When Dame Fiona Reynolds became head of the National Trust, it had 2.7 million members and 52 trustees. Now, 10 years later it has over 3.8 million members,
12 trustees, a new management structure, a Facebook page, and a farm run by
a virtual community. We asked the mum of three about modernising one of our oldest institutions and why this is just the beginning…
Hannah, Director's editorial assistant, is about to brave the rain for breakfast. What will Fiona have, I ask her assistant. "Oh god, don't worry, she'll have had breakfast at 6am. She's been up all night doing an acquisition deal." Two minutes later Reynolds walks into our photoshoot. She's pink-cheeked having walked from the Tube station – she doesn't do taxis – and cheerful, fresh and raring to go. The stylist and the make-up artist are chatting about their turning 40 panics.
"Forty's nothing!", laughs Reynolds. "You're just beginning." And she would know – at 42, Cambridge-educated Reynolds left her job as director of the Women's Unit in the Cabinet Office to become director-general of the National Trust. Her arrival in 2001 sparked an uproar, with the Daily Mail describing her as a "Tony Crony" and suggesting she was going to get rid of the Old Master-filled National Trust and replace it with something less elitist.
A decade on, the Old Masters are still there and the Trust has boosted its membership by more than a million. Reynolds has taken the charity through radical governance and structural changes, and today Britain's biggest charity is streamlined, smart and modern. But it hasn't been without its challenges.
"The decision to overhaul was made by my predecessor," says Reynolds. "The Trust had recognised that it had achieved an awful lot but needed to get into a different gear. A lot of things had been set in motion before I started. It was my job to carry them out."
There was the move out of London to Swindon, the big financial overhaul, a staff restructuring and a refocusing of its core purpose. A governance review involved going from 52 trustees down to 12.
"Governance changes gave the organisation the opportunity to establish a clear vision. When you've got 52 people you cannot have a crystal-clear vision because everyone wants a bit of the action. It becomes motherhood and apple pie – very nice but not clear. When you've got 12 trustees you can look around a room and agree on something ambitious, exciting, visionary and real."
And the goal is clear – for The National Trust to have reached the whole nation in one form or another and to have five million members by 2020. It's a big ambition and some might say a brave one considering the economic climate but then the Trust has put on more than a million members. Is it recession-proof?
"It's a curious thing. Obviously we're feeling the effects of the
recession like everybody but the Trust is also, perversely perhaps or maybe entirely understandably, proving to be even more valuable. It's great value – a theme park can cost £150 a day for a family – but you can join the National Trust for £88 for a year and get free access to 350 amazing places. Of course you can go somewhere where it's all about rides and fizzy drinks but most families want to come out feeling good about their experience – you know if your children spend two hours making a den in a woodland, you go home thinking that was time well spent.
"We all need space, we all need peace and quiet and we all need beauty – maybe more so in a recession. And the National Trust in a sense is a passport to beauty. We have everything from historic houses to coast, countryside, archaeology and nature – you name it, we've got it. There is something for everybody but our big challenge is to reach people and let them know this."
Reynolds has two key ways she is going to shake off the "fusty and crusty, look but don't touch" image of the Trust. She's passionate about bringing the houses to life. "We're getting rid of the ropes, and although we can't have everyone sit on every chair, every now and again you'll come across a room of squashy sofas and loads of stuff to read, so you can immerse yourself in the stories of families and servants, and feel the excitement of living there."
Reynolds wants to raise the profile of outdoors activity, too. "We have acres and acres of countryside, coast, mountain and heathland where people can enjoy themselves – often people don't realise it's National Trust. We need to be much more visible and make them feel welcome. We are introducing 1,000 miles of walks, cycle trails, bike hire, climbing, canoeing, kayaking, and geocaching (GPS-guided treasure hunting)."
The marketing plan does feel energised; the posters peppering Tube stations and outdoor media suggest healthy, simple, family days out. And Reynolds knows the importance of tailored marketing. "All our visitors want something different. Historically, the psychology has been that the Trust is one thing – a calm and orderly procession around a country house, or perhaps a gentle stroll in the countryside. The minute we start to market ourselves differentially you realise that every group (whether you're an inner-city teenager or a fit 80-year-old) needs nature, beauty, freedom of access, that kind of spiritual refreshment.
"We are determined to reach those people with tailored communications and with a real understanding of their needs. Our great philosophy in life is 'we do the real thing', but we know that access to the real thing is hugely enabled by digital media. You won't see much digital at our properties because once you get there you don't need it, but we do use it for people pre- and post-visit. The National Trust app is one of the top in the country and we do a huge amount on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr – the number of photographs of our properties on Flickr is astonishing. And they're gorgeous – a child taking their first steps, or a granny's 90th birthday.
"We're pushing the boundaries digitally, too. The MyFarm project is brilliant. It's at a farm on the Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire. The farm manager decided to turn it over to an online community to run. So far they have taken a vote on what to plant and watched a piglet being born on the webcam. People are responding incredibly well to that and it's the start of more interesting territory – not just online information, but active engagement. We know that it is reaching younger people and a different audience."
Brilliant ideas
Reynolds tells me about Robyn, a former surf champion running surf schools for youngsters on the Trust's Cornish beaches. "Nobody told them to do that," she says proudly. "It bubbled up from within and that's the spirit of this organisation – we have people who are passionate about places and people, and who find creative solutions in their local area which will make people feel happy. All these brilliant ideas though depend on staff who can touch the local Zeitgeist. You can't dictate this sort of thing from the top. We're looking for local managers to say 'you know what, this feels right'. When you see that happen, it's wonderful."
Some might say that devolving power to such an extent involves a huge leap of faith. "I realised that the Trust is so enormous and so diverse I couldn't possibly know the half of what was going on. I had to create clear objectives. Our ambition is clear: bringing properties to life. But if you are a property manager, you choose locally how you do that. So long as you are both participating in the direction for the Trust as a whole and looking after your property, managers are
empowered to come up with solutions themselves."
But to enable this Reynolds created a radical new organisational shape that would be ground-breaking in the commercial world. "We dismantled the hierarchy in our top-down management command line and created a new structure, based on four big bundles of activity that relate to each other: operations (the properties), experts, whole trust (branding and organisation) and support services.
"Instead of sitting hierarchically above each other, these bundles sit in relation to each other on an equal basis and it's revolutionised the way we think about the organisation. It's given that freedom of operation to people on the front line and it's liberating for me
with only four broad areas reporting in. The structure is simple but
empowering, so it's exciting."
Another recent change Reynolds has made is the creation of a 500-strong internal consultancy. Before the restructure the Trust's experts – creators, archaeologists, visitor experience experts, commercial specialists, learning experts – reported in their disciplines vertically. Reynolds has put them all into a 500-strong consultancy. "Instead of working in vertical lines there is a flat management structure and they all work into a consultancy manager in mixed teams." Reynolds's eyes light up as she talks about them. "It was a big change but I've just spent two days with the 500 and they are buzzing. The resulting creativity is phenomenal."
The bigger picture
So what advice does she have for directors who need to implement change in their business? "There are two requirements to make sure change succeeds. First, a clear strategy – you must know what change is for and where it's going to get you. Second, you need to take people with you. If people can see the bigger picture and can understand the reason for change, they will buy into it. You can't do change without people and you can't do change without clarity and direction.
"Change is always painful but when you come out at the other end and you see everyone realising their potential, feeling liberated, feeling empowered to do what they're good at doing, it's fantastic."
With three children, how on earth does she do it all? "I do it for two reasons – first of all because I love it, it's my dream job. But the other honest truth is that when I had my third daughter – she's just turned 16 – my husband and I looked each other in the eye and knew we could not do it with both of us working full time. He was the one who gave up work – he's phenomenal, he runs the local branch of Riding for the Disabled. It's incredibly hard for a woman to be the main child carer and have a job like mine. I have had the luxury of loving my family to bits and being as good a mother as I can be but not having to be the one to take them to the dentist."
The Trust offers "spiritual refreshment" for the nation, but where does Reynolds get hers? "I walk. I walk all the time, including in London. I walk everywhere and I love it. My head just clears – talk about spiritual refreshment. I think we are privileged to have so many beautiful places to walk around. One of the things we want to offer is that sense of relaxation, and we are looking to do more with
green spaces in urban areas because we know that people need that. If we can be seen as an organisation that is for everyone and
is providing that spiritual refreshment, that for me is keeping true to what our founders were saying when they launched the Trust over 100 years ago."
WOMEN AS LEADERS CONFERENCE
Dame Fiona Reynolds will be joining Mumsnet's Justine Roberts, Discovery's Dee Forbes and many more as speakers at the IoD's Women as Leaders conference on 9 November. For tickets, please go to www.iod.com/womenasleaders.
