Rory Underwood joins John Peters and Martyn Helliwell in Management Development Consultancy
Rory Underwood, ex England Rugby International is leaving the Royal Air Force and will
concentrate on his management development consultancy, UPH Ltd. Rory scored a record 49
tries winning 85 caps for England, and a further 6 caps touring Australia and New Zealand
with the British Lions. He is now ready to put his unique experiences to good use helping
others to develop their full potential. UPH will focus on leadership and team development
using techniques taken from Crew Resources Management (CRM), which Rory introduced into the
RAF. CRM looks at how aircrew teamwork and decision making is affected in time-limited stressful
situations.
UPH designs bespoke programmes, which have a particular focus on the importance of openness of
communication and advancing organisations away from a blame culture towards an open learning
environment in which innovation and creative thinking is encouraged. The programmes offer an
original experiential learning environment, including theory lectures, psychometric analysis
and desktop and outdoor exercises.
Links with universities have given their methods a sound academic basis, which is reinforced
through practical application during the outdoor exercises and, importantly, transferred to
the workplace through coaching. UPH does not see the training in isolation, but as part of
an organisationıs Human Resource strategy. Rory says, "Our philosophy is to go beyond the
motivational speech by transferring those lessons right to the heart of the workplace, in
order to provide a real, measurable contribution to business."
A number of clients have been really impressed with the services offered by UPH, including
Barclays Bank and Arthur Andersen. Both reported a 100% confirmation that the course met
their expectations and enhanced their team. "The course was excellent and gave me a better insight into effective communications and listening skills", team member, Barclays Financial Management.
UPH started operating last year, but until now the only full time employee has been John
Peters who has developed an international reputation as an inspirational speaker on his
POW experiences in the Gulf War. John was beaten and starved after being captured when his
Tornado fighter was shot down over Iraq ten years ago. The former RAF pilot spent seven weeks
in captivity and was paraded on Iraqi television.
John was pivotal in introducing a Human Factors approach into the RAF, a change management
programme designed to identify human error by introducing an open and honest culture. This
resulted in the award of the 1999 Flight International Aerospace Industry Award for Training
and Safety. He also has a Masters Degree in Business Administration.
Martyn Helliwell has 25 years training experience in the Royal Navy. He is an arctic, desert,
jungle and temperate Combat Survival Instructor and was instrumental in the development and
introduction of the character, leadership and team development programme currently used at
the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth for Officer Training. Martyn is a member of the Chartered
Institute of Personal Development and the Institute of Management.
Underwood, Peters and Helliwell are undoubtedly well placed to aid businesses to develop the
full potential of their employees. Where else would you get the unique combination of the
experiences of a survival expert, a rugby international and a war veteran? As a team member
from Arthur Anderson Consulting says, "A good part of the course was the involvement of
personalities talking of out of the ordinaryı experiences and the use of feedback and team
observation".
