- Projects designed to develop an enterprise culture should be owned and managed by the community itself. A community that is coerced towards enterprise by outsiders is likely to resist.
- Change agents, coaches, advisers and others working in the community should be recruited, managed and introduced to the community – by the community. They should not be missionaries parachuted in to win converts.
- Change is best effected through a series of 121 meetings, characterised by honesty and openness, where a professional, compassionate and caring coach works to ensure that the client takes control of their own enterprise agenda. To ensure maximum take up and productivity of the service it should be free of charge for as long as it takes for the client to complete their journey and believe that that they no longer need the service.
- Community based enterprise coaches should not replicate existing services. Instead they should signpost and brokers clients to existing services and help them to use them effectively. Where necessary the coach may need to advise existing service providers on how best to effectively serve their clients.
- The community based enterprise coach or business adviser helps the client to develop their commitment, passion and skill to their own enterprise agenda – using the tools and techniques of personal development. Their focus is primarily on the development of the person and secondarily on the development of their enterprise ideas.
- Community based business coaches and enterprise advisers need to be at the heart of a network, of social capital, that can provide advice, guidance and support as required by the coach and their clients.
- Community based business coaches and enterprise advisers work in response to the wants and desires of local people – not to the delivery of strategies, plans and opportunities developed by economic planners. They do not motivate or initiate but work in response to the passion, interests and skills of local people.
- The enterprise project must take a broad definition of enterprise – helping local people to use enterprise skills to tackle problems and opportunities that face them. Entrepreneurship may be on the agenda – but it should not be THE agenda.