Only in Cumbria can you get a group of businesses together who walk through a ‘light shower’ to get on a boat, dressed in frocks and suits! But hey, we live in and around a newly formed World Heritage site and boy how lucky are we to live and work on the edge in one of the worlds most beautiful areas.
This was our first IoD event, jointly organised with the Cumbria Family Business Network and we were truly impressed with the light touch organisation that just allowed us to talk to each other at the wonderful, Family run Waterhead Hotel in Ambleside, part of a brilliant Family operated hotel group.
The noise level in the Cumbria Tourisms hotel of the year 2016 gradually rose as old and new acquaintances and friends caught up with each other. Then boarding the Windermere Cruises boat just confirmed why we have finally been confirmed World Heritage Status, there cannot be many places with better scenery than that which surrounds Lake Windermere.
This sentiment was echoed by our keynote speaker, Kevin Roberts, who with a choice of houses across the world haschosen Grasmere as his UK base and is also his choice for his wedding! Kevin, I have to say, is a great speaker, he highlighted Cumbria as the ideal location for innovation as it is far enough from London to allow free thinking and creativity (a sentiment we completely agree with). Likening us to his other favourite haunt in New Zealand with both areas destined to change the world from the edge – think of New Zealand’s world beating All Blacks or Cumbria’s world beating Food, both from a geographical edge and both world beaters.
Quick apology to Kevin for thinking his rattle snake was a sheep…we don’t get many snakes in Cumbria – long story!
So what were our takeaways from Kevin?
Cumbrian businesses should create and innovate as we are on the edge – geographically speaking! With edge creativity we can ‘win the world’ – our region must be innovative and creative because of our brilliant geography. He commented we are over managed in the UK which is blocking creativity and Cumbria has the opportunity to inspire NOT command and control. He said, leaders don’t get things done, they make things happen – agreed! Leaders create other leaders – so true for generational family business – he said we must create leaders across generations – agreed!
Fail Fast, Learn Fast, Fix Fast (Kevin Roberts, 2017)
Only in Cumbria would this world renowned speaker be presented with a locally produced food hamper as a wedding gift…truly a sign that Cumbrian businesses collectively recognise the uniqueness and quality of the food we produce. With that in mind the cruise was really helped by the provision of an awesome Cumbrian buffet who proudly offered their very own roast ham and Cumberland sausage.
After dinner had lots of useful conversations, including one with Spencer and Diane from Herdy its only when you start talking about what you want to do that you really start knowing what you are offering to the world.
The whole night made us think that business has always been about “Getting your message out.” which is an acquired art, BUT jumping back into business is just like riding a bike…you think you remember it all and then you hit a bump, fall off graze your knee and get back on again…the secret is just to keep in getting back on the bike more times than you fall off it. As Kevin said entrepreneurs and leaders build fast, fail fast and learn fast.
