Rallying call from top motivator to Isles businesspeople

Business leaders and new business entrepreneurs in the Western Isles heard a rallying call to action on Thursday (27th Mar.) night as one of the UK’s top motivators dropped in to Stornoway, at an event hosted by Western Isles Enterprise (WIE).

Frank Dick, an international sports coach who believes that coaching priorities can be applied to the world of business, spoke to around 50 people gathered at An Lanntair Gallery about how ‘Team Western Isles’ could play better in the world of competitive work.

He was introduced by WIE Board Director, Mr Donald MacDonald, who is the senior business manager at the Bank of Scotland in Stornoway, and who spoke of the opportunities ahead for the area from developments like renewable energy and the relocation of administrative jobs from urban centres.

The evening was organised for HIE Starts recipients, the enterprise network European-funded programme to encourage and support business start-ups. The audience included some of the almost 200 people who have gained assistance from this programme in the last three years, as well as representatives from other business support initiatives.

Fiona Mackenzie, training contracts manager with Western Isles Enterprise, said a growing amount of money was put into direct aid to business start-ups. In the year 2002/3, this was £252,000, up from £182,000 the previous year, and that did not include the money committed to pay for business skills training and business support and aftercare services for the fledgling businesspeople.

Mr Dick said that the key to success for ‘Team Western Isles’ was for everyone to become ’player-coaches’. People had to want to succeed but also see the benefits of ‘interdependence’, of passing experience and information to other players so that they could benefit and everyone could build on each other1s success.
 
People had to see that failure was not a risk, only success was a risk and that success should be measured in terms of ‘personal bests’, the term which athletes use to define their own achievements. Not everyone could be an Olympic gold-medal winner, but everyone could aim to climb a higher mountain of achievement than they had done the previous day.

Mr Dick said that businesspeople faced daily challenges to improve and to change, compared with the four years that separated Olympic Games or the year between Wimbledon championships. But the basic competitive drive was the same.

Mr Dick has worked as a coach with many top names in a range of sports, including decathlete Daley Thompson, tennis champion Boris Becker, and racing driver Gerhard Berger. He is presently involved with the Ipswich Town football academy, athlete Denise Lewis, cricketer Ronnie Irani and tennis player Marat Safin. He has developed a coaching culture in several major companies, including British Telecom, Unilever, Abbey National and Rolls Royce.

He says he bases his expertise on years of detailed research into individual success and achievement  and the talk was illustrated with videos of individual achievements and team work from various sporting events.

Mr Dick pointed out that even in individual events like the high jump, athletes could be seen drawing inspiration from each other's success. The realisation that someone else had exceeded their personal best was a spur to others to achieve the same comparative success.

"Coaches believe that winners are made, not born,” he said. Being successful “is your choice.” But for businesspeople it was not good enough to be either a player or a coach  “you have got to be a player-coach.” Teamwork was not about conformity; it was about understanding each other's strengths, playing to them and building on them.

For businesses, “the game that we have got to win is the game of change.” He went on: “Probably the only sustainable competitive advantage that you have is the ability to learn faster than the competition.”

It was also crucial that businesses had not only milestones - regular targets to hit and exceed -  but also a longer term vision to aim for, Mr Dick said.