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Valuing Entrepreneurs

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I recently did a workshop with some aspiring entrepreneurs funded by a local council.  The workshop was run in  a brand new council building (so new that the boiler did not work and we froze all day).

The refreshments featured a mouldy carton of orange juice and the lunch that was provided was very poor.

  • What messages did the aspiring entrepreneurs pick up about how they were valued by the council?
  • Were they made to feel that the work they were doing to set up new business is important?
  • Did they feel that they were respected and taken seriously in what they were trying to do?
  • Or did they just feel like more numbers in the performance management sausage machine that in some cases is the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative?

Whenever we try to educate entrepreneurs there is a curriculum (stuff that we intend to teach) – in this case cash flow forecasting, understanding income and expenditure and recognising that success comprises more than just a healthy cash flow.

There is also a hidden curriculum (stuff that we did not intend to teach – but is learned anyway).  I think in this case this might include the lesson that actually we don’t value aspiring entrepreneurs  – we will keep costs as low as we can – and count the numbers.

Now I am not arguing that we should cosset would be entrepreneurs and treat them lavishly.  However I think that we should extend all of the professional courtesies and standards that we would extend to already successful entrepreneurs who chose to partner with the council on helping to improve local economies.

Making it Easy to Say Thanks

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thorntons.gif

Sometimes saying thanks can be just too much work. You know you should drop someone a thank you card – but it is just too much effort to get to the shops and somehow it never gets done. So you just fire off an impersonal e-mail.

Instead, make it really easy to say ‘Thanks’ by setting up an emergency ‘Thank You’ kit. It should include some beautiful cards or notepaper, some postage stamps, and a selection of small but interesting gifts (I tend to give books or toys!). If you have to regularly thank chocolate loves you might want to look at this new service from Thorntons. (Big Thanks to Jayne Pickard from Encompass Marketing for the idea!)

You might also want to think about recording just how often you say thanks – and who to!

‘Our People Are Our Greatest Asset’ – The Big Lie!

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Passion

It is rare to work in an organisation these days that does not claim that ‘Our people are our greatest asset’.

This is the BIG lie! If it were true then we could simply recruit our way to success.

The truth is that some people are assets while others are liabilities and many managers find it hard to tell the difference. And managers who can effectively work with both assets and liabilities are rare. Instead we just settle for a complacent acceptance of the status quo.

So if people are not our greatest asset – then what is?

Well how about one (or more) from the following list:

  • Ideas
  • Passion
  • Energy
  • Commitment
  • Skills
  • Time.

How would we manage people to harness every idea, every ounce of passion, energy and commitment, and every skill; to make sure that none is wasted?

Focusing on what we expect people to contribute to our organisation holds the key to significantly improving our effectiveness as a manager.

From Good to Great Manager – Part 4 – The Power of Delegation

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Good bosses delegate.

Great bosses set up sensible monitoring routines so that they know how that delegation is going.

Good bosses engage employees in helping them with major projects.

Great bosses give their team members the major projects and are available to support them as required. They give the team members room to operate – without cutting them off.

Good bosses walk around the office talking to people – what Tom Peters calls Managing by Wandering Around or MBWA.

Great ones do that too, but they are careful not to ‘intrude’. They use MBWA as a way of getting information that helps them to give accurate feedback, to coach effectively and to delegate.