“I couldn’t help her, she might become a competitor!” said Nick* when I asked if he’d been able to help Angela* with a business idea.
That response, and the murmured agreement of everyone around us, broke my heart as Angela’s business experience could have helped Nick’s struggling operation.
Nick had taken the short term, narrow and reflexive view rather than listen and think through the opportunities presented by collaborating with Angela, a successful businesswoman who had recently sold her previous venture and was exploring new ideas.
As we discussed a few weeks ago, most business is now global. Instead of worrying about the guy up the street, most enterprises have to worry about what’s happening in the rest of the world. Business is now bigger than petty neighbourhood turf wars.
In many cases, identifying your business’s weaknesses and finding partners who have complimentary skills can grow everybody’s ventures and the overall market. This is particularly true in regional areas where locals are having to look outside their districts for the right skills and products.
To be honest, this issue is personal; one of my IT businesses was constantly hamstrung because I couldn’t establish relationships with other tech support companies. The companies I approached were happy for us to refer work to them but the idea of referring work back or, God Forbid, working together when we had complimentary skills was untenable.
As a consequence none of the businesses grew and everybody was a loser. That reluctance to collaborate between parties is one reason why the IT support sector is such a dog’s breakfast.
Nick’s reluctance to help and engage with other players may not kill his business but he’s lost a valuable resource that could have made his company’s growth easier. It’s a loss for everyone.
If your neighbours or friends have an idea, embrace them even if they could be a competitor, they may be the best allies you ever had.
I couldn’t agree more, Paul! You learn as much by teaching as your ‘student’ does… Keeping knowledge to yourself is a false-saving… Moving from an philosophy of scarcity (‘there’s not enough pie for everyone’) to abundance (‘let’s make the pie bigger’) is the trigger that can make collaboration between businesses not only possible but exciting.