Good business practice is all about good relationships with people. You can use these good relationships to build up networks of people who will share expertise and create win/win situations for each other. If you think about it, you use networks very effectively at the moment. If your car breaks down or you want a job done in the house, you will usually ask someone you know and trust to recommend someone who will do the job well.

Many people choose to take this to another level and set up a business that works very deeply with their values. A good example of this is the late Anita Roddick. She was also living proof that being ethical and making money can be a great combination!

A growing area of development is social enterprise and this is the setting up of a business specifically to address a social need or to provide a social good. High profile examples of this are ‘The Big Issue’ magazine, Jamie Oliver’s ‘Fifteen’ restaurant and the Eden Project.

These are all options open to anyone who wants to start a business but at the heart of any successful business is relating well to other people whether they are clients or partners with whom you are working.


You are already clear about how to get creative, to feel comfortable with change and how to achieve that change but how do you relate those skills to your work with other people? You understand yourself and what motivates you but how do you understand other people and their motivations and make that knowledge work for you?

The first step is being able to develop empathy with anyone you intend to work with. This means understanding someone else’s point of view and taking it into account so that (s)he feels that they have been understood.