Michelle Hill, CEO, TLC: Talk, Listen, Change

My name is Michelle Hill. I'm the group chief executive of TLC: Talk, Listen, Change. We're a relationship charity based in the UK, and one of the services we deliver is counseling therapy. 

The problem we had was that although TLC overall was in surplus, our counseling service was in deficit. We had an increasing amount of complexity and demand, but a reduction in income to cover that. The decision that we made was to create a profit-with-purpose commercial subsidiary. The challenge we faced was: how do we involve the team in making the decision and understanding the need for change? And then, what did we do culturally to enable that to work in the organization?

The first step in the process was naming the problem and making sure the team had a clear understanding of the problem and the case for change, that is, the fact that we needed to do something. The next stage was an options appraisal, which involved looking at different possibilities and weighing the positives and negatives of each one to determine what are the options that are available for us. A commercial subsidiary wasn't on the table in that first draft of the options appraisal, and it emerged over time. The options appraisal process was very much led by the team, who worked on it individually first. Then it became an iterative process with a shared document that everyone contributed to. We held deep-dive sessions where we discussed our views on the different options, sector trends, and how we could see this playing out. 

We had some team members who were really unsure of some of the options, and certainly the commercial a subsidiary option. So one of the things we did was ask those team members to go out and do external market research, competitor analysis, and pricing analysis, to help shape the idea. By the time we had a preferred option to be presented back to the board, it wasn’t just my idea - it was owned by the whole team.

My reflection on the process is that it involved a series of trade-offs. The process was slower working collaboratively, but it led to a much stronger outcome. As a result, we launched our first commercial profit-with-purpose subsidiary in May 2024. We are now well on the way to making our first profit, which will return to TLC as unrestricted income. The result has been fantastic and has achieved exactly what we wanted.

Key takeaways

• Get your team on board by starting with why change is needed.

• Involve them in shaping the revenue idea so it becomes their solution, not just yours.

• Be willing to go slower. Collaboration leads to stronger, more supported outcomes.