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Enterprise Insight – Mind the Gap

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Although it is almost 12 months old now this report from Enterprise Insight carries much sensible advice.

‘Thinkers’ are overlooked

Large numbers of people think about setting up their own business, or becoming their own boss (which is an important difference) – but many of them don’t turn the thinking into action. Reasons for this include:

  • Believing that they don’t have what it takes to run a business, and
  • Not having a business idea

The first of these beliefs is perpetuated by much of the entrepreneurship reality programming on TV. Think The Apprentice, Dragon’s Den etc where only certain ‘types of people’ are deemed to have what it takes. I am sure that had Sir Richard Branson pitched some of his early business ideas (Budgerigar Breeding and Christmas Tree Farming – both of which he tried and failed at) to the Dragon’s he would have received the ritual humiliation that is meted out to so many.

The truth of the matter is that no-one knows what it takes to run a business until they try it. So when you here you someone say ‘Oh I could never run my my own business – I don’t have what it takes.’ ask them what they think it takes. This will get you much clearer on their perceptions on what business is all about.

The second is perpetuated by most of the enterprise marketing collateral I see. Most start of with some variation of ‘Do you have a great business idea?’. The implication being that if you don’t then perhaps enterprise is not for you.

Most entrepreneurs have to learn how to have, develop and let go of enterprise ideas before they find one that works for them. Anyone who wants to work for themselves or finds a way of expressing themselves can be helped to explore their passion and skill to develop some business ideas.

Ideas are the easy bits – its allowing yourself to believe that you could succeed that’s hard. So when you find yourself working with a thinker who never seems to act – exploring and challenging their ideas about the importance of ‘the business idea’ or ‘having what it takes’ can sometimes help them bridge the gap to action.

‘Some of the most significant barriers to starting a business are emotional and psychological such as lack of self-confidence’

Yet still so often we find it easy to judge the potential entrepreneur and their business idea. Learning to accept and not to judge is a critical skill if we are to succeed in helping people on their enterprise journeys.

‘Policy designed’ programmes are usually targeted at particular demographic groups based on gender, ethnicity, disability or disadvantage. Although this makes sense for addressing inequalities in society, such programmes tend to regard their audience as a homogeneous group. They tend to overlook the real needs, motivations and attitudes of individuals.

I have taught the fundamental importance of client centred enterprise coaching for a long time now. The sad truth is that most services are designed more for the convenience of the funder, the service provider’s organisational infrastructure (I have a manged workspace and I am gonna fill it!) or the individual advisers own comfort zones than they are for the needs of the client.

Targeted, customer-focused activities are needed to convert more young thinkers into doers. This audience is mobile and dynamic and communications campaigns are an effective way to encourage next steps. Personalised messages, stories, role models and competitions should be designed with a customer segment in mind.

Not only Young Thinkers – but most thinkers are far more likely to respond to well targeted marketing messages that speak to them as an individual. However better than that by far would be word of mouth recommendation to you and your service from someone they know and trust.

Encouraging-peer-to peer support can be effective in building the UK’s entrepreneurial capital and socially empowering young entrepreneurs.The knowledge economy depends on institutions that join up thinking and help bring together “the five tribes of enterprise”: creators, advisers, funders, facilitators and educators. We need diffused and cost-effective forms of support and less reliance on only professional business advisers. This requires greater use of mentors, ‘connectors’who can bring people together, the stimulation of support networks for young entrepreneurs as well as experimentation in the use of social media for enterprise purposes.

We have long known that entrepreneurs of almost any age and at almost any stage in the business cycle learn more from their peers than from professional advisers. Especially when advisers ADVISE instead of facilitate personal and entrepreneurial development.

You can download a summary of the Mind the Gap Report as well as the Full Monty here.

The Power of Acceptance

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“We need to tell people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really ways to control others.

Advice is a conversation stopper…we want to substitute curiosity for advice.

No call to action.

No asking what they are going to do about it.

Do not tell people how you handled the same concern in the past.

Do not ask questions that have advice hidden in them, such as “have you ever thought of talking to the person directly?”

Often citizens will ask for advice. The request for advice is how we surrender our sovereignty. If we give in to this request, we have, in this small instance, affirmed their servitude, their belief that they do not have the capacity to create the world from their own resources; and more important, we have supported their escape from their own freedom.”

Community – The structure of belonging – Peter Block

“One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.”

Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Friere

“It was wonderful! Incredibly powerful – just to be listened to.”

Participant on an Introduction to Enterprise Coaching Programme.

Cycle of Change – Prochaska and Diclemente – and Enterprise

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  • When we are encouraging individuals to become more enterprising we are encouraging them to consider the merits of changing.
  • To consider replacing one pattern of attitudes and behaviours with another.
  • So if we are going to succeed in helping people to change in this way what can we learn from other professions and professionals who have been working overtly on changing behaviour for years?

This was one of the questions that we set out to explore when we asked Vicky Sinclair from the substance misuse unit in Leeds Prison to work with a group of enterprise professionals in Leeds as part of the Sharing the Success Capacity Building programme. Vicky shared with us the Cycle of Change model developed in 1982 by Prochaska and Diclemente – which seems to have tons of relevance to enterprise professionals.

The cycle of change has 6 phases:

Cycle of Change - Prochaska and Diclemente

  1. In ‘pre-contemplation’, the person does not see any problem in their current behaviours and has not considered there might be some better alternatives.
  2. In ‘contemplation’ the person is ambivalent – they are in two minds about what they want to do – should they stay with their existing behaviours and attitudes or should they try changing to something new?
  3. In ‘preparation’, the person is taking steps to change usually in the next month or so.
  4. In ‘action’, they have made the change and living the new set of behaviours is an all-consuming activity.
  5. In ‘maintenance’, the change has been integrated into the person’s life – they are now more ‘enterprising’.
  6. Relapse is a full return to the old behaviour. This is not inevitable – but is likely – and should not be seen as failure. Often people will Relapse several times before they finally succeed in making a (more or less) permanent to a new set of behaviours.

A couple of things require thinking about when we look at this model in relation to encouraging people to change to more enterprising behaviours.

Firstly, most enterprise professionals think that the path to entrepreneurship is (or should be) a fairly linear one if the client has a half decent business idea. We just need to give them the right training at the right time and bingo! This model suggests that there are a whole range of factors that are liable to lead to lapses – if not relapses – on the enterprise journey and we should be aware of this. Lapse or Relapse does not mean failure – and should not be taken as indicators that the person is not capable of making the change. Indeed they should be EXPECTED as a normal part of the cycle of change in relation to new behaviours.

Secondly, the change cycle will often operate over a timescale of years rather than months. When we are designing enterprise services we need to take account of the fact that different individuals move at a different pace. Any attempt to group people into cohorts and move them at the same pace through a change process needs to take this challenge very seriously.

Thirdly, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, enterprise services generally seem to market themselves at those that are already contemplating or have already decided that ‘enterprise’ is for them. They recruit those who are already at Stages 2, 3 or 4. If we are serious about really changing the enterprise culture then we also need to find ways to engage and work with those who are at Stage 1 – Precontemplation. This stage requires a very different approach to marketing in terms of both the message and the media. It also requires a different type of service.

What do we want Enterprise to do for us?

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This is an important question and one that is rarely given serious consideration. Of course more entrepreneurs means more wealth means better communities. Right?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

In the current context most enterprise programmes focus on finding individual entrepreneurs and helping them to find ways of making their business ideas work. There is a good chance that as soon as this happens the entrepreneur will find their new found success gives them the option of leaving the community for a more prosperous one. This is because their success has been in spite of the local community and not because of it. The community is something to be escaped from. This approach to enterprise in the community plays up the role of the entrepreneur as individualistic hero(ine) fighting against the odds. If it succeeds then the community is actually weakened as successful people are able to leave.

So if we want enterprise to enable individuals to succeed and escape ‘deprived communities’ then this sort of individualistic approach to enterprise can work.

However if our goal is to transform communities through enterprise then we need to adopt very different models of enterprise development. We need to develop a context in which enterprise can succeed BECAUSE of the community context and not in spite of it. Where success ties enterprise into the community rather than provides a spring board out of it. Only when we learn how to nurture this type of enterprise development will it become a tool to really transform communities as well as individuals.

These transformational approaches emphasise enterprise as a social phenomenon. They bring people together to collaborate on possibilities and to develop stories of hope and change. They emphasise the role of the local community in supporting enterprise with patronage but also with advice, support, guidance and introductions. They build enterprise services where local people can succeed in making progress because of their communities rather than in spite of them.

If we want to succeed in transforming communities through enterprise then this needs to be given some serious consideration.

The ability of projects to build social capital and to raise the collective understanding of enterprise and the role of the community in supporting it, as well raising the ability and potential of individual entrepreneurs will be key.

So what do we want enterprise to do for us?

Minding the Assets

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It is deeply ingrained in most enterprise professionals to try to fix things. Business plans, cash flows, products and people.

We listen to our clients for signs of weakness or difficulty and then we try and fix the problem, usually by referring them to a course or another expert.

Much of our work is biased towards exposing and managing deficiencies rather than uncovering and celebrating strengths. This has become a deeply embedded part of our work – an almost medical approach to helping.

Think ‘Inform, Diagnose, Broker’. Think ‘Best Practice Business Diagnostic’.

We become just another part of the system that has for years highlighted and exposed weaknesses.

How would our work be changed if instead of this focus on the weaknesses we spent our time helping our clients to recognise what they have done, what they can do and what they can do to use these strengths to make progress?

The Development Trust Association exists to help communities to take control of the physical assets in their community and use them for public good.

Is there a similar service that helps individuals to uncover their assets (skills, passion, energy, talent, anger) and reclaim them in pursuit of progress?

So why not spend some time trying to avoid highlighting the problems – and instead accentuate the positive.

Developing a healthy pre-occupation with what is right, rather than re-emphasising all of the things that are wrong is likely to hold the key to building really constructive relationships in support of more enterprising individuals and communities.