business focus 27
One vision: Two brands
The start-up environment is constantly evolving. Since launching ConnectTVT and GROW@Green Park I’ve met many entrepreneurs who admit their existing proposition is very different to their original vision, writes Louize Clarke
It’s typical to launch your venture in “beta-mode”, saving the fine-tuning for when you’re up and running; you become that much closer to your market, understand where the real need lies and where your value is. You adapt accordingly.
To that end, we’re separating out our two brands ConnectTVT and GROW@Green Park. They will still complement each other but as discrete brands, we can get closer to their original purpose.
ConnectTVT will continue to be the Thames Valley-wide platform that connects and champions the region’s expanding entrepreneurial ecosystem and tech economy. Our intention is to continue to leverage the great technology heritage we have here through partnerships and collaboration, bringing together the corporate and start-up worlds.
We need to see leadership from the corporate community here. There’s an opportunity to build and shape a more diverse, skills- rich tech economy in the Thames Valley. From a CSR perspective too, engaging with the emerging start-up base can deliver that sense of purpose to a brand, enhancing the way customers, employees and stakeholders connect. ConnectTVT provides a great starting point.
ConnectTVT will continue to run out of GROW, the Green Park-based collaboration and incubation hub. It’s in this space that we’re bringing together start-ups, innovators, creatives, freelancers and developers to meet, network and co-work. Already, we’ve helped more than 50 start-ups launch and grow their business. It’s not just for tech-based businesses; we welcome all start- ups, scale-ups and businesses of just one to make the most of this vibrant space.
Workshops, specialist drop-ins, meet-ups as well as informal sessions are all part of our rich event programme and bring businesses – wherever they are in their growth
cycle- the opportunity to connect, and be part of our community. In the spirit of encouraging closer collaboration between our start-up community and some of the larger companies based on Green Park, together with Oxford Properties, we’re launching a "Meet the Neighbours" event, bringing together an inspirational presenter with a free lunch, all wrapped up with some informal networking.
Next steps are enhancing the grass roots incubation facilities GROW provides and we’re looking to partner with accelerators. Ideally, this will comprise “parachuting” in accelerators happy to run 3-4 months' programmes so that we can offer our businesses the next phase in their evolution. GROW offers the flexibility to share a co-working space for dedicated periods, without the dead property costs in-between your cohorts.
We’re truly excited to be building the ConnectTVT and GROW brands. If you’re interested in becoming part of that journey, contact Louize Clarke.
Details: Louize Clarke
louize@connecttvt.co.uk @connectTVT www.facebook/connectTVT
Making the tough decisions
Personally, I shall never forget the day when the largest (by revenue) client of a previous employer came up to me and said with dramatic effect: ‘If I ever have to sit through a meeting like that again, I will pull the plug on everything’, writes Suzanne Pollack
‘Everything’ was a lot to our business – not just in terms of revenue in the short term, and over the next five years, but also in terms of the other clients this company attracted to our business.
The client went on to explain the behaviour of one of my team members and I could completely empathise with the client and the team member. It was my failing. I had said, but not ‘stood my ground’, that this particular member of staff did not have the right strengths to be in the role with this client. I had allowed myself to be over-ruled, and here was the result – without some quick and decisive action we could all be ‘out of a job’.
Strengths-based approach
What I now realise is that as a younger manager/leader if I had been more aware of the ‘strengths- based’ approach, I would have been able to avoid this issue. I would have been able to say to my boss that team member ‘X’ (henceforth to be known as ‘Bob’, who in that great Blackadder tradition could be male or female) has all these great skills and knowledge, but these other skills and knowledge, essential for this client-facing job, were simply just not Bob. To put Bob in this role was simply too risky for the business, as well as being harmful to the development of Bob and his/her career.
The strengths-based approach is founded on the premise that you’ll never be great at what’s not you. So, focusing on (worrying about) our weaknesses, as so many of us are prone to do, will not get us and/or the organisation where we want to be. Instead, working out what our strengths are, and focusing on them and where they
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – OCTOBER 2015
can be most successfully deployed, will create a cycle of success for individuals and organisations.
The neuroscience
The strengths-based approach continues to gather momentum as business results and neuroscience show that when we ‘play to our strengths’ our confidence grows, our ability to make decisions improves and business results improve. Even our health improves, with more positive experiences and confidence (created by working from a place of strength) we release more positive chemicals in the brain and we experience lower heart rates. This enables us to improve our ability to withstand pressure and to be creative.
The above is an excerpt from a whitepaper written by Suzanne Pollack, director of The Leadership Programme at Henley Business School. To read the full paper, ‘Was Albert Einstein an Imposter’ go to
www.henley.ac.uk/leaders
Details: Diana Richards
exec@henley.ac.uk 01491-418767
www.henley.ac.uk/open
Follow us on twitter: @HenleyExecEd
www.businessmag.co.uk
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