From striving to achieve, to learning how to listen, inquire, and see the world anew—Paul Argyle, Founder of Flight Directors, the UK’s leading independent Airline GSA and fast growing Online Flight retailer, Alternative Airlines, reflects on how the Doctorate in Organizational Change (DOC) reshaped his thinking.

What changed for you during the Doctorate in Organizational Change program?

I can only compare my experience with the personal growth I experienced as an undergraduate, when I learned to learn for myself and experience the world around me as an adult. The DOC encouraged me to see relationships, the world around me, and myself in ways that had previously been hidden or outside my frame of thinking. A wonderful, painful, living process.

One year on from graduation, what’s new?

I now feel so much freer to encounter worlds which I am not yet part of. Always in a positive way looking for opportunities to challenge the assumptions I bring to the situation, relationship, or encounter. Always looking to inquire, learn, and understand with the help of others.

How has the Doctorate in Organizational Change influenced the way you think or make decisions?

Massively: much more listening, much more patience, much enjoyment of participation and discussion.

What has the DOC helped you achieve that you couldn’t before?

I have let go of my previous need to always achieve and value much more the chance to be part of, rather than leading, or stepping back, from challenging discussions.

What’s been your biggest surprise about life after the DOC?

“Old dogs don’t learn new tricks” goes the saying. Well, actually, yes they do—and not just tricks, but a whole new way of seeing the world!

You recently shared a story with the cohort. Can you share it with us now?

“Six impossible things before breakfast.”

I stood there and smiled to myself.

I was in a small, Scottish seaside village and in the window of the blue-doored, antiques shop, where Maisie and myself had paused to look (me), and smell (her), there was an old-looking enamel sign which showed the figure of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, with the quote: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Tugging on her lead, I guided Maisie into the little store, with its crowded floor and over-flowing counters. In the warmest of North Scottish accents, a lady in wild plaid knitwear greeted me and, of course, quickly stooped to stroke Maisie. “May I have a look at the sign over there” I asked.

“The one with Alice on it?” She replied.

“Please,” I said.

Quickly checking the price ticket, I said, “Lovely, thank you, I’ll take it.”.

She smiled and started to wrap it, without saying anything more.

I filled the silence by adding: “It’s for a good friend, we’ve been studying together and she’s just completed her doctoral thesis, which featured Alice in Wonderland. It’s perfect for my graduation gift to her.”

She looked at me more closely and frowned: “You do know that it wasn’t Alice who said those words, don’t you?”

“Err, no, I didn’t” I replied, feeling confused, miffed at being confronted in this way, and slightly foolish for not being able to reply, “yes, of course.”

“It was the Queen of Hearts, in response to Alice saying that you couldn’t believe impossible things and noting that she thought that Alice probably hadn’t had much practice at trying”.

Ouch! I thought, I’m still missing so much in the way I see things. I must never stop challenging my assumptions or let my life return to just seeing things in black and white, thinking that I always knew better than others, as I once did. And, I knew, in a “sad but true” way, that I would now be forced to add a copy of Alice in Wonderland to my next Amazon order, just to check the quote, the accuracy of the shop-keeper’s statement, and the context of the conversation between Alice and the Queens of Hearts.

Fortunately, T. loved her present when subsequently I gave it to her on graduation day.

We had started together on a pre-DOC course for people who knew nothing about Action Research; had fallen randomly into the same study group on the first day of the real course, and supported each other through the many months of confusion which followed. I had seen her grow in so many ways. Emerging from a period of shyness, always clothed in black, to become a confident, almost strident (but gentle) feminist, mother of two, important NHS research director, whose paintings brilliantly illuminated the manuscript she presented as her final thesis. This was a rigorous and original piece of research, subsequently defended at a Viva that included a tea party, which she shared with her examiners.

I will stay friends with T. forever. I owe her and the five other wonderful women of my study group so much. It was their gentle, yet sustained, probing of my masculine lack of understanding that had opened my eyes to a world that I hadn’t seen before. I had learned to believe impossible things; to see things through their eyes; to listen for the silences that meant dissent, rather than consent and most of all to care about the impact that my words had on others in a way I had previously not perceived or believed necessary.

Maisie and I exited the shop without breaking any of the antiques and clutching the sign in a white paper bag. Closing the big blue door behind me, a sudden gust of wind rattled the paper and I could smell the salt in the sea air, I wonder what T. would say if she was asked to tell a friend who was considering doing the same programme? I thought.

And then I smiled to myself, because I sort of knew that I couldn’t know the answer.

Paul’s story is part of our “One Year On” series, featuring Hult doctoral graduates a year after graduation.

Our new cohort will be joining us soon! Find out more about how the Doctorate of Organizational Change at Ashridge drives real change.