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Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

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It seems like I am being taken seriously, by some at least, when I say that enterprise and entrepreneurship are not the same.  If we want a more enterprising culture we need to start with enterprise and (in most cases) not entrepreneurship.

Enterprising individuals and communities understand their current position and have a good idea of what ‘better’ looks like.

They also have the courage, confidence, skills, organisation and support to take action to narrow the gap.

If we want to encourage communities to be more enterprising our starting point should not be:

  • Have you got a great business idea? but,
  • What does better look like to you? and
  • What is stopping you making things better? and
  • How can I help?

This way we might get a much larger stock of constructively enterprising people, some of whom might just go on to entrepreneurship.

Find Their Enterprising Soul

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Enterprise is not the same as entrepreneurship.

Being enterprising has little to do with starting businesses.

Enterprise is ALL about:

  • recognising how things are,
  • recognising how you would prefer them to be
  • having the self confidence, ideas, plans and taking action that helps to narrow the gap.

If we start from this premise we will find that we can engage far more people in learning the skills of enterprise than if we start with the tired old ‘Have you got  a great business idea?‘ line.

We enterprise professionals might even find that we get taken seriously by educators and community activists.  We might even find that we have something really powerful to offer to the social and economic development of communities.

And if we engage  people in ‘finding their enterprising soul’ then there is a good chance that some of them will go on to start businesses and social enterprises as they start to exercise their enterprise muscles.

Sounds exciting?  Then PLEASE leave a comment, get touch and ask others to the same.

Let’s reclaim enterprise from the ‘men in suits’.

Community Development Principles and Practical Actions

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Julian Dobson usefully reminded me this morning;

Cracking on with ideas is good. Rooting them in community development principles and practical action is even better.

But what are these principles?  A quick bit of web research found this list from CDX in Sheffield:

Values

Community development workers support individuals, groups and organisations in this process on the basis of certain values and practice principles.

The values at the core of community development are:

  • social justice
  • self-determination
  • working and learning together
  • sustainable communities
  • participation
  • reflective practice

The practice principles that underpin these values are:

Social justice

  • respecting and valuing diversity and difference
  • challenging oppressive and discriminatory actions and attitudes
  • addressing power imbalances between individuals, within groups and society
  • committing to pursue civil and human rights for all
  • seeking and promoting policy and practices that are just and enhance equality whilst challenging those that are not

Self-determination

  • valuing the concerns or issues that communities identify as their starting points
  • raising people’s awareness of the range of choices open to them, providing opportunities for discussion of implications of options
  • promoting the view that communities do not have the right to oppress other communities
  • working with conflict within communities

Working and learning together

  • demonstrating that collective working is effective
  • supporting and developing individuals to contribute effectively to communities
  • developing a culture of informed and accountable decision making
  • ensuring all perspectives within the community are considered
  • sharing good practice in order to learn from each other

Sustainable communities

  • promoting the empowerment of individuals and communities
  • supporting communities to develop their skills to take action
  • promoting the development of autonomous and accountable structures
  • learning from experiences as a basis for change
  • promoting effective collective and collaborative working
  • using resources with respect for the environment

Participation

  • promoting the participation of individuals and communities, particularly those traditionally marginalised / excluded
  • recognising and challenging barriers to full and effective participation
  • supporting communities to gain skills to engage in participation
  • developing structures that enable communities to participate effectively
  • sharing good practice in order to learn from each other

Reflective practice

  • promoting and supporting individual and collective learning through reflection on practice
  • changing practice in response to outcomes of reflection
  • recognising the constraints and contexts within which community development takes place
  • recognising the importance of keeping others informed and updated about the wider context

This looks like a pretty good list of design criteria.

  • Anything missing?
  • Anything better?

Reading through this list and reviewing some of the current enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes being delivered in the name of community development and regeneration I am finding it hard to find (m)any that don’t significantly fail several of these tests of principles and values.