Business leaders chart course to Hampshire Chamber Boat Show lunch
More than 150 senior business figures enjoyed a taste of adventure at Hampshire Chamber’s sell-out lunch on the opening day of the Southampton Boat Show.
Consistently the signature event on the business membership organisation’s social calendar, this year’s lunch featured a timely focus on how to stay resilient in challenging environments.
Guest speaker Christiaan Mcleod, co-founder and Director of learning and development consultancy Mission Performance, shared learnings from his experience as a twice winner of the Polar Challenge, often referred to as the world’s toughest race.
A former Royal Marines officer, he traced several parallels between the skills involved in completing such a gruelling expedition to the North Pole and the management of teams for business success.
Christiaan said: “I had an incredible adventure and learned a great deal that is relevant to operating in today’s business world. It’s like a metaphor for what to do. In both scenarios you have to develop a resilient mindset because you can be faced with volatile and uncertain circumstances at any time. The pandemic was a massive curved ball that no-one expected and we all had to learn quickly how to operate in that new environment. For many businesses, the need to learn has continued as there could not be more uncertainty than at the moment.”
He added: “My message to business teams is that you have to create a core set of values and mentally support each other at all times. You have to focus on what you learn in a difficult environment, resetting after each challenge. A high-performing team will play what is right there in front of them while retaining that resilient mindset, learning from the experience and using it to deal with the next challenge and the next again. ‘Surviving’ doesn’t equal ‘thriving’. To truly thrive, you need to embed resilience and continual improvement in your performance.”
As in previous years, the lunch was held just yards from the Boat Show at the Leonardo Royal Hotel Southampton Grand Harbour.
In attendance were several representatives of show owner and organiser British Marine, the sector’s national trade association, including President Paul Gullett.
Paul said: “We very much value the contribution of Hampshire Chamber to the Boat Show and the marine industry as a whole. Hampshire is a very important county for marine. It is the sector’s heartland and the Chamber facilitates essential networking and contacts between firms to help keep the industry vibrant and in good health.”
Hampshire Chamber Chief Executive and Executive Chair Ross McNally said: “We are proud to support the Southampton Boat Show, a truly world-class event that attracts visitors by their thousands and offers exhibitors a fantastic opportunity to grow their businesses. Our annual opening day lunch has this year proved as popular as ever.”
Ross’s thoughts were echoed by Chamber President Peter Taylor who said: “The Boat Show is so important to the cultural and business life of Southampton, Hampshire and indeed the wider regional and national economy. We thank all our event partners for helping us stage our annual lunch and in particular Christiaan for sharing fascinating insight on how to build resilience in challenging times.”
Lunch sponsor was Poole-based IT solutions provider Enhanced. Its Chief Executive James Cripps said: “As we look to grow more into Hampshire, it’s important to talk directly with local businesses. The lunch was a superb opportunity to do that while growing our profile.”