Shaping a sustainable future for businesses: A day in the life of a Business School academic

At 6.30 every morning my dog provides me with an enhanced waking up system. Frida the dachshund effectively competes with my alarm. Her eagerness to outdo technology is particularly appreciated on the weekends.

My morning routine consists of a yoga practice and a kale and fruit smoothie, that I enjoy even though I am not a millennial. After a brisk dog walk, I am sufficiently awake to head to town. To avoid heavy traffic, my car steers me towards the narrow streets of 1800’s Britain in order to save me a whole four minutes. I spend my extra time wisely. I get a coffee, before heading to the Hydra Suite in the Calverley Building at our city campus.

Today we are hosting a workshop for small and medium businesses. The all-day session is about long-term strategic planning. We are using Futures and Foresight, a method championed by one of our great leadership Professors, Jeff Gold.

What is it, you might ask? It’s a little like fortune telling for businesses. Except that you learn to use market intelligence and research tools rather than a crystal ball. Our participants learn how to think in long term strategic terms, creating scenarios to support their future growth and resilience.

The process changes the way leaders think about shaping their organisations. I love how people engage with this method and how it fires them up with ideas. The fantastic three: Niki Kyriakidou, Karen Vollum-Dix, and Joy Ogbemudia start the session, energising the group.

All today’s attendees completed the Help to Grow: Management Programme and this one-day workshop is a free perk, part of their alumni events series. Speaking to the SMEs in the room is so rewarding. All of them are great advocates of the Help to Grow (HTG) intervention - a governmentally funded 12-week course for senior business leaders. This network is growing and creating a thriving community of regional businesses that are supported by our Leeds Business School.

This week we have already hosted a face-to-face session with Professor Steve McKevitt, who spoke to our new HTG cohort on the importance of developing a brand, no matter if you are the new Nike or Yorkshire manufacturer of washing machine cogs. It’s good to see how our tutors inspire people to think differently about their business potential.

By mid-day my inbox looks swollen, and I find a quiet desk to catch up on my correspondence. In my other guise, I lead a university knowledge exchange centre that works with FMCG retailers, brands and packaging companies to whom we offer market intelligence and applied research solutions.

One of my emails is from a Retail Institute member company - a global food producer, who is trying to understand the environmental impact of the packaging they use for their highly perishable products. The company is wanting to conduct a research study to see which of the innovative packaging solutions will provide optimal food protection whilst keeping in mind sustainable goals, such as low carbon emissions or recyclability.

Life Cycle Assessment is a technique that we can use to answer such dilemmas. It will help the business create a rationale for the retailers they sell their products on to. I offer a meeting with myself and a colleague, who is a scientist and an expert in this field.

I also receive a message from one of the Leeds Business School student groups, working on a consultancy project on Augmented Reality (AR). Their assignment is to unpick how AR technology can support purchase conversion for online products. Exciting to think that some retailers are already using such tech, to help us imagine how their products or services will fit into our lives.

Personally, I cannot wait for travel providers to project a tropical jungle in my living room. I would book that trip on the spot, or just sit for hours listening to the crickets.

Once the session is over, I return home to walk my four-legged creature whilst listening to a BBC podcast on retail, from the Sliced Bread series. Often, I turn to audiobooks on sustainability and other social and environmental challenges. An idea of a workshop for businesses wanting to become eco-friendly is bubbling on my mind.

My last task is to prepare for a presentation the following day. A few months back we published a report for UK’s Flexographic Industry trade body, FIA UK. With my colleague Dr Ben Mitchell, we are to host the session on key findings from the research work. We have an hourly slot to fill, but there is a lot to say. I am looking forward to talking to some of the businesses in the audience about how the university works with businesses through public funding, Help to Grow and consultancy services.

As my work life ends for the day, my second life begins and I prepare for a jog in the dark, before tackling a Mexican fiesta for dinner!