When women replace competition with collaboration, great things happen.

It’s been two days since I returned from New York and from what I’ve no doubt will be one of the most seminal experiences of my life.

It’s been two days since I returned from New York and from what I’ve no doubt will be one of the most seminal experiences of my life.

Myself and eight other female entrepreneurs travelled from London to a huge brownstone on the Upper East Side on an experimental adventure, to test out our theory that working together and supporting one another could be (and should be) the new model for advancement in business.

In the world of work, women, gender-issues and collaboration are all hot topics, so it seemed that the timing was perfect for us to cross our fingers, make the trip and hope for the best.

Twitter: @WeFlockNY

Our plan was simple: meet lots of new and interesting people (including each other), keep an open mind and figure out ways we could work together and help one another. The specifics were deliberately loose, and we weren’t entirely sure of the response we’d get on the other side of the pond.

What made it an interesting prospect for us though, was that this was an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration. Entrepreneurial gatherings tend to be homogenous, in that they focus on one industry or sector (be it tech, advertising, design etc). Our businesses are all different; from PR to graphic design to publishing to business consultancy and even alcoholic sweets! It was this contrast and variety that drew us together and we challenged ourselves to find overlaps and joined up ways of working. We felt strongly that we could strike gold if we pushed ourselves to absorb and apply diverse approaches and thinking.

What happened over the course of the last week, for me at least, was a series of serendipitous successes, overwhelmingly positive conversations and some much needed life lessons.

When I first heard about the trip, I was excited about the concept and of course, the opportunity to visit New York. But I was also slightly apprehensive and concerned about spending a week overseas in a house with eight ambitious, savvy and somewhat unknown women.

This may seem like an odd confession to make, given the part I’ve played in this journey of female collaboration, but it was interesting and concerning for me to watch my internalised biases rise to the surface.

Despite my belief that women should support other women, I have been taught (both directly and indirectly) since adolescence that women should be critical of one another and that I should expect to encounter behaviour that is both catty and competitive. These expectations haven’t necessarily been reinforced during my career, bitchiness has been present, but not on a regular basis. So as I booked my flight, I felt a mixture of trepidation and disappointment in myself for feeling this way. If I was to be an example for women to encourage and advocate one another, was my instinctive negativity and nervousness betraying me as a fraud?

I wanted to understand more about where my predispositions were coming from, so I began digging on Google to see if I was alone in my thinking. What I found started to shine a light on some of the unhealthy, and in some cases untrue assumptions that myself (and many women) are holding onto.

From my own experience and from my extensive Googling, it’s clear that the ‘survival of the fittest’ mindset is very much still the dominant default approach within big business, and when it comes to being a woman in this space, we’ve been taught that battling each other is the only way to get ahead. An insightful piece in Forbes refers to ‘the rope ladder’, where women climb to senior positions, then promptly haul up the ladder right behind them. Others tactically avoid helping women in their careers, and some can resort to passive-aggressive behaviour to protect what they see as their interests. There is an implicit understanding that positions of power for women are scarce and therefore we must compete to win a share of influence, and that another woman’s success inherently erodes our own. This explains the supposition (and sometimes self-fulfilling prophecy) that women don’t play nicely with one another.

However, contradictory to this are the natural leadership skills that we as women possess; collaboration, inclusivity, encouragement and empathy.

These competencies have been proven time and time again to be immensely effective, whether when nurturing people or for getting things done, being role models or delivering results. Women are programmed to galvanise and empower others, and to do it well.

So on the one hand, our natural proclivity as women is to help and support one another, yet we’re driven to compete, undermine and sabotage in order to get ahead.

Inevitably, this has landed us somewhere between a rock a hard place.

So it was no wonder that I was having mixed feelings about my impending trip, these divergent approaches to success were pulling me in two very different directions; my desire to support was at odds with my drive to succeed. How could I do both?

Arriving in New York, I’ll be honest, I had my guard up. I was excited and enthusiastic, but the pessimist in me was primed for a week where words and actions wouldn’t match up. I was skeptical and prepared to enter an environment where reciprocity was just a word and where boundaries had been drawn up. After all, we had our own businesses to prioritise, could collaboration really work if we were focused on looking after number one?

After entering the house, it took approximately two hours for my preconceived notions to begin unravelling, and about a day for me to feel a sense of togetherness and mutual support unlike I’ve ever encountered with a group of women before now.

Though we were nine female entrepreneurs with entirely different businesses and approaches, it became clear almost immediately that we were sharing more than just a huge brownstone in New York, we were sharing the exact same feelings; elation, fear, passion, nervousness and unbridled enthusiasm to make this work.

The conversation around the dinner table that night went something like this:

“What the hell are we doing?”

“I can’t believe we’re here”

“I feel like a fraud”

“This is so bloody exciting”

“What if no one comes to our drinks?”

Sharing our vulnerability so early on and admitting to each other that we were all equally nervous was the glue that we needed in order to form an immediate bond. The competitive spirit simply wasn’t present, what I thought would be bitchiness was instead compassion and individual success was laddered up to shared goals, without question.

We were in this together and we had to lean on each other to make it work.

Throughout the course of the seven days, we worked as a team. We hosted welcome drinks for 120 people, we ran an event at Soho House, we had individual and joint meetings and we shared contacts. We also made sure that we had a good time together, we visited Funland at the Museum Of Sex, we ate deep-fried Oreos and we were driven around Manhattan in Ferraris by our house manager.

Bompass & Parr ‘Funland’ at The Museum Of Sex

Every person we met in New York was both inspired and in awe of what we’d done, that we’d had the guts to do it and that we’d done it together.

So was I.

Looking out at Manhattan from The Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had this experience with eight captivating, impressive and kindhearted women. They have taught me so much in such a short space of time.

We came to this with assorted ideas, attitudes, styles and businesses but together we produced something that we’re really proud of. We’ve proved our point and the biggest lesson I’ll be taking away from it all is this:

Competition and collaboration can live comfortably side-by-side.

Over the last week, I’ve come to realise that the solution is to become conscious of our internalised biases and of the strengths of feminine ways of working and leading.

Though history has taught us that the only way to survive is to turn against each other and to view each other as rivals, in reality you can only do so much alone. When women stop focusing on perceived competition and instead recognise and share their own capabilities and resources, they find a power that can only be accessed together: solidarity.

Having the confidence to reach out and form partnerships regardless of your area of expertise, is what really makes you a success. These partnerships won’t diminish your individual power or goals, instead they can serve as an accelerant and amplifier.

In seven days, I’ve had a life-changing epiphany; Women can allow themselves to be separate and autonomous and still maintain close connections and when we put our minds to it, we can achieve exponentially greater results together.

For us, this journey is far from over. We’re planning more meet-ups in London and we’re even eyeing up our next destination (We Flock Shanghai anyone?), because what we’ve started has struck a chord with us and with other women we’ve met through this adventure. I’m not suggesting that we know it all or that we’ve neatly figured out the future of work, but what we have done is embark on a much needed learning curve, which we’re confident will take us in amazing new directions.

The inaugural @WeFlockNY has come to a close, but I encourage you all to ‘Go Flock yourself’, because everyone wins.