Reflections........

Yesterday's BECBC Member Meeting was themed on Collaboration, a word that is easily used but not so easily put into action! It provided me with lots of food for thought & I wanted to share some of those reflections with you and ask for your thoughts on some questions at the end.

Our first presentation was from Karen Jones and Laura Bland from Home to Work with Elizabeth Atkinson of Kaefer talking about a practical example of how collaboration was delivering benefits for organisations and our local community. The Good Lives Project in partnership with BEC is making a real difference to people's lives, some examples of which were shared during the presentation. There's still an opportunity to join in this collaboration and they shared a list of things companies can help with to drive the project forward. If you're interested please do reach out to them. They were honest about the barriers and delays they've faced, something that can often be glossed over when speaking about collaborations. I was struck that it's often individuals, and their passion, which makes organisational collaboration successful, something that was commented on in our second presentation.

Now if you've attended a BECBC member meeting in the last 18 months or so you'll know that my favourite part of the whole session is the Egg Timers. This is where members get 3 minutes to sell their business to fellow members and I do literally have an egg timer! Now I'm told I'm a hard task master because the second that last piece of sand falls I'm on my feet to stop the presenter but this is for a very important reason. People who've done these sessions reflect that it really helps them focus on what their key message is and helps their thinking in wider areas of their business. If you'd like to face the Egg Timer Challenge give me a shout, there are spaces from February on. This month we heard from one of our newest Members, though an old friend of the cluster from previous organisations, Emma-Jayne Gooch from Plain Purpose. In just 3 minutes she managed to explain why she moved from Sellafield to set up her own business, how her previous experience made this the right business for her and what her business could do for fellow members. Not bad going! She was followed by Pete Crouch from Circular1 Health who shared some shocking statistics on the cost to the economy of sickness levels in the UK and how they're looking to support businesses to combat that issue. If you want to know more about the pilot scheme they're offering to BECBC members you can find out more here.

It's interesting how presentations prepared in isolation but with a theme can have so much crossover when delivered and that's exactly what happened when Keith Longley from Acorn Coaching and Development shared his thoughts and experience on what collaboration is, what it looks like when it works and how often some time taken before issues develop to build that relationship can save more time in the long run. Our grandmothers were right when they said "A stitch in time saves nine!" Keith shared a model of organisational culture-see the image above-and talked about how different ways of thinking could be a barrier to successful collaboration if these conversations don’t happen early to consciously decide how each organisation would get what they needed and, importantly, how each organisation needed to work to adapt to the needs of their partners. I'm fascinated by this and read a book many years ago by Charles Handy called Organisations and Their Gods which has a similar theme on organisational culture-worth a read even though it's decades old! I found myself thinking about what types of organisations Kaefer, Home to Work and BEC are and how they've managed to pull together on the Good Lives Project then asked the members in the meeting for their feel on where we, as BECBC, sat. There's no right or wrong answer on this as everyone's experience is different but there was a definite majority for one type of organisation-I won't tell you which one yet as I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments! Do you feel we sit in Pragmatism, Administration, Divergence or Integration?

After a fantastic networking session-where I love the sound of so many vibrant conversations-we had an update from John Maddison on ISH, another example of a collaborative project to make a difference to our local area through supporting the development of a growth economy. Now I have lots of conversations with John & also Jonathan Lee, who handles their comms, so thought I was really well informed on ISH but I still learned something new from the presentation & it also gave a clarity to things I already knew. There's something about sitting down & having someone go through things in a logical fashion to explain where they are that presentations are perfect for. John boosted some of the myths we hear about ISH too. It isn't just about Cleator Moor, though Cleator Moor is important to ISH; it's not about a physical space though it will have a campus on Leconfield; it's not about duplicating but about complementing and enhancing and it's not just about engineering but about growth of all businesses in West Cumbria. So if you're a company who's interested in growth and based in West Cumbria why not have a conversation with them?

Our meeting concluded with a panel session and while the audience had been involved all through the meeting with lots of questions (gone are the days of no questions for presenters I can tell you!) it was in the panel session that the audience took over. I was in heaven! This is exactly the kind of interaction that I feel brings great value to members who attend our meetings. Open conversations & challenges, talking about barriers and issues, suggesting solutions. It was all there in this session. I was challenged to create more opportunities for members to reach out to each other when they need things. We already have the forum where you can do that so please do use it where that's relevant but the attendees felt there was also a case for having a slide at each meeting that was open for members to put up asks of each other. I took that challenge & the slide will be there next month but I also challenged back to say I can create the blank slide but as members you need to provide the content. The question that generated all this discussion was "How can BECBC Members collaborate more to drive business benefits and I'd like to thank Emma-Jayne Gooch, Keith Longley and John Maddison for setting off a great discussion. So I'm going to challenge you to answer this question too reader and I'd also love to hear about examples where you've seen members collaborate successfully to drive business benefits.

So it's over to you dear reader. What type of organisation do you think BECBC is? How can members collaborate more? I'm really looking forward to seeing some examples of how members have collaborated in the past. Don't forget you can see all our upcoming meetings on the website and book tickets from there-I'd love to see you at a meeting soon to be part of the conversation!