JOHN CASWELL
HELLO
“Helping leaders see what can be, unattached to what came before…”
WHAT DO I DO?
I help clients see things they can’t see.
I ask questions they don't ask themselves.
I give them tools to make high-quality decisions.
They get to see their dreams, visions and plans.
They get the equipment to get there.
To have direct conversations with John Caswell - click:
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THE SHORT STORY
I WAS A CLIENT
It was next to impossible to think about the future.
It was tough to create a strategy without being sold to.
I was a client at that time.
I was privileged to be in command of a few million dollars of budget.
In those days that definitely made me a leader.
I was surrounded by consultants and agencies of all shapes, colours and sizes.
Whatever challenge I set, their advice felt compromised and self-serving.
Each external provider was intent on becoming a dependency and staying that way over time.
It was their business model
I KNEW THINGS COULD BE BETTER
I wanted an objective resource to help me think better
They would have no horse in the race but be experienced.
They would be willing to challenge me and call me out.
They should show me the logic of the situation and make sure I didn’t fall off a cliff.
They would have tools and techniques that were relevant, inclusive, creative - even fun.
If they could do that I would have happily paid them more.
I knew This was what clients wanted
This Kind Of Firm Didn’t Exist
I MADE ONE
GROUP PARTNERS
Is designed to help clients solve problems and exploit their opportunities together.
There’s zero focus on creating a dependency on us - in fact the opposite.
We equip clients to execute the work themselves. Helping them stay in control of their own futures.
We Developed A Mantra
‘Let’s avoid solving the wrong problems really well.’
We created new techniques, tools and an approach that worked.
We saved our clients $Millions and made others $Billions.Making clients successful through account wins, transformational programs and building successful strategies for change.
i'm OK WITH THATHow On Earth Did I Get Here? - I Was Lucky
In the early eighties, I was in a startup with some friends.
We created the most successful and famous microcomputer of its time - The BBC Micro.
We got listed. We made and then lost millions. It was a great privilege.
Somewhere along the way we spawned ARM Technologies and it sold for $36 Billion.
The most successful technology company in the United Kingdom. It was quite a ride.
I learned a lot.
I left when Olivetti bought the company.
In the absence of decent advisors and creative strategists I would start my own business.
The first edition was a creative, strategic marketing and media company in London that many years later I would sell to WPP Group PLC.
The media and advertising industry isn’t what it once was.
In order to be creative and add strategic VALUE I would have to leave the industry
I’ve been clean ever since.
A LIFETIME OF STRATEGIC THINKING
A LIFETIME OF AVATARS
Publicity Shots - Please Download:
Different shapes and sizes, formats and file sizes.
I WROTE A BOOK
Group Partners Started 01 : 01 : 2001
An Odyssey Alright - Thankfully A Good One
frequently asked questions
It’s Always Been A Question Of Life
questions for john caswell
How Did You Become You?
My Father was a massive inspiration to me.
He was engineer, fisherman, craftsman - mender of things. I will never forget watching him create incredible technical drawings on an enormous drawing board with rulers and fine ink pens everywhere.
He was an aeronautical draughtsman - a creator of incredible systems. You could see these machines working right there on the paper as he drew them.
His handwriting was breathtaking - I knew what they said before I could read.
I’m Still Learning
How Did You Learn To Be You?
The Prison School - I went to a private school for the sons of Naval officers.
It was incredibly strict. I hated pretty much every minute of it. It gave me a great education and some brutal lessons.
To be happy with silence.
To not expect anything - ever.
That I had to turn all adversity into advantage.
Such raw discipline gave me powerful weapons. The nightmare made me develop my own passions and ideas - it forced me to want to become someone.
It was a six-year sentence away from home.
You always remember your best teacher
He was rather like my father - very patient, deeply creative, eloquent and taught art with a passion. He saved and shaped my life just like my father.
The school was designed to prepare kids for a career as an officer in the Navy.
So. when it ended I went to Art School in Cambridge.
Art School/First Real Job
I can’t really remember it - Cambridge was a crazy place so I started a night club and became a DJ.
Thankfully some friends asked me to help them with their start-up. This businesses was destined to win the contract for Computers in Schools led by the BBC and the British Government.
It was epic. A roller-coaster. So many massive mistakes. It was successful and then it was a failure.
While all this was going on we created another business which was sold to SoftBank for $36 Billion the biggest UK sale of a company ever.
Every day was a privilege.
THE LESSONS
Lack Of Impartiality - I noticed that the solutions providers, Ad Agencies, Strategy Consultants/Change Agents, Software Companies - all asked questions that helped them sell what they did back to me.
Lack Of Care - These firms didn’t care much about helping me achieve my outcomes. I could give an identical brief to each of them and I could get a different and predictable answer - a 30-second TV campaign, a change program or a new systems implementation.
It made me think.
I saw that we weren’t helping. We didn’t know what we were doing. We weren’t joined up as a business. We hadn’t stopped to think. We were different divisions - that’s a terrible idea.
Meetings were unfulfilling - I would get exasperated by the differences of language used by different ‘divisions’ seeking to achieve one mission.
I would have to get up and draw a picture. Everyone loved that. They all wanted me to come to every meeting. That was not my intention.
Years later I realised that this was my biggest insight in life.
Visuals make a difference.
It was wildly successful - then wildly not. Olivetti bought it. They promised me all the usual things - bigger windows in my office - a shinier secretary, another 500cc in my car after 3 years. Wonderful.
I left.
Next?
London Calling
I started an Ad Agency/Strategic Consultancy in London because of the terribly bad suppliers and experiences I had had as the client. In those days there was a line apparently. Above the line and below the line. I never did find the line and my clients never asked me about it.
It is where everything I do now came from. I sold it to WPP Group as one of my clients needed a global agency. The planet is in the processes of figuring out if that industry still exists. Read More
I left 4 years later and have been clean ever since.
Group Partners 2001
What Drives You?
Needing to make. Needing to deliver and needing to add value.
The only way I can do that is through thinking creativity and those on the journey engaging their brains and paying attention. I firmly believe in the ability of humans to change for the better. I’m trying to do it. It requires that we open our hearts and minds and think.
For that it helps to identify role models and peers who we trust and admire.
AN INTERVIEW ON THIS VERY TOPIC
What Inspires You?
May the bridges I burn light my way.
Forever drowning the person I was yesterday. Ideas, ingenuity, great creativity, Steve Jobs - the real thinkers and writers over the ages, Taschen books, contemporary design, Jean-Michel Basquiat - great sequences of words that contain insight. Words like these - click.
My guilty pleasure is Leica Cameras.
BUCKET LIST ITEMS - TICK
principles that have stuck over the years
Not resting on knowledge but experience.
Being myself - not that symbolic idea of what I should be in other peoples eyes.
Working on myself every single minute of the day.
Keeping my promises and helping others keep theirs.
Trying (unsuccessfully - so far) to remove the cynicism and rage I feel for the inequality and stupidity being weaponised by ‘so called’ leaders.
Working hard as long as I am loving what I’m doing.
Respecting those that know what respect is.
“Don’t listen to the older generations - they mean well - but they have no idea what’s going on.” - Yuval Noah-Harari
Make sure you know the question you actually want to answer. From bitter experience this is the hardest question of all. We often find people solving the wrong problem really well. Challenge yourself to at least narrow it down. It can take years to get it right.
Write.
Work hard and be nice to people.
Be prepared for anything.
Write more.
That means:
Practicing, learning from experience.
Always answer the question you’ve been asked - never the one you preferred.
Double your curiosity - question everything.
Believe nothing until you have unpacked it and figured it out for yourself.
Don’t compromise - it’s a mugs game.
Accept differences of perspective.
Ignore the stereotypes that are held up as examples of how you are expected to live your life.
Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you will never be what you want to be.