Tom Venning
Developing leaders to navigate complex human systems
Tom Venning
Developing leaders to navigate complex human systems
Through leadership development, facilitation and coaching, I support people to build trust, navigate uncertainty, work across boundaries and turn insight into action.
My Vision of Leadership
I believe in leadership...
A leader's purpose in society
A leader's purpose in society
I believe strongly in leadership because it is one of the most important competencies for creating a more humane world and a healthy environment. Everything I do as a leadership trainer, moderator and coach is designed for that purpose.
A leader's purpose in society
A leader's purpose in society
A leader's purpose in society
I strongly believe that business leaders set a precedent and act as role models. Good leaders positively influence the lives of the people around them. They raise employees’ standards and expectations about what's normal business behaviour. In turn, employees carry those expectations and role models back into their communities and families. I believe this network effect has a broad, positive impact on society.
Leaders serve followers
A leader's purpose in society
Leaders shape organisations
Supportive leaders are excellent listeners, communicators and coaches. They help people to understand themselves, develop mastery, and be fulfilled and inspired when working towards great ideas. Leaders help people see their contribution to the bigger picture and gain more from being part of a healthy community. They develop individual and systemic resilience to help everyone feel comfortable and empowered in challenging environments.
Leaders shape organisations
Leaders shape organisations
Leaders shape organisations
Leaders shape organisations with purpose, values and vision. They nurture organisational agility, ambidexterity and learning by enabling fluid collaboration, experimentation and empowerment. Leaders create systems that are fast, effective, resilient and successful in a rapidly evolving, complex and unpredictable world.
Leadership competencies
Leaders shape organisations
Leadership competencies
I believe that good leaders are driven by curiosity and the desire to shape things larger than themselves. To do so they are self-reflective, authentic and honest. They thrive on self-development through open feedback, experimentation and an adaptive mindset.
My role
Leaders shape organisations
Leadership competencies
I'm a very small part of a very large system. I'm very happy and honoured to play my role in enabling leaders, at all hierarchical levels, to work towards their full potential and contribute to a more effective and humane world.
What I do...
How do you navigate when there is no obvious route?
Retrospective - When success becomes risk
An industrial business made an early bet on an emerging technology. At first, the company stayed flexible, tested ideas rapidly and worked in an agile, experimental way. When demand accelerated, confidence grew. Forecasts looked strong, production was expanded, and the organisation shifted from exploration to exploitation. Then an international competitor entered with disruptive technology. Demand fell sharply, and the systems built for growth became a source of risk and unsustainable cost.
I was invited to support the lessons-learned process with 40 senior managers across six face-to-face, two-day sessions. Working closely with the CEO, I used visualisation, storytelling and facilitated discussion to help the group understand what had happened beneath the surface. Although the experience had been painful, we took a positive view of learning, not only looking at mistakes, but also at the strengths in their earlier decision-making. This shifted the conversation from blame to insight.
The outcome was a deeper shared understanding of complexity, when to rely on planning and expertise, when to stay flexible and experimental, and how to balance both. The sessions helped leaders build an organisation that sense change earlier, learns faster and keeps more options open.
Winning lost sales
In complex B2B sales, opportunities are often lost not because of price or technology, but because of damaged trust and hidden forces in the decision-making system. Across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, I supported sales teams when a major opportunity was in danger of being lost.
I worked with account teams in two-day sessions, with a diverse group of experts, hierarchies and, where possible, a trusted customer representative. My role was to help the team build a wider and deeper view of the situation; of relationships, limiting paradigms, winning strategies & actions etc. I used visualisation, storytelling and structured challenge to help the team find new points of leverage.
The outcomes were mixed, as these situations begin from a weak position. But in some cases, the team found the critical insight, relationship or argument that reopened the customer conversation and changed the direction of the opportunity. The value was also in helping diverse teams share, think clearly, challenge assumptions and find a responsible way forward in difficult, politically sensitive environments.
Coaching to Win
A manager was leading an international electric go-kart racing team, moving around 60 karts, equipment and charging infrastructure between events across Europe and beyond. He brought an unusual mix of strengths; lifelong racing experience, driver coaching, and a background in safety and quality in the pharmaceutical industry. But the role was complex. He had to build a high-performing event team, connect passionate racing specialists with a more conventional corporate organisation, and help a petrol-driven industry understand the performance and potential of electric racing.
I worked with him as a coach. The focus was to move him from being essential in every operational detail to building systems, routines and leadership capability inside the team. We worked on delegation, decision-making, team responsibility, internal politics and how to bridge the gap between the energy of the racing world and the risk-averse company behind it.
The outcome was a more independent and professional team, stronger links between the racing operation and the wider organisation, and greater confidence in promoting electric go-karting to a traditional market. The value of the coaching was not in providing ready-made answers, but in helping the manager create the structures, relationships and leadership space needed for a complex operation to grow.
Work Experience
Specialised in
International Experience
International Experience
I am a business trainer, meeting moderator and coach specialized in B2B Sales, Leadership and Change. This special experience comes from over 30 years of working globally with technology driven multinationals.
International Experience
International Experience
International Experience
My international business experience and interest in different cultures started from birth and developed as I moved around the world, living in eight countries and traveling & working extensively on five continents and sailing many seas.
Industry Experience
International Experience
Industry Experience
I've worked mainly in Information Technology, Pharmaceuticals, Consumer goods, Industrial machinery and Logistics.
My major clients have included IBM, Astellas, Henkel, BASF, Kuehne+Nagel, TGW, Miba, Rosenbauer, Fronius, etc.
Working Style
Outside of Business
Industry Experience
My working style is energetic, enthusiastic, entertaining and very active. While being an excellent presenter, my interventions into sales teams and leadership cultures are never frontal lectures. Instead they are based strongly on group involvement, rich visual and holistic experiences, actionable results and a lot of fun.
Languages I speak
Outside of Business
Outside of Business
I'm a native English speaker who has always lived and worked with non-native English speakers ... so my English is clear and easy to understand. I'm also fluent in German... so I know what it is like to live and work in a foreign language.
Outside of Business
Outside of Business
Outside of Business
Outside of business, I once had an art career exhibiting across Europe and USA … now I’m an artist, a dedicated family man, active in sport, a sailor (I’ve built my own yacht) and always ready for travel and adventure.
Visually Rich
My training, facilitation and coaching is special because its visual, business focused and pragmatic. Visualisation helps people get an overview of complex problems. This helps them see connections, challenge their own perspective, plan and lead more effectively.
I spent 15 years as an artist, specialising in graphically correct ink paintings of humans and other animals. This practice sharpened my observation skills, attention to detail, as part of the big picture, and the ability to construct and work with complex images in my mind, before transferring them to paper. I deliberately applied this thinking style to business in order to communicate more effectively, and to benefit individuals and teams by helping them develop and use the same skill.
Tom's art
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Why have I used imagery of stars, oceans and deserts?
When I was 19, I sailed across the Atlantic for the first time as part of a crew of four.
One night, almost in the middle of the ocean, I was on watch alone. There was no wind, the sea was glassy, and above me was an enormous sprawl of stars. Beneath me were 11 kilometres of water. The nearest land was thousands of kilometres away. Galaxies stretched overhead. And there I was, bobbing around in a tiny boat.
I felt completely insignificant, and at the same time, fundamentally alive. I was the one having the experience. Laughing, howling, wide awake inside the enormity of it all.
Since then, as a sailor, captain and explorer, I have found that same feeling in storms and calms, on coastlines, in deserts, and under huge night skies: awe at the scale, beauty and power of nature, and a deep sense that even a tiny human presence still matters.
That is why these images belong in my work. Leadership happens inside vast, complex, human systems. Each of us is a small part of something much larger, and still, what we do matters.
