In the first year after launching my business I would sit alone at my desk in a 150 square foot studio creating beautiful work on a tiny MacSE30 – a lone designer with a single landline to connect me to the outside world. As a born extrovert, loneliness and a sense of energy-sapping isolation were my greatest enemies.
Twenty years on my business – IE Design Consultancy – is a multi award-winning agency. We tell the stories of our charity, health and education sector clients through brand, digital, insight and design.
Today, I sit in the corner of a bustling studio of 25 consultants, creatives, project managers and support staff. I have a talented management team who I can knock around new ideas with and who I can rely on to wrestle with business challenges.
But when a sales dip or recession strikes, when a new market demands new approaches, when a bigger team requires new structures and business processes or when a possible new business strategy needs stress testing, there is nothing more valuable than the counsel of fellow small business owners.
We all need people inside and outside of the business who will tell us the truth. People who will hold a mirror up and challenge us to explain ourselves. They may come in the form of a life partner, a friend or a family member, but these can be complex relationships and combining home with work can be a mixed blessing.
As I reflect on 20 years at the helm of my business, I realise that I have periodically sought out a community of peers. Groups of articulate, ambitious, inquisitive, challenging business leaders who really care about their people, their clients and their work.
The sorts of communities I’m talking about cannot be found at business breakfasts or networking lunches. They have their place but a single chance encounter over a bacon sandwich will not bring the energy-giving encouragement, insights and challenges that we all need in order to drive our businesses forward through good times and ill.
It’s my experience that there is something uniquely rewarding about embedding myself in a community of peer learners. There’s something about learning together – being stretched, sharing experiences, exploring new ideas, wrestling with one another’s challenges, comparing notes and trading stories of triumph and tragedy – that I find enormously beneficial.
Spending regular time with these people outside of my own business has provided perspective on seemingly intractable problems and renewed confidence and energy in the midst of difficulty.
I’m sure that communities of this calibre can be found within many different types of organisation, but I have found them most often in business schools. The ones I have experienced include London Business School’s Building the Creative Business programme, Cranfield School of Management’s Business Growth programme and, most recently, at Aston Business School’s Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses programme.
I’ve never had time to dedicate myself to an MBA but it is these open, agenda-less, reciprocal relationships – forged in the lecture theatre, tutor group or often over coffee or a meal afterwards – that have stretched and stimulated, challenged, energised and steadied me for the next big push.
I’ve recently been involved in assessing business schools around the country as an SME assessor for the Queen’s Small Business Charter Award. At the best business schools, I see these communities of successful small business leaders thriving through learning together. They have moved past the posing, positioning and pretence into honest engagement, mutual support and disarming openness.
This is the wisdom of peers, forged in the fire of everyday experience. A community like that can be invaluable. It can be like having a room full of highly experienced non-executive directors with limitless empathy, insights and ideas.
I would recommend that you find and join a community of peers like this, roll your sleeves up and let your guard down. Reap the benefits and play your part.
Ollie Leggett is the Founder and Managing Director of IE Design Consultancy
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Goldman Sachs, sponsor of the Entrepreneur Stories hub.
