Yesterday I was playing a ‘dragon in the den’ at a Common Purpose event as part of their Navigator Programme on leadership development.
The format wasn’t too far removed from the BBC ‘Dragon’s Den’ pitch-to-the-investors model, but with a few differences.
Also on the panel with me (all men - which I pointed out) were:
- Damien Glover, Relationship Banking, Bank of Scotland
- Neil Mackay, Managing Director, Advantage Business Angels
- Anthony Andrews, Sector Manager – Business and Professional Services, Business Link
It sounds dry but it was actually a really fun event where the twenty or so participants present divided into four groups with one of each of the panel as an advisor joining in with each group.
From idea to pitch in 50 minutes
The aim was coming up with a killer business idea in about 50 minutes, then pitching it to us as the panel in 3 minutes, getting some questions from us and then doing a final 3 minute presentation answering them.
We then got to pick a winner out of the four business ideas which were all incredibly varied.
In these kinds of things it’s not often obvious from the outset what I would get from it taking three hours out of a busy day, but seeing a team evolve in that time, a business idea getting fleshed out and meeting people who wouldn’t even have considered the possibility that they could start their own businesses suddenly getting that ‘light on in the head’ moment right in front of me was pretty amazing.
All four of the ideas were sound business models, quite innovative and for something sketched out in such a short time were incredibly well developed!
I can’t tell you what they were because of Chatham House Rule, and also because I think that the winning team’s idea does actually have some legs! Oh - and it’s always nice when the team you’ve worked with wins the prize… Congratulations to them, and thanks to everyone I met.
Inspirational stuff!
It just shows - even if you don’t think of yourself as ‘an entrepreneur’ just putting yourself in a serendipitous (there’s that word again) situation then all sorts of ideas can emerge.
3 Comments
I like the word serendipity and its origin makes for fascinating reading too. But you are so right, bring a team together of diverse backgrounds, some of whom may never have considered themselves entrepreneurs and things can happen, if directed properly. Mind you, I have never accomplished anything in minutes like you apparently did!
Perhaps the reason for this is that when the team consists of scientists and engineers the participants tend to focus on the details and avoid the big picture. It is facilitating the big picture that brings out the best in people.
In the oil industry we have seen a major shift in team work over the past thirty years. When I started out there were teams of geologists, geophysicists, engineers, etc. all working in separate vacuums. The work passed down a chain whose links were incredibly weak. Feedback barely existed.
Then, starting around 1980 the concept of teamwork took root and flourished, culminating in the “managed asset”. Here everyone had ownership of the project and had a say in how it would progress. Failure was not necessarily a shameful admission but seen as recognition (I once read that Eastman Kodak’s research group even had a small cannon which would be fired whenever a researcher found his work was going nowhere; it was a not a signal of failure but an announcement of “moving on” and would be received with loud cheering!)
I do have mixed emotions about where the asset team approach has evolved, perhaps because the MBAs have appropriated it and reduced everything to the bottom line. The bottom line simply doesn’t have much accord with serendipity and therein lies a problem facing many companies today. Even though the right dose of serendipity can make all the difference!
I was recently asked by a NYSE-listed company to assist in their “planning for opportunity”. That s-word figured prominently in my recommendations!
Why does a charity organisation such as Common Purpose operate under the Chatham House Rule?
Common Purpose is a secretive, New Labour and Brussels funded, Marxist-led, ‘Trojan Horse’ operation which is undermining British society to pave the way for the take-over of Britain by the European Union Collective of Communist Purpose (EUCCP), also known as the EU Police State.
You are a member of a 5th column movement. You should be ashamed.
Andre - it allows more open and honest conversations to happen so that people can learn faster, grow faster and be in a better position to improve the places where they live and work.
Why not get involved with common purpose and experience it before passing judgement again.