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Next Generation Leadership Talent

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The fine and august City of Leeds hosted an NCVO curry club dinner last night in troubled Clarence Dock.  The Y&H Region managed a splendid turnout of 7 to explore the leadership challenges facing civic society as part of Leadership2020.  Perhaps there is a message here about the power of the existing leadership to convene conversations that matter?  Or perhaps as a region we just don’t really know how to play our part as effective followers?

Conversation was varied and interesting and here are my key takeways:

  1. We need to avoid conceiving of leadership as the province of the anointed.  Leadership is a participation sport, a social process, in which all stakeholders must be encourages to play a role.   The challenge is not to recruit, retain and develop the few in a leadership elite, but to find ways of engaging all who wish to be engaged in co-creating the future.
  2. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy
  3. We should not ape the ‘talent management’ processes of the private and public sector.  Our sector has distinct values and these must be reflected in our leadership constructs and processes
  4. We need to find ways in which leadership can unite more diverse voices and opinions in common cause.  Leadership processes that emphasise opportunities for mutuality and association rather than competition
  5. Leadership processes must work for those whom we purport to serve – not just for the state to exploit the third sector as a low cost route to market
  6. Managing processes of dialogue (barriers being time and knowhow) should be high on the agenda for the development of effective leadership processes
  7. We must learn to engage volunteers in a cause rather than a ‘career’ stepping stone
  8. We must drop an infatuation with leadership ‘skills’.  There always other keys to the kingdom. We should instead major on self managed learning process, reflective practice and above all awareness of impact in relation to intentions.

Any of that make sense to you?

Enterprise for All – Wednesday 31st March 2010 Free Conference

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Unleashing Enterprise is creating a partnership for all enterprise educators to pioneer a culture of enterprise across the East Midlands. The partnership is managed by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) and developed in close partnership with educators, employers, enterprise agencies, policy makers and funding organisations. The programme is helping to facilitate a more cohesive and planned approach to the development and delivery of the enterprise offer in the East Midlands. It is also helping to promote opportunities for all people, but mainly young people, to take up the enterprise skills offer in their schools, communities or places of work.

The annual Unleashing Enterprise conference takes place on the 31st March at the East Midlands Conference Centre. Entitled “Enterprise for All?”, the conference comes at an exciting time for those working in the field of enterprise capabilities with the enterprise skills agenda shortly to be included within the Regional Skills Strategy. With entrepreneurs heralded in popular media as much as in business journals these days, it is easy to assume that enterprise activity is readily understood and accessible to all. But is it? Or should it be?

2010 is a good time to take stock of activity that is being developed along the “golden thread of enterprise” and Enterprise for All will do just that.

Keynote speakers lined up for the conference confirmed thus far include:

  • Mike Chitty, Author of the BLOG, “Enterprise & Entrepreneurship in the Community”
  • Andrew Morgan, Skills and Communities Director at emda
  • Toby Reid, Nottingham based entrepreneur and ex-graduate of NTU’s the Hive and founder of business reality website http://www.inafishbowl.com/

There will also be an enterprise market place showcasing the best of enterprise in the East Midlands. Attendance at the conference is free for delegates and agencies that want to participate in the market place.

If you wish to register for this event please complete the online booking form

Chance for those outside the East Midlands to see what’s going on.

Influencing Policy, Driving Change Conference 25th March

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Thursday 25 March
10am-4pm
The Octagon, Hull

A one-day regional conference jointly organised by Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Forum and the NCVO Forum for Change.

We would like to invite you to attend Influencing Policy, Driving Change, a conference for anyone involved in campaigning and influencing in the voluntary and community sector.

This free event will help you make sense of the external policy environment and focus on the skills and expertise needed to get your voice heard where it matters – locally, regionally and nationally.

During the day we will explore:

  • Key trends in the external policy and campaigning environment
  • How to engage with regional and sub-regional decision making structures
  • The ‘rules of engagement’ with Westminster & how to get your voice heard
  • The principles for effective collaboration in your campaigning & policy work

Full details of the speakers and workshop choices can be seen by visiting our website at: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/influencingpolicyconference.

You can book online, or contact Sue Beckett on 020 7520 2440 or by emailing susan.beckett@ncvo-vol.org.uk.

People in Policy Land

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Until people in policy-land stop implying that there are things called communities which can be called on to voice an opinion and take uncontested collective action that will be acceptable to the state, we’re going to see neither genuine empowerment nor meaningful co-delivery

Kevin Harris

Good stuff – and one of the reasons why I believe that the development of community is contingent on the development of people and their self interest.  Once individuals are clear on what matters, and what they are going to do in pursuit of it, then community starts to emerge as people associate in pursuit of shared interests and exchange.

Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. ‘Tis profitable for us both that I shou’d labour with you today, and that you shou’d aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know that you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains on your account; and should I labour with you on my account, I know I shou’d be disappointed, and that I shou’d in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone: You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.

David Hume 1711-1776

An Enterprise Escalator? No Thanks! Give Me a Sherpa Instead

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Kevin Horne is the CEO of Norfolk and Waveney Enterprise Services (NWES) ‘one of the leading business support organisations’ in the UK.  NWES is a members of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies and Kevin has written a piece drawing attention to the NFEA’s Enterprise Manifesto.

Kevin goes on to describe the ‘Enterprise Escalator’ which provides a ‘comprehensive customer journey’, comprising:

  • Outreach and awareness raising.
  • Pre-start advice.
  • Start-up training.
  • One to one support.
  • Access to finance.
  • Mentoring.
  • Networking.

On the surface, good sensible stuff.  But it perpetuates a myth.  The ‘escalator’ implies that, if start up is right for me, I just have to get on and I will effortlessly ascend to the next level.  It is a false promise.  It is the enterprise fairytale.  Real world is less ‘escalator’ and more ‘snakes and ladders’.  Less gentle trip to the shopping centre and more laying siege to the mountain.  It is life making work.

And what if it is not right for me?  Kevin rightly suggest that we need to signpost to other services – but will any of those really help?  I have seen too many people with aspiration and potential be sent back to the job centre because the job of helping them find their enterprising feet will just take too long.  It won’t fit with the neatly packaged funded services that look to provide a start up fast track.

Perhaps we should offer an enterprise sherpa service.  Someone who has managed the ascent before – but who has also, on occasion, failed.  Someone who recognises that this is a risky endeavour and needs to be carefully managed if it is not to cause damage.  Someone who can recognise when the time is right to push for the summit and when the time is right to do more training and preparation at low levels.

If we are to engage people in communities then we have to engage them ‘where they are at’.  Some will already have made it to base camp and are hungrily eyeing the peak.  It might not quite be an escalator but we can certainly pass them the oxygen, clip them onto the fixed ropes and wish them luck.

But many remain in the valleys and seldom look to the cloud covered tops.

We have to personalise our services and we have to recognise that many are not yet close to being  ready to start a business – now is not the time to launch an assault for the summit – but instead to weigh up the pros and cons of even considering a short trek.

Different people are at different places.

Some will be highly motivated but with few skills.  Others will have skills (that they often don’t recognise) but little or no motivation.  Some will have neither motivation nor skill. A precious few will have both.

The real ‘enterprise’ challenge is to engage those who have already decided that the ‘labour market’ is not for them and to encourage them to reconsider what they can do with their lives.  It is about reconnecting them to their aspirations, helping them to find belief and confidence and finding ways in which they can unstick their lives and make progress.  It is about helping them to see that their is an enterprise journey that might be right for them.  Can we cost effectively extend our sherpa service to engage and inspire them?  What are the costs of not doing so?  This should be the realm of the enterprise coach.

It is often a protracted job that requires a long term, strong, supportive, challenging, trusting and non-judgemental relationship.  It is not about the ‘Enterprise Fairytale’ and fast start ups.  It is about the hard work of developing people and helping them to find ways to dare to move forward again.

I wonder if Enterprise Agencies have the skill and commitment to required to develop an enterprise based service that will really start where many people are at?