Drugs. Crime. Rehab. Management

Words / Stuart Rock

“There’s nothing I can do about the damage I caused in the past,” says entrepreneur Tobyn Brooks. “But I can share my story”

Images / Will Amlot

It’s September 1992. Socially uncomfortable and anxious, a 13-year-old boy starts to take drugs. He soon slips down the path of addiction. He drops out of school before taking any exams. Unaware of what he is doing to himself and thoughtless about the future, his life swiftly spirals out of control. And it remains out of control for more than 15 years. Scarred by drug addiction, he lives on the streets, gets involved in crime and causes deep hurt to his family.

He’s nearly 30 when he returns to his mother’s home in Didcot, Oxfordshire. He’s in pitiful physical condition; in and out of hospital with huge bandages on his legs, struggling to walk because of the damage inflicted on his vascular system.

Today, the 42-year-old Tobyn Brooks reflects deeply about that past chaotic life – and the lessons it has taught him about management.

Because today Brooks is running a specialist garage business based in Didcot with turnover in excess of £4m. He employs nearly 40 people. Not only that, he has just started an Executive MBA at Oxford Brookes University.

“I saw and felt that I was a detractor from society, and that was the catalyst for realising that I had to care about myself,” he says. “Taking care of yourself in order to be able to take care of others is one of the greatest lessons that I learned through my addiction. That is fully transferable to running my business. You must take time out from constantly being on the phone or email because when you do interact with people, whether you’re coaching your staff or meeting with customers, you can genuinely apply your very best wisdom and energy. It’s really important to the way I think about management.”

Brooks’ impressive story of rehabilitation through entrepreneurship began – after he had returned to his mother’s home – with selling car parts on eBay. Importantly, having his own venture gave him back a degree of control in his life.

Then he discovered the idea of buying cars in online auctions, shipping them to the UK and doing them up before selling them on. That led him to focus on the Nissan Figaro, the cute retro car of which only 20,000 were made and which was never intended for sale in the UK.

Providing maintenance and repairs to Figaro owners has proved to be a valuable niche for Brooks. As Nissan ceased making a given part for the Figaro,

Brooks’ company – The Figaro Shop – would step in to make the parts in small production runs. The Figaro Shop soon became a trusted source of information for the Figaro community across the UK.

To begin with, Brooks had two parking spaces in a tiny slot on an industrial estate in Didcot; within a couple of years the two parking spaces were still there but so were another 30-plus cars, in various states of assembly. And The Figaro Shop had a 14-month waiting list. Sheer obsessiveness got him a long way.

But there were no processes and systems in place. “My management skills were non-existent,” he says. “I had enjoyed doing it, but it wasn’t making any money and the business that I had pushed so hard to get moving was now chasing me.

“I didn’t understand the improvements and huge steps forward we could make with a good management structure in place. My ignorance meant that I just kept focusing on how to build a better product and how to sell more.”

Deteriorating health eventually forced his hand. The “pain and struggle and worry that resulted from the lack of management of the business” coincided with the need for major surgery. Brooks was out of action for several months. Battered by years of injecting drugs, it was touch-and-go whether he would need an amputation.

In stepped Danny Smith. While Brooks was recovering, the former business manager at McDonald’s brought in structure, organisation and routine. By the time Brooks was fit enough to return, his business was also fit enough to grow and be profitable. He and Smith are now joint owners.

The business is expanding on severalfronts. It has acquired Best Autocentres, a small chain of garages in Hampshire. Then there’s “ecological repair”, which involves the electrification of classic cars, as well as using recycled materials instead of leather in refurbishment. This is a business with rehabilitation at its core, so Brooks is deeply and passionately committed to training, second chances, and personal growth.

“It’s important to give other people a chance,” he says. “The automotive industry has brought me success and happiness and a feeling of belonging, of being able to contribute. And I want to help other people be able to do that.”

But finding and developing talent is a real challenge. “We hire based on attitude and then teach people. It’s much more successful if you hire people who will fit with your culture and have the mindset that will help them get further – and then worry about the skills.” One source of recruitment has been the Army; the company is a signatory to the Armed Forces Covenant, a pledge from the UK to military personnel that they will be treated fairly. What sets military people apart, says Brooks, is “their appetite to learn.”

This is the vital spark, he explains. That aspiration to learn is what opens up management and leadership positions to all.

“Somebody once told me that he didn’t think he’d worked long enough to move up to be an assistant manager – but we don’t live in a world where you have to wait. We live in the knowledge era, where you can be smart enough to study and read and learn and step into being a manager. I don’t think everybody knows that.

“People fall and get stuck – not necessarily in the way I did – and don’t see any room for growth or that the opportunities are out there.” He says this is particularly noticeable in his industry. “Not everybody expects career progression. As their new boss, I’m asking people about their goals and career progression expectations and aspirations – and I find that they have never been asked that before.”

Self-doubt is still a formidable enemy. “One of the toughest things when you’re trying to learn as a small business owner is knowing how to find the right help. You can end up thinking that you’re not good enough to receive help. You ask yourself, ‘Why would I be of interest?’”

After a conversation about an MBA piqued Brooks’ interest, he realised that “I didn’t know how tospell university”. So he finally went back to education, starting with Mad Libs for Kids, the short educational books for children. Now he’s beginning his Executive MBA in earnest. At least in part, it’s proving to him that it’s possible to move in whichever direction you like – and that’s a message he wants to spread.

Telling his own personal story to fellow students on the programme will also be important. Brooks is keen to explore how to use his own experience to help others who have faced personal challenges. “There’s nothing I can do about the damage that I caused in the past,” he says. “But one of the best things I can do is to share my story.”