Octavius Black convinced answer to UK's productivity crisis is all in the mind

The brain trainer to big business: Octavius Black is convinced the answer to UK’s productivity crisis is all in the mind

Octavius Black is a name worthy of a Bond villain. But this charismatic Old Etonian styles himself as the man who tells British business what to think.

He set up his company, Mind Gym, at his kitchen table 23 years ago with psychologist Dr Sebastian Bailey. Since then, it has grown into a major consultancy that counts almost two-thirds of the Footsie’s members as clients, along with more than half of the large US firms in the S&P 100.

Within minutes of our meeting, he gives an impromptu demonstration of his technique, rattling out a series of observations about me, including that I arrived on time and that I had a nice chat with his assistant on the way in.

Perhaps it isn’t meant to be unnerving, but I feel a little exposed by the fact he is clocking everything. An ability to read people and situations is great for a therapist or a medium, but what, one might wonder, does it have to do with big business?

Confident: ‘We know it works,’ says Octavius Black of his firm’s method, but the shares have halved

It might sound like corporate woo-woo, but the likes of Burberry, GSK, Microsoft and Unilever are among the firms that pay good money for Mind Gym’s services. These range from seminars and workshops to one-to-one coaching, in person and online through its Performa platform.

Black, 55, says there is nothing fluffy about it. He claims to use only scientifically proven techniques and methodologies – meaning, in basic terms, that everything in its programmes has been shown to have a lasting effect on behaviour.

And, however disconcerting it can be when an analysis is sprung on you personally, he insists it can help individuals to reach their full potential at work, improve companies and even boost the economy.

Bold claims indeed.

His belief is that the UK’s productivity crisis could be eased by tapping into psychology and giving managers better training.

Since the financial crash in 2008, the amount of output per worker in the UK has been low compared with countries such as the US, France and Germany. One of the keys to reversing this, according to Black, is to nurture that neglected and much-mocked group of people – middle management.

‘Leaders are always complaining about middle managers,’ he says.

‘So the way we’re going to transform productivity is by transforming management. We do that by setting people up to succeed. We start by giving them the psychological toolbox, which tells them how to organise and motivate people to do work in a way that is most productive.’ But the top brass isn’t left out.

In the summer of 2022, Burberry put 80 directors through a series of workshops, networking events and six months of one-to-one virtual coaching, covering topics such as improving communication and how to defuse tensions within a team.

Black is relentlessly positive. When asked about his favourite psychological technique, he talks about ‘descriptive praise’, by which he means giving specific examples of good performance instead of generalised flattery.

‘Rather than telling someone you’re amazing, or lazy, or brilliant, you tell them what you notice,’ he says. ‘So, with my daughter, I might say, ‘I notice you’ve been revising.’ ‘

Which is all very well, but does it work on a corporate level?

To the sceptics, Black says simply: ‘We know it works. Five million people have gone through a Mind Gym programme, so we have a pretty decent sample size.’

It might all sound quite touchy-feely, but his views have brought him into conflict with the liberal left orthodoxy. He doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of unconscious bias training, which tries to stop people from discriminating against others without realising.

He has also been an outspoken critic of full-time home working. ‘The science is really compelling. We’re all better off when we’re in the office,’ he says, adding that seeing a variety of people has a ‘profound impact’ and is ‘very good for mental health’.

He is also a critic of the wellbeing industry in its current form. The odd meditation or yoga session is not, he says, the way to obtain greater productivity from frazzled employees. ‘We’re spending an enormous amount on wellbeing meditation apps and fresh fruit, yoga, whatever, and there is no impact.’

Instead, he argues, employees need to feel secure about their job, like they belong in their team and that their work matters.

Black says that in the course of his career, psychology has gone from a fringe social science to one with a mainstream following.

‘I remember talking to a prospective client when we were setting up the company 23 years ago. He said, ‘I’m a Gemini, what does that tell you?’ They couldn’t tell psychology from astrology,’ he says.

‘It was really at that level in those days. Psychology was a kind of weird thing in the corner. That has completely changed. It has gone from completely off-stage to centre-stage.’

However, not everyone is convinced. Sales at Mind Gym rose 13 per cent to £55 million in the year to March, driven by a large contract with an international energy company. Mind Gym made a profit of £2.9 million, up from a loss of £482,000 the year before.

But the share price has yet to make headway. When the company was listed on AIM in 2018, it was worth £145 million, but shares have sunk since then and it is now worth just £45 million. Its value is down by 49 per cent this year alone.

Mind Gym measures the amount of money that companies are estimated to have made as a result of its services, though this is not made public. But perhaps one reason the City may take more convincing about the firm is that coaching is still seen as an intangible service whose benefits are difficult to measure – and it could be the first thing to go if a firm cuts spending.

Black and his wife, libel barrister Joanne Cash, own the majority of the business, with a 55.6 per cent stake worth £25 million.

As well as receiving a CBE for services for entrepreneurship in the New Year’s Honours List, he has written four best-selling books. He is also incredibly well connected.

After Eton – where his contemporaries included former prime ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson – he studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford.

He remains close friends with the Camerons, as well as Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.

How would he describe his own psychological make-up?

An out-and-out extrovert, he says. When he undertook the Myers-Briggs test for personality type, he came out as a ‘debater’, quick witted, audacious and unafraid to challenge the status quo.

Myers-Briggs has largely been debunked as pseudoscience, and even Black is sceptical of this type of personality testing.

Last year, Mind Gym bought a system called 10X, which he claims offers the world’s most advanced psychometric analysis and is used in their online coaching.

While we discuss his own view of the world, such as his motivational style, he brings up Sex And The City characters. Black says he is most like the lead character, Carrie. It’s an odd comparison, considering she is a perennial singleton with a chaotic love life and an addiction to expensive shoes.

He explains that the other three characters each demonstrate the three major ‘wants’ – achievements, feeling support, and being analytical and wanting things done properly. Carrie, he explains, is a bit of everything, a ‘hub’.

When another TV show, Succession, comes up in the conversation, he says he sees it as a study in children’s different responses to abusive parenting. But isn’t it exhausting to analyse absolutely everything and everyone, every minute of the day? What does he do to hit the off-switch?

He thinks for a moment, before saying: ‘I have quite long walks. I find that really helpful to think; I need to move.

‘And there might be a dog or car passing by or whatever. There’s trees blowing in the wind, so there’s just enough stimulation to not distract me, but it’s energising.’