Our thinking

All in the same boat: Our transition to employee ownership

3 July, 2025

We are on the verge of a very historic date for Good Business – our thirtieth year! Three decades of putting our core belief that business can change the world at the heart of what we do, every day, for our people and partners and clients and friends.

I’m not one to let milestones pass without marking them. And this feels like a pretty momentous one. So I wanted to celebrate it by doing something which is significant, but also entirely in keeping with the nature of Good Business as it is now and has always been.

That means doing something that is progressive. That is a new way of doing things. That is in keeping with our values. And something which sets us up to achieve our purpose ever more in the future – transforming businesses, to transform their impact on the world.

And that is to turn Good Business into an employee-owned business.

As of July 1^st, Good Business is owned by a newly created Employee Owned Trust, who will run the business on behalf of all employees, current and future.

Now, there’s lots of evidence out there about how being employee-owned drives engagement, commitment and performance, and enhances the meaning people get from their working lives.

But for me, an analogy Tim Harford recently cited in an article in the FT explains it best.

It’s based around two fishing crews – let’s call them crews A and B.

Crew A is “organised and understood as a purely technical and economic means to a productive end, whose aim is only or over-ridingly to satisfy as profitably as possible some market’s demand for fish”. The team are motivated to work hard, innovate and hone their skills, because it will lead to profit.

Crew B has developed “an understanding of and devotion to excellence in fishing and to excellence in playing one’s part as a member of such a crew”. This excellence is very much about skill — but also about character, social bonds and courage. These fishermen are risking their lives and are dependent on each other. And, “when someone dies at sea, fellow crew members, their families and the rest of the fishing community will share a common affliction and common responsibilities”.

The article went on to cite various studies examining these models of business in the real world. The conclusion: those organised along the crew B lines often end up being more profitable too.

As Harford puts it, ‘profitability can rest on shared values, goals and practices too.’

It will not surprise you that I could not agree more. Good Business is proudly, emphatically and constitutionally a crew B organisation. We believe that the way we go about doing our work and the nature of the relationships we have with each other matters enormously. Working life ends up being a lot of life and we want the day-to-day experience of it to be as fulfilling, as possible, as we quest to deliver impactful change for our clients. Our purpose is now written into our Deed of Trust , anchoring everything we do to our purpose now and in the future.

Transitioning Good Business to be employee-owned feels like a profound but also very natural progression for us, sitting as a Crew B. It takes what we have and pushes it one step forward. Because now, in a very real and structural way, we are all in it together. We all have a sense of autonomy over the direction of the business. And the better we do, the more everyone benefits.

For me personally, it also sets up a promise to the future (although I’m not going anywhere right now.)

I fundamentally believe that what we have at Good Business is special, and worth preserving, for another thirty years and more. And I cannot think of a better way to do that than by transitioning the business into the hands of the team who have made it all possible, for now, and for the days to come.

Best,

 

Giles