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Breaking the Stranglehold on Enterprise

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For a few years now I seem to have been living in Groundhog Day.

Not everyday, but enough to be disconcerting.

I will be chatting with an enterprise professional, perhaps a lecturer in a University, an enterprise coach in a ‘deprived’ community, a start-up business adviser or a bureaucrat managing an enterprise project. In our conversations about enterprise we will recognise how it is not all about business. How enterprise can be expressed in a seemingly infinite number of ways.

Sure, for a significant and important minority, it is about commercial endeavour.  Business, profit, and social impact in some combination. In order to express their enterprising soul a minority have to start a business.

But for the majority being enterprising, being proactive in pursuit of a better future, does not mean starting up a business. It may mean making a phone call, having a conversation, calling a meeting or writing a letter. Taking some action that increases agency and power in pursuing a preferred future. It may be taking the opportunity to reflect on ‘The direction in which progress lies’, or ‘What are the next steps that I can take to make progress?’ or ‘What options have I got?’

We will reflect on how some of the most enterprising people we know may work in the Council, or the University, or organise festivals and campaigns in the community. That the enterprising soul finds its expressions in many forms and not just in entrepreneurship.

We will agree that the real point of leverage in our communities lies not in providing start-up advice with those who are already minded to start a business, although of course this IS important. The real leverage lies in helping more people to establish the direction in which progress lies for them and their loved ones and helping them to plan and execute actions designed to move them in that direction.

If we can significantly increase the stock of enterprising people then, as sure as eggs is eggs, we will also increase the stock of entrepreneurial people. And we will not lose so many who are completely turned off by enterprise because of the Gordon Gecko or Victorian perceptions of enterprise nurtured by the reality TV shows and newspaper headlines.

We will also increase the survival rate of new businesses as people make natural progress into entrepreneurship instead of being persuaded to start a business (‘all you need is the idea and the determination to succeed’) when they have not yet gained the real skills or capital that they will need to succeed.

In our conversations we will agree on these things. And then almost invariably they will head off to run another course on ‘Marketing and Sales’ or ‘Business Planning’ or to look at monitoring returns that count bums on seats and business start-up rates. If ever there was an industry that needed to innovate and re-invent itself and its role in modern Britain it is the enterprise industry. If we really want to build a much more enterprising Britain then we need to break the stranglehold that the business start-up industry has on enterprise policy.

Now of course there are a lot of people who like things the just the way that they are.  There are a whole army of ‘enterprise professionals’ out there with ‘start up workshops’, business planning sessions and assorted ‘enterprise = business’ paraphernalia all telling the policy makers that ‘This is the way’.

Yet in decades of trying to increase the business start-up rates things have not changed significantly. Indeed according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in the last decade the ‘nascent entrepreneur rate’ (the percentage of 16-64 year olds actively involved in setting up a business in the UK) has dropped from 3.3% in 2001 to 3.1% in 2010.  And this in spite of enterprise and entrepreneurship climbing the policy agenda and attracting significant investment.

Time for the community to reclaim the enterprise agenda from the suits perhaps?

The Song Remains the Same

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And so it happens again.

A benevolent funder/project sponsor breezes into our city with a great project to build social capital, spread information, to raise the profile of local issues and to  report on the local political process.

And just as things start to find their feet and make a real difference, they breeze out again.

It happens all of the time.  Funding runs out.  Patience runs out. Commitment runs out.

Because for the project sponsor this is little more than ‘an experiment’.  Or ‘a contract’.  A community to dabble in.  A kind of train set for grown ups.

This is not their community.

This is not where their children will grow up or their parents will grow old.  Of course they will have local people on the ground – but the ones that really call the shots?  This is not THEIR community.

This is what passes for community development work these days.  A never ending stream of short-term projects that raise aspirations, engage people, make ground and then, in the vast majority of cases, fade away – leaving behind a sense of betrayal, frustration and in some cases apathy.

But it is alright because there is always another funding stream to apply for, another gig to get, another project to manage.  We just need to secure the standard evaluation that declares ‘Much has been achieved – but much remains to be done’ and we can all move on holding our chins up high.  This is the standard pattern of the ‘development industry’ – less so in the developing world these days but still almost exclusively on domestic ‘projects’.

And most of us development professionals are complicit in the process.  We kid ourselves that THIS funding stream is different, that THIS project will help to shift things, that THIS building holds the keys to the kingdom, or at least pay our mortgage for another year or two until the right opportunity comes along.

At some point we have to recognise that change that is prompted from outside, that is funded by someone else, that delivers someone else’s policy goals or answers someone else’s questions is really unlikely to provide us with any hope of transformation.

At some point we have to recognise that for any real long-term success we have to start from where WE are, and work with what WE have got, and break this dangerous habit of relying on external ‘benevolence’.

What Now Leeds…for the economy?

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The draft Vision for Leeds is nothing if not ambitious when it comes considering the city’s economy:

By 2030, Leeds’ economy will be prosperous and sustainable. We will create a prosperous and sustainable economy, using our resources effectively. Leeds will be successful and well-connected offering a good standard of living.
Leeds will be a city that has:
  • a strong local economy driving sustainable economic growth;
  • a skilled workforce to meet the needs of the local economy;
  • a world-class cultural offer;
  • built on its strengths in financial and business services, and manufacturing, and continued to grow its strong retail, leisure and tourism sectors;
  • world-class, cultural, digital and creative industries;
  • developed new opportunities for green manufacturing and for growing other new industries;
  • improved levels of enterprise through creativity and innovation;
  • work for everyone with secure, flexible employment and good wages;
  • high-quality, accessible, affordable and reliable public transport;
Who are the ‘we’ who will create a prosperous and sustainable economy?  And, what breakthroughs might allow this utopian economy to be achieved by 2030 but that has prevented us achieving it to date?  Or perhaps this is one of those ‘shoot for the stars’ to give yourself a chance to hit a nearby moon type plans?
But, the question of who are the ‘we’ is, I think, an important one.  Is it various collections of the anointed and the appointed, gathered at city and city region level (while the RDA might be going we retain a ‘Leeds city region‘ and have a new Local Enterprise Partnership that covers the whole city region.  The city region representing 11 local authorities across North, South and West Yorkshire, claims to represent the ‘real economy’) to plan economic development?
Or is this a challenge that demands a wider response?
That must engage a much wider group of those with a stake in the future of our economy?
This matters because, depending on the answer, we can either leave the ‘Vision for Leeds’ as little more than a document that steers the work of a small number of civil servants, politicians and strategists or use it as a vehicle for much broader engagement.  Is the vision really for all of us? Or is it just a piece of the political furniture?
The problems of definition seems to me to be immense.  What do we mean by a ‘sustainable economy’? Has this been thought through or is it just another example of what was memorably referred to at a recent Leeds Salon as ‘environmental Tourette’s’.
Perhaps it is OK for us all to have our own working definition of sustainable?  I know from personal experience that for many entrepreneurs ‘sustainable’ means ‘financially viable’, with no environmental implication whatsoever.
What does ‘prosperous’ mean in practice?  Is it OK just for the economy to create more cash, or is there something about how the prosperity is shared that should also matter to us?  Are we sure that ‘prosperity’ should still be the goal of our economy, or should we be considering other metrics such as well-being or happiness?  If part of what matters in our economy is health, then would we really use public funds to subsidise the expansion of the sugar industry?
If a vision is to work in mobilising action, then these issues of definition and meaning, and a robust social process for their negotiation is critical to creating alignments and the possibility of progress.
But let’s set the challenge of definition and meaning to one side.  Let’s look at just some aspects of content.
One of the first things that disappoints me is the way that ‘people and skills’ are once again put to serve the needs of the economy.  Why not try to develop an economy that actually honours and reflects the skills and passions of the people?  Develop an economy that serves people rather than people that serve the economy?  We spend fortunes trying to bend the labour and skills market (people) to meet the unpredictable needs of the economy, perhaps we could instead help people to develop their own economic engine built on the foundation of their passions and skills?  Of course if we have a Strategy Board and a Local Enterprise Partnership dominated by large employers such a shift in thinking towards a DIY/craft/artisan/enterprise based economy is unlikely to get serious consideration.
What does it mean to ‘improve levels of enterprise’.  Is this a euphemism for increasing the start-up rate?  Or is there something more subtle here that might allow us to encourage fewer but better equipped start-ups?  The phrase is dripping with ambiguity….
I love the idea of work for everyone.  Secure, but flexible employment with good wages.  What a difficult challenge. But what a great prize.
And as for ‘high-quality, accessible, affordable and reliable public transport’ bring it on I say!
Who shall lead us to this land of milk and honey?
‘Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true? Or is it something worse?’  – B. Springsteen.
So shoot for the stars and hit a nearby moon?
Unlikely.
Once again if we trace the current route from the high level statements of vision through to the 4 Year Priorities and then on to ‘Headline Indicators’ there seems to be whole lot of dilution going on.
Take for example the challenge of work.  Remember the ‘flexible, well paid and secure work for all’ of the vision?  Well, in the 4 Year Priority this has become ‘More jobs are created’ and the Headline Indicator ‘xx jobs are created’.  We go from a Vision of great ambition to a headline indicator that will allow partners to carry on, pretty much as usual pretending that they create jobs in a modern economy.
And ‘high-quality, accessible, affordable and reliable public transport’.  Well as a 4 Year Priority that becomes ‘Improved journey times and reliability of public transport’, and the Headline Indicator at the moment is ‘Reduced Bus journey time variability on the core network’.
Is there a pattern emerging here?
High falutin’ rhetoric for what will be achieved by 2030, undermined by 4 year priorities and headline indicators that appear to be almost devoid of ambition?
The ‘people of Leeds’ may have spoken when it comes to the Vision for 2030.
I wonder what they would have to say about these draft City Priority Plans?
If they were asked….