Enterprise is not about business and entrepreneurship.
It is not about premises, finances, business plans and swots.
It is a process for human development.
It is a way of exploring:
- who I am,
- what my potentials are/might be, and
- the kind of future that I could create.
It is way of living – of becoming.
Enterprise can be a catalyst, a framework, for the emergence of identity.
We need to develop enterprise programmes that pay serious attention to these issues of identity development and the process of ‘becoming’. Enterprise as the emergence of identity. There are links here to other ways in which some people find their identity – gangs, drink, knifes, drugs, crime etc and enterprise as a ‘diversionary’ activity. A ‘substitution’ product if you like.
The education system doesn’t take identity seriously – so there is a really interesting vacuum that the enterprise industry could step into if it could learn to re-position itself and become experts in developing human potential rather than the mechanics of the business plan.