David Liddle FRSA MBA

FOUNDER, CEO & CHIEF CONSULTANT
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What people say

I worked with David to introduce an in-house mediation team within Royal Mail. David was extremely professional and helped from inception to completion. I would highly recommend him and his team.
Jane Fairhurst, Head of Employee and Industrial Relations at Royal Mail
We are delighted to have had David as a speaker for our webinar series. He is a highly enthusiastic speaker who brings real passion and commitment. It was an engaging presentation and extremely well received by delegates.
Jane Nicholson-Biss Stakeholder Engagement Manager, The Institute of Leadership & Management
Had been impressed with a talk from David on achieving the benefits of ‘positive conflict’ so invited him / TCM to facilitate a process to optimise our Executive team-working. Really worked well: the power of professional external facilitation allowed us all to take more risk and confront issues in a more open way. Now have a great framework – both individual and team – for taking the team to an even better level of interaction: critical given the pressures we are facing in our business sector. And it was fun too!
Robert Longley-Cook Chief Executive at Hft
It’s very rare to come across someone who is quite so passionate about their area of expertise. David (and the whole TCM team) have been extremely professional, knowledgeable, supportive and not to mention a little patient as we work to implement our mediation scheme in TSB. But that’s not the half of it. What is really striking is David’s absolute belief and commitment that there is a better, more human, way of resolving conflict that benefits everyone from the impacted people to the wider business – it’s completely inspiring and wherever I go in my career from this point, the resolution of conflict is something I will focus on in a way that I never would have in the past. It’s been a pleasure to work with David and the TCM team and I hope that opportunity will crop up again in the future. His book is an excellent read as well.
Jonathan Goodger Senior Employee Relations Manager, TSB

About David Liddle FRSA MBA

David is the founder, CEO and chief consultant at The TCM Group. He is also the founding president of the People and Culture Association (PCA).

David is author of two best seeing texts. His first book, published in 2017, is entitled: ‘MANAGING CONFLICT: a practical guide to resolution in the workplace’ (Kogan Page/CIPD). His second book, ‘TRANSFORMATIONAL CULTURE: develop a person centred organization for improved performance‘ was shortlisted as 2022 Business Book of the Year. David is currently working on a new text for the Economist entitled ‘How to Disagree Well’ and the 2nd Edition of Managing Conflict is due to be published in Autumn 2023.

David has also contributed to three highly acclaimed texts: PERPETUAL TRANSFORMATION: Practical Tools, Inspiration and Best Practice to Constantly Transform Your World, BUILDING RESILIENT ORGANIZATIONS: Best practices, tools and insights to thrive in ever-changing contexts and CERTAIN UNCERTAINTY: leading with agility and resilience in an unpredictable world

Originating from Nottingham in the East Midlands, David has extensive experience of cultural transformation, conflict resolution and leadership development. In the early nineties, David established Leicestershire Mediation Service – one of the first community mediation and restorative justice (RJ) schemes in the UK. David ran the service for eight years and in that time he established the Conflict Resolution in Schools Programme (CRISP), was a founding member of the Midlands Mediation Network and he pioneered the use of restorative justice to tackle youth offending. He was also active in numerous mediation, RJ, and community regeneration programmes across the UK.

In 2001, David established The TCM Group – Putting People First™. His vision for TCM was, and still is, to help organisations to develop purpose driven, values based and person centred cultures- transformational cultures. For the past two decades, David has been at the forefront of conflict resolution and change management, HR transformation, employee relations and leadership best practice. In 2021, David was recognised as one of the global top 20 HR most influential thinkers and in 2022, he was invited to join the prestigious Thinkers50 Radar.

David has built a world class team of consultants and a head office team who work with numerous household names to develop and integrate fair, just, inclusive, sustainable and high performing systems, cultures and leadership practices. David was awarded his MBA with distinction after studying the use of mediation and ADR within three large organisations.

David tells people that he is a mediator through and through. However, he goes on to explain that the principles of mediation are so universally valuable (dialogue, compassion, empathy, respect, courage, trust and tolerance), that he has learned how to adapt them and to shape them so that they are relevant, not just for resolving a conflict, but in virtually every area of the modern workplace and indeed across our society.

Some of David’s recent assignments have included:

  • Supporting the integration of his award wining Resolution Framework™ in numerous organisations as varied as Lloyds Banking Group, TSB, Aviva, Capgemini, AIG, HSBC, Next PLC, Burberry, Nationwide BS, NHSBT, MaPS, Woodgreen animal charity, Oxfam, and numerous NHS trust, councils, universities and other public, private and not for profit organisations.
  • Setting up inhouse mediation schemes for HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Royal Mail, Network Rail, The Metropolitan Police, Aviva, DWP, BA and many others.
  • Embedding a values based culture within the British Retail Consortium.
  • Training over 100 NHS managers and clinicians across the East of England for NHSE&I
  • Designing and delivering a number of workshops and courses for senior managers and the global HR Team at Capgemini
  • Undertaking successful mediations for a wide array of organisations.
  • Speaking at various conferences and events.

David has created the FAIR Model™ which is the benchmark mediation and investigations model in use in workplaces across the UK. He has designed the Transformational Culture Model™, The Employee Experience Equation™, The Culture Flow System™ and the INSIGHT – CHANGE Model™ to help managers and leaders to secure better outcomes from change programmes and transformation initiatives.  in 2013, frustrated with the corrosive and damaging systems for addressing issues in the workplace, David launched his innovative Resolution Framework™ which numerous  organisations have now adopted to replace their outdated discipline and grievance procedures.

David has created a highly effective ecosystem within TCM comprising a unique portfolio of brands, each of which has its own website and full time co-ordinator: The Mediation Company™, The Investigation Company™, Engage Leadership™, Engage Coaching™, Resolution Framework™, People and Culture, Total Conflict Management™ and The People and Culture Association (PCA). This ecosystem draws from the very latest thinking in cultural transformation, digital transformation and customer experience.

David is a father of three beautiful children and, when he is not mediating or writing, he enjoys cycling and a spot of amateur dramatics. His latest role was Jeeves in PG Wodehouse’s ‘Carry on Jeeves’.

At a Glance

Areas covered
  • United Kingdom
  • Global
  • EMEA
  • APAC
David specialises in:
Qualifications and Awards