Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 14

ONSIDE / ROUND TABLE

Chris Hopkinson:
One of the interesting
challenges for
entrepreneurs is you
tend to forget how
much hard work it
was first time round.

they do suffer withdrawal. They get used
to being pretty lazy and they lose the
discipline of having a structured life.
For some it is hard to adapt. I actually
love being a non-exec. I really enjoy
talking to the guys in a business
environment. Sometimes it can be quite
structured; like in a larger business, but
I also like it in a small company where
you can have a good natter and where
the board meetings aren't particularly
well run, but you can still have a good
chat about where the business is going.

Lessons from Houllier and Benitez
Michael Taylor: Rick, you've had
lots of other different experiences in
your time as the chief executive of
the Premier League and of Liverpool
Football Club. How do you bring
those experiences and that expertise
to the table with the different
investments you get sight of?
Rick Parry: I'm a great believer that

skills are definitely transferable,
particularly leadership skills and teambuilding skills. I wouldn't say I was
somebody who'd just been involved in
football, it was more of a case of being
involved in producing high performing
teams.
One of the things I enjoy doing is
giving talks to groups of people with
lessons I've learned from football
management. There's any number of
books that have been written on that
which are truly appalling with no
objectivity at all. You kind of read them
and think, hang on, I could do better
than that because I've actually worked
with these guys. There's some really
basic things you learn from working
with management like Gerard Houllier
and Rafa Benitez, just in terms of how
you get the best out of a group of people.
One of my key philosophies is that
the more successful team is one where
ordinary people do extraordinary things.
That applies in any business, any
enterprise. It's all down to carrying
people and that's my passion, so I think

you could apply that in a small business
or large business.
My other maxim in business is about
executing the simple things extremely
well. It's not about doing the complicated
things. So many businesses that go
wrong, you look at what they've done
wrong, it's not the difficult stuff, it's the
easy stuff, the basics and they haven't
done that. It's easy to talk a good game,
but doing the hard things extremely well
is very difficult. That's the hard part.
Richard Matthewman: I think
entrepreneurs like to build things.
We've already got, within the existing
investor base at Seneca, quite a number
of entrepreneurs who have built
sometimes more than one business.
They invest with Seneca, because they
obviously think that Seneca are going
to do a good job with the proceeds.
There are also others who are sitting
in the wings waiting for the right
opportunity to come along and they
would like to invest more and be able
to have a little bit of involvement,



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014

Contents
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - Cover1
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - Cover2
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - Contents
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 4
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 5
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 6
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 7
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 8
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Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - 27
Onside Issue 1 - Spring/Summer 2014 - Cover4
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