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Demos Enterprise Report

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Demos have just published a collection of essays on the future of enterprise from contributors such as:

  • John Bird
  • Tim Campbell
  • Peter Day
  • John Elkington
  • Gordon Frazer
  • Howard Gardner
  • Peter Grigg
  • Martha Lane Fox
  • Jim Lawn
  • Raj Patel
  • Carl Schramm
  • Simon Woodroffe

As DEMOS say in the blurb for the report:

Enterprise is all too often associated with making money. Yet, there is so much more to it: enterprise is about creating a culture of initiative, creativity, risk-taking amongst young people and adults. It is about using entrepreneurial energy to drive change.

Britain is doing well when it comes to enterprise.

More people are trading on Ebay than ever before and TV programmes like the Dragons Den and the Apprentice are extremely popular. Small firms and individual entrepreneurs also greatly contribute to the British economy and dynamism.

But is there more to it?

This collection argues that a successful and thriving enterprise nation will have to go much further than that. The future face of enterprise is one that will need to start at home and at school; that will be found in basements and small offices as well as in big corporations and the web. It will require new skills and new talent to answer to the challenges of tomorrow. There is already a strong desire among young people to use their ideas for change, but more needs to be done to cultivate the mindsets and foster the support that tomorrow’s entrepreneurs will need if young people are not to be discouraged from trying.

This collection of essays articulates some of the key features of the future face of enterprise. Progressing this thinking into ideas for action is the next challenge.

You can download the report here.

Ideas and Opportunities are NOT the Problem

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Business opportunities are like buses, there is always another one coming along – Richard Branson

At least that is the case if you are already ‘enterprising’.  Then the main problem is to stop the flow of opportunities and ideas long enough to make disciplined progress on any one of them.

However if you have been born and brought up in a struggling community there is a fair chance that the way you see the world makes it almost impossible o recognise ‘opportunities’ other than those that everyone else in your peer group recognises – the military, shelf stacking, alcohol, benefits, crime etc.

Your own self image may mean that ‘business opportunities’ are either not identified – or are quickly dismissed (‘I wouldn’t have what it takes’, ‘I would only mess it up’.)

Engaging those who are not yet thinking of themselves as enterprising or capable of learning the skills of enterprise is a major challenge in using enterprise in community transformation.

“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)

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

Be Careful What You Wish For

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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.

You can read the original post here.