Leadership Lessons from the Entrepreneur Country Forum
By Peter Cook I
attended Entrepreneur Country’s forum recently and was so impressed that I decided to write an article on some of the lessons learned. Held in the auspicious surroundings of the Royal Institute of Great Britain where the first Industrial Revolution began, I heard a lot about how entrepreneurship will reboot the UK plc. Although I started life as a scientist and have had 18 years teaching MBA’s and doing business improvement, music has been a constant thoughout my life. I could not help but notice just how well the Royal Institute of Great Britain’s lecture theatre could transform into a dance floor, given the somewhat mythical arrival of Madonna as one of the guest lecturers! Oddly enough, the day was characterised by entrepreneurs telling real life stories of their hopes, fears, successes and failures. Here are my observations and take aways, with a few musical references for good measure.
Alot of the discussion was centred around what entrepreneurs do to avoid burnout. Ed Bussey of iTrigga was a prime example, having come to the conference after an all night vigil at hospital on the occasion of his wife giving birth! He did however point out the importance of pressing the OFF button from time to time to avoid the possibility of crash and burn entrepreneurship. Others talked of rituals and routines such as working out in the gym, taking forced holidays, running the London Marathon, going
12 entrepreneurcountry
to the North Pole (that’s hardly chilling out!) and so on. Seemingly obvious advice, yet not always taken by busy entrepreneurs.
Several speakers also gave witness to the importance of maintaining naivety if you are to succeed as an entrepreneur. Madonna’s contribution to this area is via her blockbuster hit “Like A Virgin”, which translates to the need to treat each new business situation like it’s the very first time. In particular, Sir William Sargent of Framestore painted a picture of the importance of intuition, creativity and the ability to remain adaptive and flexible as your company grows, saying, “If I stand still for 12 months, I will be out of business 12 months later.”
But perhaps the personification of
Madonna’s hit record about expression was in the opening addresses by Entrepreneur Country Founder Julie Meyer and Dr Mike Lynch. Julie presented her ideas about entrepreneurship clearly, concisely and without apology for wanting to create an enterprise economy, which produces both economic and social benefit. Business gets enough hard knocks and we need to start seeing it as an engine of improvement, rather than an evil empire as it is frequently portrayed by Governments and a self-riteous public sector. Mike Lynch extended Julie’s strident start to the day by giving us some home truths:
“Without good marketing you can have something amazing and no one will know. Marketing is not cheating”
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