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Archives for June 2008

Enterprise Professionals Missing the Point?

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I am amazed by the wonderful work done by so many enterprise professionals that is not:

  • recognised
  • valued, or
  • paid for

Sometimes the only things that seems to count in the world of the Enterprise Professional are:

  • businesses started/expanded/retained
  • jobs created/retained
  • GVA (Gross value added)
  • Percentage of people who have ‘thought about’ starting a business/going self employed
  • numbers engaged in 6 hours (or more) of training

Sometimes even obviously important measures are no longer tracked because they are not directly called for in the policy frameworks within which enterprise work is commissioned and delivered.  These include measures such as the survival rates of the new businesses and also the number of people who thoroughly investigate a business idea and then decide to walk away from it because it is not ‘right’ for them at this time.  These are the clients who put their enterprise dreams ‘on hold’.  It is likely that they will have learned a lot about enterprise on the journey and they will often return with a better business idea after a while.  They will have got the enterprise bug and should certainly be counted as successes.  By putting the ‘dream on hold’ they have almost certainly been saved from future misery and debt.  It is ‘dreams on hold’ clients that we should really be counting as the percentage of the population who have really thought about enterprise.

Failure to collect data on survival rates can lead to an increase in poor start-ups destined to struggle or fail, often leaving a trail of debt, despair and depression with enormous social costs.  Indeed there are often perverse incentive schemes that ‘reward’ enterprise professionals for the facilitation of such start-ups as they are seen as ‘countable’ successes in the short term at least.

However these are not the main points I want to make in this rant!

There are a ream of other measures that are valuable in both social and economic terms that many enterprise professionals fail to track and remain unrecognised.  These often relate to the development of social capital in the course of the enterprise journey.  Tracking social capital or social return on investment is not a massively difficult task – but it does need some planning.

The kind of indicators that could be tracked  and reported on by enterprise professionals include:

  • number of social groups belonged to and frequency and intensity of involvement
  • perceptions of ability to influence their own future
  • feelings of self worth and self esteem
  • how well informed they are about enterprise opportunities
  • frequency of engaging with relatives/friends/neighbours/professionals to explore aspirations and dreams
  • invovlement in virtual networks and frequency of contact
  • exchanges of help and advice
  • perceived control of, and satisfaction with, life
  • trust in people of similar backgrounds
  • trust in people from different backgrounds
  • confidence in ‘institutions’ that might help
  • engagement with crime and anti-social behaviour
  • health gains (reduction of reliance on prescription drugs, mental health improvements etc)

I am sure that the list of good work done by enterprise professionals could go on and on (feel free to let me know any you think I have missed).

The important challenge is how we go about recording the true impact of our work – both socially and economically and making sure that the full value of this is recognised and paid for.

Covey on Time and Priority Management

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“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”
Stephen R. Covey

Without doubt the commonest problem I find with managers who struggle with time management and worklife balance is the failure to understand the difference between ‘prioritizing their schedule’ versus ‘scheduling their priorities’.

So many managers schedule the ‘hard’ stuff. The meetings and appointments. And then they try to schedule every other piece of work around these commitments. Instead of getting clear on the things that matter (key projects, 121s, time with loved ones etc) and getting them on the schedule first they fill the calendar with trivia and then find know quality time left to do what really matters.

Time and again I ask managers what their main objectives are and then, when I look at their calendar, find very little time scheduled to work on them – just a mass of appointments around much less important stuff.

Then they wonder why they find it so hard to find time to make progress…

Getting the Marketing Right

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Much emphasis is placed on leaflets, posters, websites and business cards when planning a community based enterprise project.  And thankfully when you look at what is produced these are pretty poor channels for reaching potential entrepreneurs in disadvantaged communities.

  • Ever wondered about working for yourself?
  • Got a business idea?
  • Want to be your own boss?
  • Thinking of starting a social enterprise?

Now there is very good chance that your answer to all of the above would be a resounding ‘No!’.  Especially if you life in an area of multiple deprivation and have a history full of failure to deal with.

Yet these are the opening gambits on so many fliers, leaflets, posters and websites that hope to get people to say Yes!

A better start to such marketing collateral might be;

‘Looking to make a better life ?

Fed up with the same old, same old…?

Looking for ways to make some more cash…

Then come and meet….’

But the reality is that it does not matter what you put on your marketing collateral.  You will find it very difficult to push your way into a community.  You can only work successfully upon invitation – when people invite you to help them on the basis of your strong track record of helping others in a similar position.

So if you want to do enterprise work in a community make sure that you have trusted advocates inside the community who will encourage others to seek you out.   Most of the effective community enterprise workers that I know get over 90% of their referrals from word of mouth and very little from the leaflet drops and the websites.

Is your experience any different?

Building Confidence – Using Feedback

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One of the commonest scenarios that managers face is that of working with employees who appear to lack confidence at work.

The starting point for helping employees who lack confidence is to recognise that this is just a label that we have attached (often unconsciously) to a set of behaviours. It is recognising these behaviours and helping the employee to manage them effectively that provides the key to building confidence.

I recently worked with a manager who presented exactly this challenge and we started by listing the behaviours that were at the source of the problem:

  • crying frequently at work (2-3 times a week)
  • prefacing suggestions with self deprecating comments such as ‘This is probably a stupid idea but…’ and ‘I doubt that this will work but…’
  • periods of withdrawal and silence especially in meetings

Frequent crying is always a worry – as it maybe a sign of some deep problems that may require specialist support.  However it is not unusual and sometimes it is not a deep seated problem at all.

We then looked at the role of the manager in giving feedback, frequently and consistently, to the employee about these behaviours and the impact that they have in the workplace – ensuring that the employee is left with the responsibility for making changes.

We also looked at areas where the employee was performing well and where confidence was much less of an issue.  Again we spent a bit of time digging for successful behaviours and again agreed that the manager would increase the amount of feedback that was given to encourage these behaviours and to make the employee absolutely clear that their positive contributions were recognised and valued.

In most cases simple, clear and consistent feedback is enough to help the employee to remove the poor behaviours from their repertoire and as if by magic the label ‘lacking in confidence’ disappears.

It’s all about dreams!

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Policy makers are keen on promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Those who work in Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) see enterprise as a way of increasing competitiveness and gross national product (GNP).

The Department of Work and Pensions are interested in promoting enterprise as one way of getting people off of benefits and back into work.

Those in the Department of Communities and Local Government see it as a way of narrowing inequalities around wealth, building more sustainable communities and empowering communities to create their own future.

The Department of Health is interested because of its potential to engage individuals in meaningful activity that may reduce their needs for prescription drugs – but also because enterprise – especially social enterprise may provide vehicles for engaging the community and voluntary sector further in developing and delivering a range of health care services.

So there are a wide range of policy drivers from a wide range of government departments for the current and continuing interest in enterprise.

However what few of the policy makers seem to understand is that enteprise is not about ‘opportunities’ or social and economic policy.  It is much more personal than that.

Enterprise is driven by personal and often very private ideas of how progress can be made.

How things can be made better.

And a precursor for this is that individuals must believe that they can make things better – that they can make a difference in their own circumstances by taking action and making things happen.  They must have dreams of progress for themselves, their families and their communities.

Yet so many have given up dreaming as they associate dreams and hope with failure and disappointment.  Safer to accept the status quo than to risk the dangers associated with progress.

A key part of the work of the enterprise coach is to help their clients to dare to dream again.