Some advice for the Tees Valley LEP - should I dare?

 Of course I am blogging about Enterprise.

What did you expect, I am really passionate about it and I am really passionate about the Tees Valley.

Working in London on Tuesday to meet the great and the good, to hear their views and hopefully contribute something to the Enterprise Agenda, something positive.

I came away feeling that the reality of living in the North East especially in the Tees Valley is so far away from what policy makers think it is, that it could be really dispiriting.

Then I thought about all of the people I have met over the last 10 years who run the Enterprise schemes as well as the people who have started a business (over 7000 by the way) and also my role within that. I came up with the following conclusions:

•  Central government can't take a regional approach, because the regions are so different.
• Even with the best interests at heart of the regions, the current RDA (particulalry the one I worked with) became a "mates" organsiation and the very change they were looking to develop became stiffled in self interest.
• Successful businesses, even when helped through the schemes, give little back, due sometimes to a lack of time or the "I did it all myself" view.
• At the same time grant culture is killing entreprenuership, it is also the only thing that can help and enable many individuals to make the first start.
• There are too many workshops offering all sorts of help (which have their place) but not enough one to one and specific handholding schemes.
• The light touch support needed to make a difference between a sustainable business and a start up is the missing piece of the jigsaw.
• We need to have a joined up plan to get all the different levels of support working together, removing ego's and self interest.
• LEP's need to move away from what has gone before and become a-political and less about "mates". The LEP can only be successful if it grows its pool of views or "mates" to include opposing views or the smaller voice. Why are these things always run by the same people and why do they not look for talent over the people already known.
  

So here it is in quotes, some advice for the LEP.  I want to be the smaller voice. I want to make a contribution. Can I join, Please?

Dont take my word for it, a range of people from different backgrounds would make all of the difference, let me illustrate, maybe this can be the plan for the LEP.

• "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding i, misdiagnosing it and then missapplying the wrong remedies" - Groucho Marx
  
• "That men do not learn from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons, history has to teach" - Aldous Huxley
  
• "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who are evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing" - Albert Einstein
  
• "We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose" - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
  
• "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has" - Margaret Mead

I think in these five quotes we hold the answer - Groucho Marx to Albert Einstein.

In the Tees Valley, mates and politics aside, are we brave enough to get the best people- not the people who think they are the best?

Are we brave enough to facilitate genuine change and more importantly can we do it quickly. We have heard of top down and bottom up regorganisation's, maybe we should be doing them both.

Isn't it time for us to genuinely say in the Tees Valley - "we are all in this together"

Sometimes, even in these very difficult times, the ideal, the zenith, the target needs to become the goal, the attainment and then the reality.

Time to start again? Are we brave enough? Can we start today?