Why We All Need To Reach Up
It is important to support others and give them the connections and exposure they need, but it’s also important for our own endeavours to find the right people to help us to that next rung of the ladder.
I always help and support local initiatives where I can. I stand by and champion other businesses as much as I do my own.
For the most part, it is from a slightly isolated position in the sense that it is me doing it for others, with no real strategy for a much higher aim beyond loving where I live and work.
There is a change happening in my work journey and in Mark Schaefer’s book, Cumulative Advantage, clearly tells me that I should now be “reaching up”. Mark states…
“Reaching up is about leveraging the power of your network as well as mentors to achieve more.”
I’m there for others but I haven’t really asked of other people.
Changing Tact
Originally, my narrative centred on where I live in, Southbourne. I certainly don’t believe its success was in any way down to me, but I became “known” (another Mark Schaefer book title) as someone that actively championed the place.
Next, with a move in office locations, to the Dorset Innovation Park as well as Pokesdown, my new rallying cry was for the Innovation Park in Winfrith. That seems to have exploded, excuse the pun, seeing as the Army have moved in to build an innovation centre for co-working and a BattleLab space for testing.
None of this is down to me, or my business, but we certainly championed the cause and enquiries do begin from what people have seen via social media.
Having the Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Matt Warman, recently visit the park and spend time talking to the partners in the 5G Rural Dorset programme was great for recognition of the work that the businesses and Dorset Council have put in.
I now recognise behaviour and action is a lot more than just the Innovation Park. My mindset and approach have shifted from my local suburb to the county and now to the South West region. There is something much greater at stake than the success of a project, the success of a business or the success of a sector.
It must be about the success of a region.
Looking Ahead, For All Of Us
I have had a few DMCs (Deep Meaningful Conversations) lately with others. People ask me why I do the things I do. I’m certainly not in the space of award-winning, scale-up, big company, 15,455% year on year relentless growth. It is something more fundamental than that, and I will paint a pretty frank picture for you.
The past few months have seen my wife and I deal with parental health issues as they grow older. We have seen the great healthcare that received, but also felt the strains that the NHS service has been under too. My quite selfish reason for wanting the region to succeed, is that when I too am old, sitting in my soiled bed, be that at home, in a care home or in hospital, I want there to be sufficient resources, people and money, in adult social care and healthcare, for me to be looked after.
If we don’t have a thriving region economically, we won’t have the businesses, the workers, the taxes, to support those services. Dorset runs every risk that there will be more people in retirement than working.
The Dorset LEP highlighted the Demographic Time-Bomb in its Local Industrial Strategy (click here to read)…
“By 2040 it [Dorset] will have a dependency ratio of 1 (that’s one person working for every person of pensionable age).”
People are having fewer children so that ratio is going to get wider. How is that top-heavy arrangement going to be sustainable if we don’t have a thriving economic region and migration, yes more people into the area?
All the little squabbles of — oh, they shouldn’t be building houses there, or building premises here, don’t want that 5G tower near me — are all petty little squabbles that miss the bigger picture of that Demographic Time-Bomb.
Now is the time to reach up, to play the game, to lobby those that influence and ultimately make the decisions on inward investment by Government. We should be talking about hundreds of millions of pounds investment from the budget of billions.
Dorset/BCP split has its own tensions in the sense of is it more South West, is it more South Central, is BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) just Hampshire-lite? I don’t know the answers, but if someone else gets it right — the thinking and messaging, gathering business leaders, leaning into their connections, nurturing their influence, I will be there championing that cause too.
When I grow old, I want to be looked after by “care providers”, people who actually care, but if we get this wrong, we will end up with “service providers” and I don’t want them touching my bottom.
The future lies in finding the right people and organisations who can help us open doors.
When we have access it can then elevate our own goals and intentions. It all starts from doing.
