The Context:
Three small businesses in Bradford, specialising in market research, wanted to collaborate on winning work that they couldn’t win individually. Therefore, they had been brought together by Bradford University School of Management and encouraged to explore opportunities.
The Issue:
The business owners had held several meetings to discuss how they could work together. Unfortunately, progress was slow and too often discussions went off in a tangent, leading to frustration.
The Solution:
We were invited by the School of Management to meet the 3 business owners and chair future meetings, including:
- running workshops to clarify the purpose of the collaboration;
- identifying what the parties brought to it, and;
- how they could work together.
Those workshops used the methodology called Logo Visual Thinking (LVT) to draw out people’s thoughts and opinions. LVT also encouraged the 3 owners to structure those thoughts to give a clear way forward.
The Results:
We combined a flexible yet firm approach to chairing the meetings. Our use of the LVT methodology gave the 3 businesses a clear way forward on how they could work together. Later, they identified a tender from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to bid for and were successful.