The second B4 Circle has now launched, bringing together a small group of senior business leaders to share experience, challenge thinking and support each other in making better decisions.
One of the things we hear consistently from senior business leaders is that leadership can sometimes be a surprisingly lonely place. You may have a great team around you, trusted advisers and supportive friends and family, but there will inevitably be issues, opportunities and decisions that aren’t always easy to discuss with the people closest to your business. That’s exactly where B4 Circle comes in.
Our second Circle recently came together for its opening session, with Jodie Lloyd-Jones of Oxfordshire Youth, Teresa Nee of Intertronics, Alexandra Rae of Wise Investment, Justin Mumford of Nicholsons, Tim Grier of OBCL, Sam Britton of James Cowper Kreston and Zoe Jackson of Shire & Wold Staffing.
Different sectors, different organisations and different experiences – but a shared desire to learn from and support other leaders.
Tried, tested and evolving
B4 Circle isn’t a new experiment. Our first B4 Circle has now been running for around three years, giving us the opportunity to develop and refine a format that creates genuine value for the people involved. That original Circle has included Dominic Hare from Blenheim Palace, Liz Nicholson from Nicholsons, Jarl Severn, Jo Stevens from Oxford Innovation Space, Richard Wade from Blake Morgan and Ben Dudley from Oxford Direct Services.
What we’ve learned over those three years is that the real value isn’t simply in getting a group of good people together. It’s about creating the right environment for trust, confidentiality, challenge and honest conversation. That’s what we’ve taken into the launch of Group 2 and what we’ll continue to develop as further Circles are established.
More than another networking group
B4 Circle is deliberately small. It isn’t about exchanging business cards or making a sales pitch. It’s about developing deeper relationships with a group of peers who bring different perspectives and experiences to the table. Each meeting provides dedicated time away from the day-to-day to talk about the things that really matter. Sometimes you need advice. Sometimes you need somebody else’s experience. Sometimes you need to have your assumptions challenged. And sometimes the most valuable contribution another leader can make is simply asking the question you haven’t thought to ask yourself.
The objective isn’t for the group to tell somebody how to run their organisation. It’s to help each other think more clearly.
Support that doesn’t stop when the meeting finishes
One of the most valuable aspects of Circle is what happens between the meetings. As trust develops, members have a group of people they can turn to outside the formal Circle sessions. If something pressing arises on a Monday morning, you shouldn’t necessarily have to wait until the next scheduled meeting to talk about it. There may be someone in your Circle who has faced something similar, has relevant experience or can simply be the independent sounding board you need at that moment. That’s when a Circle starts becoming much more than a meeting in the diary. It becomes a trusted peer-support network.
Building the B4 Circle community
With Group 2 now underway, further Circles are due to start in October, November and January and are already being populated by B4 members. We want to retain the intimacy of small groups while giving more senior leaders within the B4 community access to this kind of peer support.
For me, it reflects what B4 has always been about: bringing good people together, creating trusted relationships and providing the environment for better conversations.
If you’re a senior business leader and would be interested in joining a future B4 Circle, or would like to find out more about B4 membership, please get in touch with me, Richard Rosser.
Better conversations. Sharper thinking. Practical action.