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Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Reading Group

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There is a lot of stuff being written about enterprise and entrepreneurship at the moment. And there is a lot of stuff that was written years ago that still holds valuable lessons.

I am starting an Enterprise Reading Group for people who like to read the enterprise literature and find ways to apply what they learn in their own practice. ERG will help this process by:

  • developing a book list of relevant and powerful texts
  • providing an online forum where readers and practitioners can discuss a book – on a chapter by chapter basis – and share insights, experiences, questions and answers in relation to the books
  • hosting real meetings where the key ideas in each book can be discussed and developed.

I have already set up the online forum featuring the first four books which are:

You can find out more about each text and purchase them online by clicking the titles above. You can join the Enterprise Reading Group through the online forum. It is a completely free service so please do get involved.

If there are other texts that you would like to discuss please do let me know and I will add them to the repertoire.

Please use the comnets box below to ask any questions or give feedback about the idea of the ERG.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Mike Chitty

“Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?”

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“I once was with somebody I liked very much — an older person, when I was considerably younger than I am now.

That person said,

“Spend at least fifteen minutes a day weaving dreams. And if you weave a hundred, at least two of them will have a life.”

So continue with a dream and don’t worry whether it can happen or not; weave it first.

Many people have killed their dreams by figuring out whether they could do them or not before they dream them.

So, if you’re a first-rate dreamer, dream it out — several of them–and then see what realities can come to make them happen, instead of saying,

“Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?”

Virginia Satir (1916 – 1988)

Teachers and Managers – Spirit and Method

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Michael Marland, a visionary London headteacher wrote “The Craft of the Classroom” which has had a profound effect on the development of effective teachers.

In it he wrote:

“The craft won’t work without a spirit compounded of the salesman, the Music Hall performer, the parent, the clown, the intellectual, the lover and the organiser, but the spirit won’t win through on its own either. Method matters. The more “organised” you are, the more sympathetic you can be.”

Teachers and managers are both paid to help individuals to explore and develop their potential and I think that Marland’s quote about the teaching craft probably also holds true for management.

If this is true which facets of ‘spirit’ and ‘method’ do you most urgently need to develop?

Money and Stress

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As the legendary Bruce Springsteen said back in the 1970s when he just started to win recording contracts – ‘When they pay you $400 a day you get to have $400 dollar a day problems’.

I found a great blog yesterday that quoted some research on the relationship between wealth and stress.

The following five types of deal were offered:

  1. The Bum Deal: Being stressed out, overworked, and making less than $100,000 per year.
  2. The Really Bum Deal: Being stressed, overworked, and making less than $25,000 per year.
  3. The Submission Deal: Making around $20,000 per year, but accepting your dirt-poor status. Your dire situation, in turn, leads to a sense of resignation that allows you to relax and enjoy your free time.
  4. The You’re-An-Idiot Deal: Being ultra-rich (making more than, say, $3 million per year off interest income), having nothing to do, and stressing out over golf games, financial managers, and all the poor people trying to bilk you out of your fortune.
  5. The Sweet Deal: Making more than $3 million per year off interest income and relishing your liesure time with hedonistic pleasure. At the same time, you’re conscious enough to avoid misogyny and gambling addictions.

Now I think that sometimes the deals people settle for are a reflection of their self worth, as much as of their potential or achievement.

  • What deal have you got?
  • And why?

You can read the original post here.

Cycle of Change Re-worked

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The Cycle of Change Redrawn
The Cycle of Change Redrawn

I have been thinking some more about the cycle of change and how it works when thinking about enterprise and transforming communities.

I think this re-work helps to show that there may be a lot of people who are not interested in changing to a ‘more enterprising’ set of behaviours.

If we are serious about transformation then we need to find ways to engage people in this group and understand what the barriers are to them even thinking about the possibility of change. Most efforts seem to be targeted at those who are already in the cycle at some point. You know the kind of stuff – ‘Have You Got a Great Business Idea’ or ‘Thinking of Starting a Business?’. Both of these will get a resounding ‘No’ from those not interested in change.

What kind of marketing messages might work for this group? Well how about:

‘Fed up with the same old, same old?’

‘Are you brassed off and angry?’

‘Ever felt like you are wasting your life away?’

‘Something that you want to make happen – but not sure how?’

It also shows the almost inevitable role of lapse and re-lapse in the change process. It is very unusual for someone to go from one set of behaviours to another without either lapses or relapses. Yet often lapse or relapse in the field of enterprise represents failure rather than progress.

What is your repsonse when one of your clients take a step backwards, misses an appointment or otherwise does not make the progress that you had hoped for?

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”

George Bernard Shaw