actually one Christmas at Harrods - but I can't remember how much I was paid.

My first real job in business when I left business school was at headhunting firm Russell Reynolds - for £17,000 a year.

Headhunting was just becoming established as an important activity, with a very secretive feeling to it. It was a pioneering time and very dynamic and exciting. You just had to get on with making things happen.

In those days, there were no computers in offices, your database was all on cards and getting information on directors and their pay was very difficult - nowadays, everyone can get that from the internet.

But in those days, knowledge really was power - it was a matter of how you used what you knew - knowing who's who was very hard to come by.

What was your first house?

When I bought it was 1973, I'd just left university and the property market was soaring up.

I bought a house in Pimlico for £30,000 and spent a fortune on doing it up. Unfortunately, when I sold it, the property market had collapsed and I only got £22,000 for it.

I never got over that, it was a panic that nearly put me off for life, but I never over borrowed again. Now I just take it step by step.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

That's a terribly difficult question as there isn't any one single person.

My greatest inspiration comes from the people working for me - lots of them are better than me. They're younger and really good, so that inspires me.

What's the best bit of business advice you've had?

Somebody once told me: at the end of every day no matter how well its gone - or how bad - find the will power to make one more call.

Quite often, it is very hard after a bad day - it is also hard after a fantastic day - but you should always try harder and plug on remembering "one more call".

What's the biggest challenge facing business now?

Always get the right people doing the right jobs - and that's not something affecting business right now, it has always been the case.

The flipside of that is not having the wrong people - that's becoming increasingly difficult in business as top management should be easier to get rid of and they're not. If they're doing well, great. If not, they oughtn't to be there.

Hanging onto people who aren't doing well doesn't do any good. Usually people who haven't succeeded in one place go on to success elsewhere if they find their niche.

They can bomb somewhere but fly somewhere else. If they're bombing, it can damage them, their colleagues and the business.

Such a culture makes people shy of hiring if they know they can't fire the individual - and I'm a very reluctant firer - that's the challenge.

What can the government do to boost business?

The trouble is you can't have success without failure - success equals winning and if you have a winner, you have to have a loser.

The trouble is that people expect someone to put everything right...all of which inevitably means you get red tape.

As long as we want to have every risk reduced, we're doomed to have more red tape.

Both parties make too many laws, but Labour seem more comfortable with central control and therefore are congenitally incapable of getting rid of red tape.

If you look at the construction industry and compare the US and UK, the UK sites are much more regulated - in the US, it is anarchy. But there are more accidents in the UK. The reason for that is probably down to the psyche that it is someone else's job to look after safety - not your own.

I don't criticise people who bring in rules designed to stop things like accidents.

Until we as a society accept that things sometimes go wrong, red tape is inevitable and I'm not sure we can do anything about it while people have the desire to have someone looking after them.

What business story has grabbed your interest recently?

The goings on in the retail sector - even before Christmas.

It affects everyone - Sainsbury's, M&S, WH Smith - rock solid big names are in trouble. "Certainties" - places people see everyday - are not certain anymore.

There's a revolution going on in the High Street and that's very exciting for everyone.

What was the proudest moment of your career?

That's very difficult. The trouble is that when you achieve something, it withers into "something I can do".

For example, if you climb a mountain, when you get to the top you realise you've achieved something that you could actually do anyway.

It's better not to be too proud, as if you're too cocky you'll fail.

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Odgers Ray & Berndtson is a headhunting business.

Set up 25 years ago by Ian Odgers, with a staff of about 20 people, the group now employs 160 people and is listed by analysts as the number four group in the sector.

Part of a global company, its UK offices are in London, Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester.