Tom Glynn Jones - British Petroleum's former Human Resource manager

Business Horizons, May-June, 1997 by Harper W. Moulton

British Petroluem's now retired HR Manager is a pioneering spokesman for quality managerial education in a global corporation.

This is the fifth in a series on executive education "gurus" of the 20th century. Others profiled in the series include Harry Levinson, Kenneth Andrews, Philip Sadler, and George Odiorne.

How did a poor boy from a tiny town in Wales become one of the senior executives of a leading multinational corporation? And why may we now consider him an executive education "guru"?

Tom Glynn Jones is the first executive education leader featured in this series from the business world (in one of the largest global companies, British Petroleum). He spent most of his career concentrating on the international aspects of executive education. He is one of the leading thinkers and contributors to research and publication in the field. And he has been affiliated with most of the leading consulting, educational, and research associations in the field of executive education: International Management Institute (IMI), World Congress on Management Development, American Academy of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Consortium of University Program Directors, the European Foundation for Management Development, and the Council of the Foundation for Management Education.

As Jones put it, "I earned my salary twice over by contributing to the appointment of the new CEO at British Petroleum [with the] selection of a senior executive to attend the Stanford Sloan Program, where he emerged as class president... and subsequently was named to the top job at BP." For Tom Glynn Jones, the key to corporate excellence has been providing top quality managerial training in a multinational corporation.

Dedication To Learning And Education

Tom was born in Barmouth, North Wales, on September 16, 1927 Aged parents and a lack of nearby children left Tom to his own devices and steered him toward self-sufficiency. An older sister who had attended the University of Wales became responsible for directing his education. At age 7, he began reading her textbooks and lecture notes in English and history. This led to his total "immersion" in literature, haunting the local library and devouring such books as T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The doors to the pleasures of education had been opened wide for Tom Glynn Jones.

The second greatest influence on Tom's life was the new headmaster of the County School at Llangollen, who was able to place a very few boys--including Tom--into Cambridge. Going to take the scholarship examinations was an awakening experience for Jones. "As I had never been out of Wales," he explains, "I found Cambridge to be a different world, with its ancient buildings, its traditions, its dining hall with candles burning. I was determined to get there, and was accepted."

Before he could enter Cambridge, though, World War II intervened. Tom joined the RAF as a teleprinter operator and was posted to Cairo, Egypt. But what was there to do in the desert apart from work, eat, and sleep? So he set himself a project to read the classics: Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Tolstoy's War And Peace, among others. Later he was moved to Ismailia on the Suez Canal, the telecommunications center for the Mediterranean and the Far East. At 19 years old, Tom was put in charge of 80 airmen, all radio and teleprinter operators. It was here that he developed his interest in communications and computers. Toward the end of his tour, he decided that when he returned to Cambridge, he would study economics rather than history (he actually did both), because of his wish to go into business as a career. He felt that his service was of some value to his country and added to his education. As an NCO, Tom had learned the importance of discipline, as well as how to manage people without the badges of rank.

Before entering Cambridge, he enrolled in a business course for ex-servicemen at Leeds College of Commerce, where he studied business economics, production, labor relations, statistics, and finance. He discovered that furthering education was one of the major lessons of life--that one never stops learning. "You can put to good use at some time what you have learned," he maintains, "and if you are aware, new opportunities, new information, new approaches come along every day."

Over his three-year period at Cambridge, he endured cold rooms with very little heat. "It was said," he grins, "that there were no mountains between the Russian steppes and Cambridge!" He graduated with honors at 25, having earned degrees in history, economics, and law. His Cambridge experience was, as he says, "one of the happiest times of my life--a mind-blowing experience of brilliant teaching, of rubbing shoulders with the leaders of the next generation, and of being truly educated."

Business Experience

Jones left Cambridge in 1952 with very little money in the bank, but with considerable potential. He was interviewed by several companies, including Unilever, Shell-Mex/British Petroleum, and Imperial Tobacco. Short of money and about to get married, he took the best offer and joined Imperial Tobacco. But because it was a company with a virtual monopoly, in Jones's opinion it had no need for dynamism, innovation, or fear of competition. He began to be disillusioned with the company and the company with him. After all, says Jones, "Who needs a product that goes up in smoke?" He departed after two years with a good recommendation from the sales director.