Welcome back to our “Grown, Not Born” leadership series, where we dive into the experiences and insights of top-tier managers and remarkable leaders. In this edition, we’re thrilled to speak with Tom Davenport, Managing Director at Alvius, a technology partner to some of the UK's leading recruitment and staffing organizations.

Tom’s journey is as diverse as it is impactful. Over the past decade, he has co-founded organizations that directly employed over 50 individuals, facilitated employment for more than 1,000 others, and secured multi-year contracts with corporations and UK government bodies. Beyond business, Tom has served in the British armed forces, and served as a trustee for an inner-city youth club, making a meaningful impact across sectors.

Sarah: Tom, thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Tell me about your first few months as a manager. What did you find most challenging?

Tom: Early on, I made the mistake of treating our small company like a large corporation. I had come from a big firm with structured people management, check-ins, promotion timelines, and so on. But in a small business, we didn’t have the infrastructure to support that level of formality, and it wasn’t the right cultural fit either.

‍

I learned quickly that you can’t just transfer big company practices into a startup. It’s a common mistake, especially in people management, and it was an important lesson for me.

‍

I learned quickly that you can’t just transfer big company practices into a startup.

‍

Sarah: I get that as I had the same experience! Can you share a significant learning experience from a mistake or failure as a manager?

Tom: Absolutely. For a long time, I was obsessed with retention. I saw it as the ultimate marker of success, and I was really proud of our high retention rates. But I eventually realized that retention on its own isn't a true outcome. It only matters when it serves another commercial goal.

A bit of churn can actually be good—it keeps people energized, shifts the culture, and opens gaps- to reveal challenges and opportunities.

I spent way too much time focusing on retention when it wasn’t necessary. I should have embraced a little bit of turnover instead of treating it like a be all and end all. In almost every case, we’ve found that a shakeup was positive for the team.

‍‍‍

Sarah: That’s a great insight. So how do you assess performance within your team now?

‍Tom: We have a review process, but because we’re a small team—just 15 people—it's informal. We don’t yet need a formal structure to evaluate performance. We all know each other well, and we can observe performance through day-to-day interactions, client feedback, and output.

‍

For a company of our size, this hands-on approach works much better than over-engineering a formal system.

‍

We can observe performance through day-to-day interactions, client feedback, and output.

Sarah: Remote and hybrid work has posed challenges for many leaders. How have you addressed those within your team?

Tom: This is definitely an important topic, and we’ve spent a lot of time finding the right balance. We've settled on fixed office days, typically on Mondays, where everyone has to be in. From there, people can choose to work from wherever they like. We don't have a permanent office, but we’re members of WeWork, so our team has flexibility.

The key challenge with remote work is finding the right balance between flexibility and structure. Flexibility is great, but too much of it can lead to confusion and even resentment. That’s why we’re very clear about boundaries. For example, we don’t offer unlimited holidays because we believe it can actually be distressing for employees—it creates ambiguity. So, we set clear holiday allowances, which gives our team clarity and ensures they can plan their lives without stress.

It works well largely because we are very, very product and tech focused as a team.

‍

‍

Flexibility is great, but too much of it can lead to confusion and even resentment. or me, it’s important to acknowledge emotions and be conscious of how they affect the people I work with

Sarah: Speaking of balance, how do you handle the needs of individual team members versus the needs of the team as a whole?

Tom: That’s always a big challenge and a huge subject. When it comes to day-to-day work, the needs of the team—and by extension, the company—always come first. Everyone is working toward the same business goals and there is a clear awareness of collective efforts that will help us get there. But when personal issues arise—things like family, health, or well-being—those take priority.

I’m comfortable pushing my team hard when necessary, but if something personal comes up, that always takes precedence. I think having that boundary in place makes for a healthy, happy team. They know I’ll push them when needed, but there’s a clear limit, and their personal well-being always wins out when it matters most.

‍

I’m comfortable pushing my team hard when necessary, but if something personal comes up, that always takes precedence.

Sarah: Let’s talk about alignment. How do you ensure that your team’s work aligns with the broader goals of the organization?

Tom: That’s tricky and tough. It requires communication and realignment. You just need to be constantly reassessing, constantly checking, asking, recalibrating. We currently do this without having yet adopted a formal framework.

We regularly talk about our strategy, priorities, and what matters—and just as importantly, what doesn’t matter. Simply listing what’s important isn’t always helpful, so we also define what can be deprioritized if things get busy. It’s messy, but it works.

‍

Sarah: When everything seems urgent, how do you prioritize tasks?

Tom: It’s about defining what’s not urgent. We’ve learned this from working with clients who often come to us with a long list of “urgent” tasks. If everything’s urgent, nothing is. So, we’ve gotten good at helping them—and ourselves—clarify what can be deprioritized. Communication is key here. We share our task lists as a team, and just talking through them helps everyone see the bigger picture and focus on what truly matters.

We have a fortnightly meeting where we go through every major project and mark its priority, timeline, and urgency. We will all sit down in a room and write on a whiteboard, every single significant project that anyone is working on and assess them openly and this helps it give structure.

‍

Sarah: It sounds like keeping an open culture is crucial for you. How do you recognize and address signs of stress or burnout in yourself and your team?

Tom: Honestly, we keep it simple. We’ve built an open, candid culture where if someone is stressed or burned out, they feel comfortable speaking up. That openness is key. We don’t have a formal system to track burnout, but I believe our culture of communication does a pretty good job of surfacing those issues before they become serious.

‍

Sarah: In the next 12 months, what manager-related goal do you want to achieve? This could also be a development area that you want to work on.

Tom: I’m focused on really understanding why each person in the company is here—what drives them, what keeps them motivated. I’ve been asking, "Why are you here? What matters to you?" I don’t mind if the answer is career growth, flexibility, low stress, or even money. What’s important is getting an honest answer so we can structure the team in the best way.

My goal is to dig deeper and genuinely know what motivates everyone, so we can align the company to their needs.

‍

"Why are you here? What matters to you?" I don’t mind if the answer is career growth, flexibility, low stress, or even money. What’s important is getting an honest answer so we can structure the team in the best way.

‍

Sarah: In your experience, are there any tools or technologies that have been essential in managing your team?

Tom: Communication tools are the most essential. We use Slack and Discord, but Discord has been a game changer for us. We’ve set it up like a virtual office with central “rooms” and meeting spaces. It’s like we’re in an office together, but it’s all virtual, so we can drop in and out of conversations as needed without interrupting anyone. Besides that, the usual suspects—Google Suite and so on—do the job well enough.

‍

Sarah: Are there any tools you wish you had access to or you wish existed?

Tom: I’d love a simple, affordable platform for logging feedback—something easier and more repeatable than Google Sheets. Ideally, it would use AI or transcription to log calls automatically. I've found that manual note-taking and action tracking are hard to maintain over time.

‍

Sarah: Finally, Tom, if you had to compare your management style to an animal, what would it be?

Tom: I’d say a warthog. It’s always there, present, and sometimes noisy. But when it needs to, it gets its head down and charges forward with great determination. That’s how I see my management style—persistent and focused when it matters most.

‍

Sarah: That’s a memorable analogy! Thank you for your time, Tom and for reminding us that while metrics like retention are important, they should always serve a bigger purpose.