PROFILE
Doing the Right Thing
Sheila Manchester meets Ivor Dickinson, MD, Douglas & Gordon, who wants to kill all negative people.
I
vor Dickinson is MD of Douglas and Gordon, one of London’s top independent agencies, covering large tranches of London, with 15 branches and 200 staff. Seated in his elegant Warwick Square office, this former
Coldstream Guard, record shop owner and interior designer, Ivor doesn’t strike you as a victim, but he insists that he is. “I’ve always done the Right Thing,” he
says, “And sometimes I wish I wasn’t so obsessed with it.” He sounds injured and says he is frustrated, because, in following the D & G mission statement – “To be the most trusted and successful estate agency in London...” – he has sometimes lost out
Kill All NegAtive PeoPle!
Douglas & Gordon have for the past three years given over their Harrington Road office in South Kensington to up and coming artists because of its prominent location. The two most recent installations
have been a beautiful interpretation of the famous blue plaques in the surrounding area by Shaz Madani and most recently, a series of dinosaur themed windows by Jake Blanchard. In the words of Monty Python “and
now for something completely different!”, the entire premises have been painted in D&G blue from top to bottom and thousands of metallic circles have been stuck to the outside. On close examination, they don’t really make sense, apart from being rather intriguing. However, viewed from a distance, suddenly it all makes sense. The
silver spell out the slightly inflammatory words “Kill All Negative People”! Ivor Dickinson says, “At this year’s D&G
Spring Conference, our guest speaker was Tim Smit OBE who masterminded the Eden Project. Tim’s talk was incredibly inspiring but there were four words which all of us at D&G really took to our hearts and that is when Tim said that his mantra at the Eden Project was “Kill All Negative People”. I so empathised with this statement because
let’s face it, there is no room for negativity in this world that we live in, that I decided to adopt it at D&G. I went to watch the installation and was thrilled by the public’s reaction. As I envisaged, their immediate response is to try and work out what is going on with all the silver discs. They realise that perhaps it’s spelling out a phrase but can’t quite work out what it is. I watched people stepping back and eventually crossing the road and voila, all is revealed. This is normally followed by a snigger or cries of “right on” or “yeah”. Perfect – a message which seems to strike a chord and an intriguing piece of art to amuse the people of South Kensington”. Sadly, this might be D&G’s last
installation at Harrington Road as they plan to open a letting office there in the New Year.
to those who don’t have such high standards or scruples. Any scruples at all, come to that. Why, I asked, is it the holy grail for estate
agents to believe that they are trusted? Why do you even need that as a mission statement, surely people will trust agents if they provide a good service? “Yes but so many simply do not provide a good service and it is fair that estate agents generally are not trusted. And with good reason!” “We comply with all the legislation, we
are members of everything a professional agent should be; RICS, NAEA, ARLA, ARMA, TPO. We are OFT registered and have achieved Investors in People.
42 NOVEMBER 2010 PROPERTYdrum
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