Paul Bury, managing partner of Endeavour Partnership, commercial lawyers in Stockton

OPEN any management book and among the motivational speak and clichéd buzzwords you will find another phrase.

Pages and chapters will be devoted to delegation; the art of arranging and dividing individuals so a team exploits its full potency.

For some bosses, sharing responsibility is part of their mantra, others still like to feels hands-on in the business.

Paul Bury has no problems with either.

He knows all about allocating work, but he’s also familiar with getting his hands dirty.

Mr Bury is managing partner at business law firm Endeavour Partnership.

In fact, he is one of the Teesside company’s original founding partners.

But it’s not always been that way.

While a student, he embarked on a stint with Middlesbrough Council’s parks department.

Cutting grass and planting flowers, he remembers his time fondly and how it came as the town vied for Britain in Bloom success.

He said: “I enjoyed being with the parks department, but doing it made me realise I wanted to stay on at school and go to university.

“There was nothing wrong with the job, but it wasn’t for me.

“What it did do was give me a great insight into the people on Teesside and those I worked with I regarded as friends.

“I was cutting grass and planting wall flowers in fields that would eventually go into floral displays.

“At the time, Middlesbrough was really into Britain in Bloom and the parks department was one of the jewels in the council’s crown.”

But his studies were always the priority, and after finishing at university, he entered a different world of work.

After being offered a position in Sunderland, which he subsequently turned down, Mr Bury joined Middlesbrough’s Punch Robson.

Further spells in Newcastle and time at Meek Stubbs and Barnley followed, before he launched his own business.

But his biggest decision came a few years later.

After rejoining Punch Robson in the early 1990s, a move that lasted about eight years, Mr Bury, took the bold step of launching Endeavour, alongside three other founding partners who were with him at Punch.

Daunting, perhaps, but he has no regrets.

“Looking back, we all wish we had done it years before”, he said.

Mr Bury combines his role at Endeavour with the position of chairman at the Butterwick Hospice.

He calls it an honour and remembers with great affection the organisation’s founder, Mary Butterwick, whose funeral took place last Friday (October 9).

He added: “I was asked by former chairman Peter Riley if I was interested.

“How couldn’t I be?

“The hospice makes a big difference to people’s lives, and Mary was an amazing woman.

“She gave up her job and sold her house to start the hospice.

“It was a brave thing to do, most of us would not dream of doing it, but that was one of Mary’s special qualities.

“The people who work or volunteer at the hospice carry on that same spirit.

“It’s very humbling.”