I asked the panel of experts in my focus group interviews was ‘how can we make the intervention part of an eco-system of support? Here are their responses.
Encourage Collaboration
Business adviser Sharon pointed to the importance of building relationships to encourage collaboration. “ I think what we are talking about is an eco-system of business support and it has not evolved, it is static. It is about building and developing and maintaining those relationships and those partnerships and opportunities for joint working.”
She adds that sometimes joining forces with others is not easy. “ It can be a difficult thing for us to build bridges. We are not always great at celebrating other people’s success, are we traditionally? It is something we need to be. Maybe that is what will happen as people become more aware that we are far more than a single part and that by helping other people, this splashes back on their own areas.”
Encouraging Entrepreneurs to Support Each Other
Alex from an organisation providing government-funded support said that his organisation is asking businesses to support each other on a daily basis. “ We are asking businesses to support one another, we are asking them almost on a daily basis. In new projects, we are asking other team members to get involved and they are happy to do that. There is insightful stuff on LinkedIn that people are sharing that you would never have imagined them sharing, helping everyone to grow, not only being seen as ‘that person’, but really showing an interest in helping other people succeed.”
Finding New Ways of Working Together
Alex adds that finding new ways to work and collaborate is important. “ We have evolved different ways of working together, valuing contributions from others, collaborating, and technology has been one of the best examples. How we have all jumped into Zoom, how networking has evolved, business to business interaction and across the whole landscape, it is changing so quickly.”
There’s a Need to Move Away from Competition
Business adviser Sharon said that she sees entrepreneurs working together and sharing information now more than ever. “ It is interesting to go back to the “dog eat dog” world, 3-5 years ago. It was all ‘You have got to be aggressive, you have got to be tenacious, you have got to be all these things to be a top-tier business person,’ and you would think at the time of a pandemic it is going to be survival of the fittest and it is going to get nasty, and people are going to be fighting to achieve, to be top of the pile, and the opposite has happened. It’s the ‘be kind ‘mentality, the working together, sharing together that has really succeeded and I can see that. If you had asked me on paper what I predicted it would not have been that, it would be the other way round.”
Developing Communities Of Practice
For the intervention to be a worthwhile part of the eco-system of entrepreneurial support, it’s important to develop of communities of practice that include mentoring and training, said commercial trainer Graham.