Monday Morning Radio

Can a timber-framed cottage built in tiny Frogholt, England, in 1450 and its current occupant and owner teach 21st-century business executives and entrepreneurs valuable insights about leadership and collaboration? Absolutely. Douglas Squirrel, who goes by the mononym “Squirrel,” is a multi-decade technology trailblazer and business scale-up expert. He uses his home, Old Kent Cottage, which required extensive restoration help from plumbers, electricians, structural engineers, and thatchers, as a practical business case study in managing complexity and as a metaphor for demonstrating that those with diverse skills must collaborate harmoniously or risk structural failure.   As Squirrel explains, if the many artisans who worked on Old Kent Cottage hadn’t communicated and worked together closely, the roof would have fallen in.  It’s the same, he says, with every business. Squirrel is a proponent of using the human power of conversation to build effective, high-performing teams that lead to “insane” profits. Alon