John Peters came to the world’s attention in January 1991, when as a prisoner of war, his disfigured image became a potent symbol of Saddam Hussein’s ruthless aggression. He has written two best-selling books and the documentary, ‘Tornado Down’ was Independent Documentary of the Year and a BAFTA Award Nominee. He has an international reputation as a conference speaker and has followed Nelson Mandela and Heads of State on stage.
On leaving the RAF, he founded an international consultancy, providing business critical development, consulting and coaching through a leadership lens. Using his Gulf War, POW experience, international media exposure, an award-winning Human Factors strategy in highperformance aviation and 20 years’ consultancy business, John has coached business leaders and teams across 5 continents in public, private and government sectors. Human Factors examines the relationship between ergonomics, systems and human performance. The initiative introduced organisational peer learning by open sharing of failures to improve performance and reduce accident rate. He is an experienced Chair, NED and Trustee and runs numerous Executive MBA programmes globally for business schools as a Visiting Professor and has been Chair of the Association of MBAs, the international MBA goldstandard accreditation. His interest is in leaders’ approach to uncertainty, organisational learning, trust and failure.
Through his military and business career, coaching, philanthropy and extreme psychological and physical challenges that took him to the limits of his being, John has realised a deep sense of knowing that, with courage, each leader can become a better version of themselves whatever the pressures.
My life changed when as a POW my bruised and battered face flashed onto television screens around the world. My life story changed.
This experience made me realise that life is a conversation… stories, meetings, gossiping, coaching, arguing, debating, selling, leading, loving…life is a conversation. Our internal self-talk, our beliefs and our thinking is a conversation. To change, we must change our conversation: from fear to opportunity; from impossible to possible. Our conversations need to continually evolve.
So how do you generate a new conversation: an exciting, different dialogue? Conversations must go beyond the cliché to real performance conversations Research has proved that story telling is a key concept in human understanding and allows individuals to explore and exchange complex issues more easily.
All my work is dedicated to helping people be the best they can be; to allow people to understand what they do and, perhaps more importantly, explore what they want to ‘become’.