Half the population are bullied ... most only recognise it when they read this

Peter Mead
Patron of the Andrea Adams Trust
"There have been management gurus who claimed that conflict and anxiety create energetic synergy. It's complete nonsense. Fear paralyses rather than spurs people forward".
(Peter Mead, co-founder of advertising agency Abbot Mead Vickers)

Peter Mead, a patron of the Andrea Adams Trust, is co-founder of Advertising agency Abbot Mead Vickers. Recently sold to Omnicrom, Peter Mead plays an active role in the business he co-founded 30 years ago. Known as "a nice place to work", Mead has stuck firmly to his principle that employees work best when they are valued and treated well.

Interviewed in in the September 2000 edition of Management Today, Peter Mead offered his six tips for creating a civilised workplace:

1. Have a firm set of principles and beliefs - nothing freaky, but something understandable and worthwhile.

2. Make profit a consequence and not a principle.

3. Don't make staff anxious about their jobs but healthily concerned, as a group, for the company's success.

4. Never allow complacency. Every business - not only retail - is detail.

5. Hire well and take responsibility for your people. If you fire someone it's your failure as well as theirs.

6. Don't act the role of manager and when in doubt, be nice.