In this blog we look at the importance of teams, groups and collaboration in our business journey.

Lonely struggles

In a dim and very distant past I tried to make it as a sculptor. It was a mad idea because I’d never been to art school but my father, with great generosity or perhaps indulgence, loaned me some money to give it a go.

With great excitement I secured myself a studio in Copeland Park, Peckham, got some stone and took myself off every day to work on a collection. However it wasn’t long before the isolation got to me.

Forgive the pun, but in more ways than one I simply couldn’t hack it. The chiselling got less and less, the staring at the stone got longer and longer. At the same time I started to do collaborative projects. In theory this was meant to be a side venture but in no time I noticed that given the choice between returning to the studio and working on these projects, I always chose the projects.

It was not only that I didn’t have colleagues but also that no-one, except perhaps my father, would have any problem if I produced nothing. It was an important lesson because I assert, with honourable exceptions aside, most of us are not built to work in a vacuum.

A Small business problem

Whilst the above story is extreme, working in isolation is a feature of all small businesses. Even at the point that the business has employees, there will be a lot of work that the business owner needs to do without anyone to hold them accountable and often alone.

As many of us will have experienced, those two factors, the loneliness of the task and the lack of anyone expecting you to get it done, mean that often these tasks are avoided.

It is one reason why businesses with more than one founder, for all the difficulties of that dynamic, have a much greater chance of success.

imperfect solutions

Until we have a board and a management team, to a certain extent this will be a problem we will all have to live with. That said there are ways to mitigate the problem:

• Find a business buddy. Often there is someone on the same journey of building a business. Have regular calls.

• Join a Business Group. Meet other business owners regularly, find your tribe.

• Create a board. Bring advisors around a table and allow them to hold you accountable.

• Empower your team to hold you accountable.

• Join a co-working space.

One of the most interesting solutions to the problem and the prompt for the train of thought that led to this blog, was flagged by Owen Munday of Hill and Green who had come across a service called Flown. Here the business owner logs online and works alongside other business owners to achieve focused goals. Although I can’t yet vouch for the experience, I can well believe it is powerful.

It is this power of co-working, collaboration and community that fed into our brand Co-. We have a long way to go to fulfill on that vision, but rest assured many of the ideas above are on our road-map.