Realising the Potential
Can the people who come together realise their potential
Perhaps what is needed is a more female sensibility, receptive to collaboration? Let’s see…
The Good: The value in our elders is considerable, but we need ways of learning, and that’s more to do with us as we listen, watch, and read.
The Bad: It’s like a very, very loud market, with each person complaining about the noise at the top of their lungs.
The future is all about person-to-person trust, not information which can be fabricated in nanoseconds by a bot.
The Ugly: The authentic way I present myself, isn’t… well… ‘authentic’ enough. Now, that’s ugly.
The social potential between us is truly vast. And it is only realisable in our responsive state, in our listening, viewing and reading.
Second week in Scarborough, with plenty of good experiences, some bad and some downright ugly. I’ll deal with the personal side, how I deal with them, as usual in a private post. People get away with the bad and the ugly because there is no accountability, certainly between businesses but also, as we shall find, with councils.
There are three phases to the experience: 1) outreach, 2) action, 3) results. Social validation at each phase: in the first a good conversation, the second a good Action cycle, and in the third, the consequential social result which might mean social impact, new clients, revenue generation. This sounds great in relation to Sqale and OB, but I am still on the wrong side of it. When on the right side of it, things will go smoothly.
What is most important is this: can I bring business to people? That’s it. That’s the only thing that matters. People in the future take note: this is the only thing that matters when engaging traditional businesses, businesses based on exchange-based economics.
As you read, you may notice that the majority of people I’ve engaged with have been women. This has been a strategic decision. At the end of last year I realised that most of the people I engaged in my startup journey were men. Exclusively even. And most of the people I have met in business over the last year online have been men. Perhaps what is needed is a more female sensibility, receptive to collaboration? Let’s see…
The Good
Beautiful people. In the first week, Nicola Elson inspired me with her efforts in community building, running for Green councillor, working with challenging kids, and chairing allotment group — which may sound easy, but is much more gnarly and knotty than any kind of business meeting — all the while being a single mother. At the end of the second week, she recommended two people to meet, Steve Parker and Rob Rockman, which I’m following up. I’d like to invite Nicola to an Action Cycle when one materialises.
Remarkable engagement with Lynnda, who was up for doing a live recording at our first meeting (see bottom of the post) — that’s confidence and trust of a networker right there! Formerly a teacher, she now runs Sparkling Business club (an all-woman network), business coaching, and has embarked on writing novels (and operating as a coach and networker for authors). She has put me in touch with several folk: Christine Brown at the council’s business development team, and Zoe Taylor, another business woman; I have also reached out to the council business support team through a newsletter Lynnda shared with me, to which Harriet Stainton responded.
Met the owner of the hotel I am staying at, Bilyana Wharton, who with her partner own several properties in Scarborough; Bilyana is also training to be a therapist. I climbed up a hill in the rain to meet her at Oliver’s on the Mound, only to find it was closed; eventually we did find a place, and I provided an insight into what was needed to create a co-living space for digital nomads like myself; in addition, she kindly put me in touch with Steve Dickinson, who knows ‘all the cool people in Scarborough’. That’s exactly what I was missing in Blackpool. This is a great start!
Steve was a little sceptical at first. He and his wife run Mojo, a delightful cafe in the run-down high street (which parallels the modernised mall-like high street with all the national and international franchises, as well as closed shop-fronts) for twenty years, and has run festivals throughout his life: Beached, Peace on the Park, and more recently Sci-fi Scarborough for the last ten years. After he got an idea of what I was trying to do, he was kind enough to suggested I speak with Duncan Lewis, Steve Wintercroft, Andrie Hawkes, Jim Taylor. While at their cafe — the vegan breakfast is delicious by the way — I met with Rick White, an interesting guy who is a sports science lecturer, festival advisor, activist.
My method is like an ant-walk. One wanders around randomly, and if someone recommends someone, I follow them dutifully. It is like I am picking up trust relationships. However, part of this random ant-walk is actually walking around the town randomly. For example, I happened to be passing a building with ‘adult learning’ on the side, and I thought that young adults or adults looking for work, would be useful players in Action Cycles, learning on the job. And besides, perhaps I could provide my services as a maths teacher? It so happened Joanna, the head of adult services, was available and very soon it was clear there was strong resonance about speeding up council activity, the problem of hierarchy, silos. The Action Cycle appeared to be a good solution and she was positive about doing one, potentially to resolve the problems the business development team had been having.
Tango. Great experience at the White Rose Tango run by Leanne and Adam, with music ranging from african vibes, classical (I think there was a Piazzolla), to various forms of rock music, progressive, ballads and verging on metal. But not in Scarborough, an hour away in York. This gave me an opportunity to car share with two of the three people in Scarborough who dance tango; despite there being some beautiful dancefloors, two in the Grand, and they are not up for setting something up. Awaiting Leanne and Adam to arrange a meeting, though without effort by the Scarborough tangueros, it doesn’t look likely we will do either an event to draw experienced tango dancers to Scarborough nor a taster session for residents.
And Quakers. Because of what happened to Linda at the Quaker community, I haven’t been to a meeting for a while. It was good to be unconditionally welcomed at the door, and to sit with strangers in a peaceful way. It really is a remarkable, non-invasive, respectful experience. I ended up inviting to take a rather frail attender to the railway station the following week, which was picked up and supported by Paul, and walked a weighty Quaker, Dilys, partly home. Dilys has set up meetings with David Malone, a BBC documentarist, and put me in contact with an experienced activist, Gaby Naptali. After the recorded conversation with Robert Spooner, who was instrumental in the formation of Assist in Sheffield, I can see the value in recording a conversation with individuals who have achieved incredible things but gently and quietly, as facilitators and enablers. Unsung heroes. Not heroes in the way most people think, heroes because they are empowered by the people around them — those who quietened their own inner chatter and ego in order for these gentle folks to be heard. It’s not about recording their success, but to ascertain what happened around them so that we can enable such individuals who we know around us now. It’s not about learning about the past through a rose-tinted successful retrospect, but to live with them during the uncertainty as they walked into the future, just as we do now. I’m calling them ‘intraviews’, and hopefully we will have one soon. The value in our elders is considerable, but we need ways of learning, and that’s more to do with us as we listen, watch, and read; this is the Here & Now aspect of Open Business Practices, as well as the Content Trifecta, where the listener, viewer, reader is actively involved in the process, and empowered to do something about it. Yup, share this forward.
The Bad
No downright invite to do an Action Cycle. Despite good engagements, the follow-up effort to invite one or two of their colleagues to an Action Cycle is not happening. The machinery of daily life inhibits this kind of low-key initiative. Nicola, for example, feels like she can’t get one to happen with her groups.
Recommendations are generally slow in response. Even with a personal recommendation, people are just judging themselves, always starting at square one. There is no momentuum. The time I took with Lynnda or Steve for example, that they were willing to recommend, does not appear to have enough power. The trust relationship is not leveraged. Ideally, if someone in one’s network has been ‘vetted’ by someone, then it is not longer a ‘cold call’. With Sqale operational, the money which accompanies the recommendation should indicate more strongly the degree. But if I adopt this method, I am asking more of the first contact person, and they are already doing enough by recommending. It is not ‘bad’ per se, but it certainly isn’t good.
General lack of response from email engagement, whether through recommendations or even after meeting. This is normal, I think, in business, because everyone is overwhelmed by speculative sales approaches and pitches. People are battered daily, some are bombarded. It is very easy to deprioritise something that is not central and necessary to making money. That is, people are willing to spend a serious amount of time and money doing the very speculative sales that they hate receiving. It’s like a very, very loud market, with each person complaining about the noise at the top of their lungs.
Many of the experienced folks I have engaged talk negatively about the efforts of the council. Despite all the council’s money and grand plans, very little actually happens. And what does happen, like the Farmer’s Market — an incredible space of fruit and veg and butcher, cafes and shops, and craft stalls — it goes under utilised. The social, quite obviously, is not done right. It is not organic. Too mechanical. Getting things built isn’t the problem, it’s getting them used. There’s too many organisations who benefit from council contracts, and not enough actual Scarborough residents. Something goes wrong in the organisational complexity, the bounded entities of departments, companies and decision-makers. And the people on the ground know it; and those who try to get anything off the ground without council help, experience it acutely. Is Open Business the way for ground-up activity to produce the equivalent of company, council projects? We will see…
And The Downright Ugly
Arranged a meeting with a ‘business relationship manager’. 8.30am meet because her schedule was tight. She didn’t turn up. I waited, sent SMS, tried to call and got number not available, sent email. The experience wasn’t so bad, but it was 8.30am Monday morning, not a great start to the week. An ugly one.
People making decisions, and if negative, being turned down is part of the salesperson experience. Of a hundred doors knocked, one opens. The rest is negative — but never think that of course — only look at the positive! Or so the salesfolk are trained to do. But there is a line when it isn’t just the bad side of ‘business’, it’s ugly.
For example, Duncan Lewis, who is an inspirational business leader, was rather curt. He asked for some information, and then declared he wasn’t interested. This was the first male to male recommendation I had experienced. The recommendation didn’t mean much to him, apparently. It was like I was a salesman. It is not clear to folk what I am doing, what I am offering, and who I am. Information seldom does, hence my appeal to leverage human engagement, relationally, transitively. There is a huge amount of effort put in by companies to get the sales thing right, to produce the right ‘information’ and the right ‘message’, things which succumb to manipulation — and we have just broached the trouble chatAI et al bring. The future is all about person-to-person trust, not information which can be fabricated in nanoseconds by a bot.
That’s not so bad. But it is unhealthy, socially and if experienced regularly, psychologically. There is an underlying problem. The battlefront of business is rather sophisticated, what with mindfulness, mental health, authentic communication and decades of behavioural science. And my set of solutions, and the authentic way I present myself, isn’t… well… ‘authentic’ enough. Now, that’s ugly.
If that doesn’t strike you as ugly, then consider this. Imagine all the authentic, well-meaning, positive and energetic young people who enter business. Like the innocent kids who enter school… Yup, you get the idea. The authentic being is gaslighted by our institutions of education, business, and even supported by social science: that we are in fact selfish, its in our genes and we can’t do anything about it. Most of us survive school, but for a ‘life-long learning’ of joy? Some succeed, get the qualifications, or get the money, the house, the retirement. However, wouldn’t it be better where unalloyed authentic, human character, the unselfish desire to help, is actually rewarded with absolutely no manipulation? Both in schools and in our workplaces? Where our collaboration is supported, rather than supporting selfish behaviour? Where business practices actually improve our social relations, and does not cut ‘business’ from ‘leisure’, what we are willing to do and suffer from in the name of work and a paycheck, and what we voluntarily do and provide for our friends and loved ones out of choice? Be nice because it comes naturally, and get paid for it. How radical! And get shirty if required when people don’t play well, when people (teachers, bosses) coerce us into being more critical and less generous.
Yes, we need a form of social accountability for this. And the current structure with money and voting councillors and regulation isn’t working. The potential of Scarborough, or any city, isn’t being fully realised. At best, humanity is running at 5%. Once we realise even 20% of our human social potential, we will be living in a different world. A world running Open Business Practices.
Your Time, Your Attention
I am lost in translation, both in the real world of networked people in Scarborough, and most probably in how this is read by you. There’s not enough… richness in the soil of social relations. Not enough trust. What’s needed is a strong social network, which is, of course, what I am attempting to seed here with Open Business Practices.
You will no doubt have noticed the size of the post. I can’t help but deal with each individual, albeit briefly. I could write a chapter about each conversation. Everyone is a living, breathing, remarkable human being. And the older they are, the range of the experience is simply remarkable. When two mature human beings meet, it is nothing but a wonder. There are shortcuts, business handshakes and deals, money and things are exchanged, things get done; but the meeting of humans is hardly touched. Perfunctory. Similarly with writing. What I hope this indicates is the amount of engagements, the effort in networking, and the genuine true potential if people actually meet, actually help one another achieve their objectives.
The social potential between us is truly vast. And it is only realisable in our responsive state, in our listening, viewing and reading. When we are doing the talking, the showing and the writing, we attend the object of our attention, whereas in our responsive state we are aware of the potentials, of what is not said, shown and written. Sales makes people distrusting, critical, thus impinging upon our natural human character, our generosity of spirit is curbed. You hold the power as you read, just as the people I engage hold the power of decision to act upon meeting me. Share, and for sure the next city experiment will be more receptive!
