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Triple bottom lines, social enteprise, localism and sustainability

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  1. Triple bottom lines
  2. Social enterprise
  3. Localism and
  4. Sustainability

Four hot topics.

Four inter-related topics

Four topics that get a lot of people very fired up to make change happen (definition of enterprise?).

Yet when I surveyed over 100 enterprise professionals recently this was one of their lowest priorities for personal and professional development?

Are missing a trick in really understanding what motivates many contemporary entrepreneurs – because in many cases money is only seen as a by product of success, a way of keeping score, and not as an end in itself.

A few relevant websites:

http://www.greenbiz.com/

http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/social-entrepreneurship/

and Leeds very own: http://www.ppp-online.co.uk/

Enterprise Problems are Multi-Dimensional

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There is a school of though that says that enterprise professionals just need to be experts on helping clients with the business planning process. However in my experience the enterprise dimension is just one several that need to be addressed if the client is to be helped to make real progress. If the enterprise professional is to work effectively it maybe necessary to help the client to acknowledge and work on some of these other dimensions. As Iain Scott says about one of his clients (and I paraphrase) – ‘she realised that she had to divorce the xxxx before she would be able to make progress on her business idea‘.

Work on ‘other dimensions’ is not always this radical but it is often present and necessary! Some of the possible dimensions that may have an effect on your ability to make progress with a client include:

  • their lack of experience in enterprise and entrepreneurship
  • low socio-economic status
  • poor quality of relationships with significant others (persistent negativity from friends and family)
  • history of educational failure
  • poor mental health
  • chronic illness
  • history of anti-social behaviour
  • intimate partner abuse
  • substance misuse
  • poor accommodation (poor quality, frequent moves, homelessness)
  • lack of social capital
  • ambivalence about the future
  • ethnic, cultural and linguistic barriers
  • refugees
  • illegal immigrants
  • asylum seekers

And I am sure there are more.

My point here is that unless we are able to help the client to recognise and address the multi-dimensional nature of their barriers to successful entrepreneurship then we should expect high levels of frustration and drop out.

So when we talk about ‘referring the client to specialist support’ we need to extend our referral network beyond the marketing and financial specialists to those who can provide a more holistic support service to real people with real multi-dimensional challenges.  Once we have accepted that our clients require this multi-dimensional type of support it provides us with a range of further challenges in managing the boundaries of our own professional competence and practice.

Enterprise Professionals Missing the Point?

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I am amazed by the wonderful work done by so many enterprise professionals that is not:

  • recognised
  • valued, or
  • paid for

Sometimes the only things that seems to count in the world of the Enterprise Professional are:

  • businesses started/expanded/retained
  • jobs created/retained
  • GVA (Gross value added)
  • Percentage of people who have ‘thought about’ starting a business/going self employed
  • numbers engaged in 6 hours (or more) of training

Sometimes even obviously important measures are no longer tracked because they are not directly called for in the policy frameworks within which enterprise work is commissioned and delivered.  These include measures such as the survival rates of the new businesses and also the number of people who thoroughly investigate a business idea and then decide to walk away from it because it is not ‘right’ for them at this time.  These are the clients who put their enterprise dreams ‘on hold’.  It is likely that they will have learned a lot about enterprise on the journey and they will often return with a better business idea after a while.  They will have got the enterprise bug and should certainly be counted as successes.  By putting the ‘dream on hold’ they have almost certainly been saved from future misery and debt.  It is ‘dreams on hold’ clients that we should really be counting as the percentage of the population who have really thought about enterprise.

Failure to collect data on survival rates can lead to an increase in poor start-ups destined to struggle or fail, often leaving a trail of debt, despair and depression with enormous social costs.  Indeed there are often perverse incentive schemes that ‘reward’ enterprise professionals for the facilitation of such start-ups as they are seen as ‘countable’ successes in the short term at least.

However these are not the main points I want to make in this rant!

There are a ream of other measures that are valuable in both social and economic terms that many enterprise professionals fail to track and remain unrecognised.  These often relate to the development of social capital in the course of the enterprise journey.  Tracking social capital or social return on investment is not a massively difficult task – but it does need some planning.

The kind of indicators that could be tracked  and reported on by enterprise professionals include:

  • number of social groups belonged to and frequency and intensity of involvement
  • perceptions of ability to influence their own future
  • feelings of self worth and self esteem
  • how well informed they are about enterprise opportunities
  • frequency of engaging with relatives/friends/neighbours/professionals to explore aspirations and dreams
  • invovlement in virtual networks and frequency of contact
  • exchanges of help and advice
  • perceived control of, and satisfaction with, life
  • trust in people of similar backgrounds
  • trust in people from different backgrounds
  • confidence in ‘institutions’ that might help
  • engagement with crime and anti-social behaviour
  • health gains (reduction of reliance on prescription drugs, mental health improvements etc)

I am sure that the list of good work done by enterprise professionals could go on and on (feel free to let me know any you think I have missed).

The important challenge is how we go about recording the true impact of our work – both socially and economically and making sure that the full value of this is recognised and paid for.

Getting the Marketing Right

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Much emphasis is placed on leaflets, posters, websites and business cards when planning a community based enterprise project.  And thankfully when you look at what is produced these are pretty poor channels for reaching potential entrepreneurs in disadvantaged communities.

  • Ever wondered about working for yourself?
  • Got a business idea?
  • Want to be your own boss?
  • Thinking of starting a social enterprise?

Now there is very good chance that your answer to all of the above would be a resounding ‘No!’.  Especially if you life in an area of multiple deprivation and have a history full of failure to deal with.

Yet these are the opening gambits on so many fliers, leaflets, posters and websites that hope to get people to say Yes!

A better start to such marketing collateral might be;

‘Looking to make a better life ?

Fed up with the same old, same old…?

Looking for ways to make some more cash…

Then come and meet….’

But the reality is that it does not matter what you put on your marketing collateral.  You will find it very difficult to push your way into a community.  You can only work successfully upon invitation – when people invite you to help them on the basis of your strong track record of helping others in a similar position.

So if you want to do enterprise work in a community make sure that you have trusted advocates inside the community who will encourage others to seek you out.   Most of the effective community enterprise workers that I know get over 90% of their referrals from word of mouth and very little from the leaflet drops and the websites.

Is your experience any different?

It’s all about dreams!

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Policy makers are keen on promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship.

Those who work in Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) see enterprise as a way of increasing competitiveness and gross national product (GNP).

The Department of Work and Pensions are interested in promoting enterprise as one way of getting people off of benefits and back into work.

Those in the Department of Communities and Local Government see it as a way of narrowing inequalities around wealth, building more sustainable communities and empowering communities to create their own future.

The Department of Health is interested because of its potential to engage individuals in meaningful activity that may reduce their needs for prescription drugs – but also because enterprise – especially social enterprise may provide vehicles for engaging the community and voluntary sector further in developing and delivering a range of health care services.

So there are a wide range of policy drivers from a wide range of government departments for the current and continuing interest in enterprise.

However what few of the policy makers seem to understand is that enteprise is not about ‘opportunities’ or social and economic policy.  It is much more personal than that.

Enterprise is driven by personal and often very private ideas of how progress can be made.

How things can be made better.

And a precursor for this is that individuals must believe that they can make things better – that they can make a difference in their own circumstances by taking action and making things happen.  They must have dreams of progress for themselves, their families and their communities.

Yet so many have given up dreaming as they associate dreams and hope with failure and disappointment.  Safer to accept the status quo than to risk the dangers associated with progress.

A key part of the work of the enterprise coach is to help their clients to dare to dream again.