Look Hughes smiling now!

Damian proudly wears his England rugby league kit

Martyn Meets..... part two of Martyn’s chat with Damian Hughes
WHEN Damian Hughes was invited to accept a professorship at Manchester Metropolitan University, his first thoughts were to insist his parents Brian and Rosemarie be invited to the ceremony.

It was a condition of his attendance.

“My mum just had to be there... she wouldn’t have believed it otherwise,” he said. “She would have thought I had bought it off the internet!”

His mother sat there proudly as he delivered the guest lecture to 250 of his peers.

There wasn’t a hint of irony in the voice of this truly remarkable Professor of Organisational Psychology and Change at Manchester Metropolitan University, a position he accepted with great dignity in September, 2010, as he related the tale over coffee in the lounge of his home in Sale.

For I was in the company of a reformed, self-confessed tearaway who was minutes away from the ignominy of expulsion from The Hulme Grammar School for fighting.

To be accepted into the higher echelons of education establishment was just about the pinnacle of success for the Chadderton lad who has risen through the ranks of industry and education to become one of the most influential people Oldham has produced.

I kid you not. And I am not over-egging the pudding here about this remarkable 38-year-old.

The man is a treasure trove of knowledge and information with a fund of stories that kept me enthralled.

Where to start in this second instalment?

With his seven books? One of which was an award-winning biography of boxing great Thomas Hearns, co-written with his boxing coach father Brian Hughes MBE? His work with the England rugby league team alongside head coach Steve McNamara?

His role with the Premiership rugby union club Sale Sharks? His time with Super League RL club Warrington Wolves and their inspirational coach Tony Smith? His papers and lectures for Manchester Met? His time with Olympic boxing hopefuls?

In addition to all of the above — and a host of other projects in which he is involved — he is already well into his eighth book, entitled “Liquid Thinker — how to change absolutely everything”.

The title comes from the consultancy he established in 2005 on leaving Unilever, one the world’s industrial giants.

Damian became involved in human resources, almost by accident, after his restless mind tired of working with football prodigies at Manchester United, where he was a coach on the academy staff.

“I needed to spread my wings and see what the great wide world had to offer... but didn’t really know how,” he said.

His future wife Geraldine was working in human resources and suggested Damian’s people-management skills might lend themselves to the peculiar demands of personnel departments.

So he began sending off his CV but received lots of negative responses. He added: “Then Unilever took me on as a graduate trainee, at their Port Sunlight plant and when I told mum she replied ‘What will you do when you get found out?’”

The ever-optimistic Damian clearly hadn’t thought that far ahead and he buried himself in his new role. “And the funny thing was, each time I thought I had been found out, I was promoted,” he said.

Damian had clearly found his niche, introducing innovative programmes to the workforce who responded to his golf-putting competitions on the canteen floor at lunchtimes.

“I wanted to demonstrate that people can perform under pressure, with lots of people crowding in and watching, and still deliver,” said Damian. Pretty soon the plant was upping its production output.

Enthused by his look at life, Damian took on another evening course at Manchester Met and now has a Masters in human resources management to sit alongside his classics degree and postgraduate qualifications in organisational psychology.

Unilever packed him off to New York for 12 months and he left the Big Apple 10 days before the Twin Towers were destroyed by one of the most brutal terrorist acts of this or any other generation.

Unilever posted him in London for two years before he was appointed to look after the global giant’s operations in South Africa and the Middle East, Unilever’s youngest ever human resources director.

The post involved massive travelling from his home base in Manchester and he tired of living out of a suitcase.

During his time at Port Sunlight, when output at Unilever’s longest established UK manufacturing site rose from the bottom 5 per cent in the group to the top 10 per cent, Damian had produced a book, more of a booklet, chronicling his thoughts on change.

He tried to get it published but was turned down by every publisher in the land. So he went ahead and self-published — and sold more than 12,000 copies in 18 months.

“Success for a self-published book is measured at 100 copies sold,” he said in the most matter-of-fact of tones.

You can guess what happened next. Capstone, one of the publishers which had eagerly despatched a rejection slip, came calling and Damian had his first book deal for “Liquid Thinking”. The work has been translated into four languages and was a best seller in Russia. He was now working on “Liquid Leadership” and the book needed credibility. So Damian wrote to Sir Richard Branson, no less. Not only did he get a response, he was invited to shadow the flamboyant entrepreneur for three days and Sir Richard then offered to pen a foreword — “the first time he had endorsed any book other than a Virgin publication.”

Interviews followed with Muhammed Ali, recently voted the most iconic sportsman ever, arranged with his legendary trainer Angelo Dundee through his father Brian, and Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager.

Damian also interviewed England rugby union World Cup winner Johnny Wilkinson and former Manchester United and England World Cup winning defender Nobby Stiles — like the Hughes family, originally from Collyhurst.

One of his sporting heroes was Bill Sweetenham, the Australian national swimming coach whom Britain tempted over to give our swimmers a winning mentality.

“I had a cutting of a story of his in my briefcase — I was such an admirer.”

One day, while sitting in a lounge at Glasgow Airport he overheard a phone conversation about swimming, delivered in an unmistakable Aussie drawl.

Damian being the same cheeky mischievous chap that got him into trouble at Hulme Grammar all those years ago took the bull by the horns and approached the man with an outstretched hand.

“He was initially defensive, to say the very least. He answered my inquiry with a question of his own which started with the word ‘What’ ended with the words ‘with you?’ but once I had produced the newspaper cutting we got chatting. We were so engrossed we both missed our flights.”

That chance meeting has led to a warm, enduring friendship between the pair and typifies Damian’s positive, revealing, refreshing attitude to life.

“Very” isn’t a word I ever use in my journalism career but for this guy I’m going to make an exception. Oldham should be very proud of him.