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Fulfilling Potential

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Why do we obsess about fulfilling the potential of young people?

Clearly this is an important challenge – but what about the over 25s? Over 50s?

Perhaps we need a more genuine approach to developing the potential of people.

The language of ‘opportunities’ is different to the language of ‘potential’.

Potential is something innate to the individual. It is a product of nature and nurture, passion and purpose. Opportunities on the other hand are usually spotted by planners and employers and waved like carrots under the noses of the populace in a misguided hope that it will prove a sufficient incentive to precipitate change. Most times it doesn’t. Opportunities are the products of economies and markets.

Opportunities are a product of top down strategic thinking and planning. Potential is a product of personal development and can only be developed ‘responsively’. It requires that we respond to the needs, interests and ambitions of individuals.

So let’s develop person centred services designed to facilitate self-belief in potential, possibility and the recognition and selection of options – some of which might include the planners and employers ‘opportunities’.

I was working in an FE college yesterday where there was a focus on ’employer engagement’. Now the last time I looked at the Leeds economy ’employers’ (especially those who would ‘engage’ with FE) were busy reducing employment – not creating it. So how about we spend more time and money on engaging passionate individuals who want to do something with their lives, in pursuit of their own agendas, rather than on the agenda of employers, QCA and LSC.

It might just work….

The E-Factor

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Had a great morning yesterday when I got to meet some of the team responsible for the development of the LEGI programme in North East Lincolnshire – and got to enjoy the splendour of Cleethorpes!

So what impressed me about the e-factor approach?

  • The enthusiasm and belief about what could be achieved in North East Lincolnshire
  • The commitment to real outreach work (facilitating an understanding of enterprise rather than trying to sell services and facilities)
  • A commitment to develop the demand for enterprise services before investing in too much infrastructure (an ambitious property development programme is underway – but only after the outreach and adviser teams have already got some hungry and ambitious clients)
  • The functional, astute and prosaic approach to developing property – this is about affordability, commerciality, sustainability and flexibility – not about signature buildings and grand statements
  • The close integration of all parts of the delivery team – most of the key staff work for a single social enterprise.  They share an office and have a close commitment to, and history with the communities they serve
  • There is a real sense of ‘shared destiny’ across the various strands of project development – a real recognition of how success in all aspects will be critical to the success of the project as a whole
  • Some really great case studies of significant progress already made to transform the lives of clients – these will provide a strong platform for developing an excellent reputation where it matters – in target communities.

Big thanks to Charlotte, Tony, Matt and Paul for spending  time with me. I am really interested to see how things develop in North East Lincolnshire.

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Marketing Enterprise December 5th – Follow Up

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Our Marketing Enterprise day on December 5th held at LearningTree International in Euston was very well received.

Feedback from participants suggested that the highlights were:

  • examples of good and bad (mainly bad!) enterprise marketing collateral
  • ideas on choosing and using ‘gatekeepers’ to get the message of enterprise into ‘hard to reach’ groups
  • Prochaska and DiClemente (leading one delegate to coin the phrase – ‘Prochaska – Yay!’)
  • market segmentation models were seen as very powerful
  • a reminder of the power and simplicity of youtube for getting over enterprise stories was very welcome (why do we still spend tens of thousands of pounds on getting professionally shot video?)
  • the situational enterprise model that helps us to think about both the psychological and the technical readiness of the would be entrepreneur was very popular as was the whole concept of social networking (thanks to Stuart Holmes for that insight)
  • the power of asking for introductions and training enterprise professionals to use them effectively
  • managing referrals professionally – not only to develop the clients potential but also to develop the quality of the suppliers

Delegates also suggested that improve the event we should:

  • get more marketing and PR people onto the event
  • provide more examples of good enterprise marketing collateral (if you have any please do pass it along)
  • develop it into a 2 day programme to allow ideas on pursuing additional funding sources and engagemene tof LSPs to be further explored.

We will be repeating the day in the New Year – with further development of some of the most powerful ideas – or you are welcome to drop me a line about bringing the workshop to your organisation.  Otherwise keep watching www.enterprisegrowth.co.uk for new dates.

Wants and Needs

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It is all too easy for enterprise professionals (especially the planners and strategists) to see what a comunity ‘needs’ if it is to become more enterprising.  More incubators, more managed work-spaces, more training, better supply chains and so on.

However it is much harder to establish what a community ‘wants’.  Those things that its members will choose to engage with and use.  The wants are often more psychological than material – we want hope, someone to believe in us, someone who can help to make things happen, someone we can believe in.

And as every economic development professional knows – if you give a community what you think it needs – but not what the people who live there want you are heading for trouble.

Enterprise as the Process of Becoming – From A to B

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I spent a really enjoyable hour or two yesterday working with a group of enterprise champions from FE colleges across Yorkshire.

They had spent much of the morning talking about the usual stuff – enterprise shows, RDA projects to promote enterprise and entrepreneurship to young people etc.

In my rant I took a slightly different approach and talked about enterprise as being the process of becoming a person.

About a set of strategies and skills that help you to move from A to B, which often includes helping to establish that there is a B – there is a better life – and that they can do things to achieve it.  (it is interesting to note that many people who we consider ‘enteprising’ are actually using enterprise to stay at ‘A’).

This led me to talk about the importance of working with students in 3 areas:

  1. Reason – the logic and practice of enterprise and entrepreneurship, goal setting, planning, managing and all that good technical stuff
  2. Purpose – clarifying why – what do we want to HAVE, what are we prepared to DO in order to get it, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of person do we want to BE – and does this fit with what we are prepared to DO and what we want to HAVE.  (This ‘HAVE, DO, BE’ feels important to me – it should help us to work in more person centred ways, helping people to become what they want to be rather than manipulating them into the policy makers tick boxes).
  3. Self esteem – making sure that students really believe that they deserve better, that they can achieve more, that they can succeed – but that it is down to them – the hard work HAS to be theirs.

This approach helps us to position enterprise as close to the core purpose of FE – the education of young people.  It also helps us to broaden our focus from the nuts and bolts of enterprise (the domain of REASON) onto the more motivating domains of Purpose and Self Esteem.  And I am sure this might help us to engage more FE staff in really exploring the importance of enterprise in delivering their mission.