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Choosing Enterprise or Bureacracy?

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Most of us experience ourselves reacting to both people and events that are outside of our control.  It feels to us like control lies elsewhere.

A reluctance to take full responsibility for our actions develops.  We learn to shift the blame elsewhere.  We lose sight of our responsibility for the type of life that we have helped to build.  We genuinely believe that the mediocrity that surrounds us has nothing to do with us. It is all the work of someone else, somewhere else.  We let ourselves ‘off the hook’.

Of course it is true that there is nearly always someone (many people) who has power over us.  But even in the face of this reality, we still have choices.  Choices that can lead us towards enterprise and progress – entrepreneurial choices; or choices that lead us towards safety and maintenance – bureaucratic choices.

We can choose to operate from an entrepreneurial mindset or a bureaucratic one.

We can choose between:

  • Maintenance and Greatness
  • Caution and Courage
  • Dependency and Autonomy

In my experience many potential entrepreneurs do not recognise these choices.  They wrap themselves in the  cultural cloaks of the community and the peer group – usually more about maintenance than enterprise – and lose sight of the fact that THEY can make a difference.

In the short term of course the bureaucratic choice has many advantages:

  • You blend in rather than stand out.
  • You risk little.
  • You minimise the chances of failure (and success).
  • You help to build a culture of shared contentment with mediocrity.

In the context of making the most of your life however the entrepreneurial mindset wins every time:

  • It allows you to find and develop your own unique contribution.
  • You take more risks – and develop the relationships and experience that will help you to manage them effectively.
  • You increase the chances of failure – but also give yourself a chance of great success.
  • You help to build a culture of enterprise and excellence; of enterprise

So just reflect as you go through your working day what do your actions say about the choices that you have made – entrepreneurial or bureaucratic?

What are you doing to help people in the communities that you serve recognise that they have these choices?

How are you helping them to build a more enterprising culture?

(It is ironic that most of the organisations charged with developing an enterprise culture are essentially bureaucratic in nature.  But then perhaps you have to be if you are to navigate the complexities of public sector procurement!).

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half – unless he is enterprising

Mike Chitty

The Client Decides…

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As a matter of principle I believe that the client should always decide when our job is done.

We should work with them, free of charge, for as long as it takes for the client to make the progress they desire.

No limit to the number of hours.

No limit to the length of the relationship.

But this requires real skill in portfolio management and managing client independence on behalf od the coach – if their portfolio is not to become ovrloaded with clients who are not real making progress.

The relationship has to be professional, committed, developmental, progressive and challenging.  It should be neither ‘comfortable’ nor ‘easy’.  The coach has to be able to get to the real nub of the problem – quickly.  This is rarely the problem or opportunity that the client initially presents with.  They then have to act as real catalyst for progress.

As long as this is being achieved we should be prepared to support the client for as long as it takes.

We should always remain available to clients.  Our job is not done when we hand the client over to the mainstream.

Our job is done when the client decides that it is.

Enterprise Growth Workshops

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This spring we are introducing a brand new workshop as well as repeating our very well received ‘Introduction to Enterprise Coaching‘ and ‘Marketing Enterprise‘ workshops.  The new workshop ‘Approaches to Enterprise‘ is a full and fast moving day that introduces powerful and proven interventions that will help you help your clients accelerate and maintain their progress.  The workshop covers:

  • The Transtheoretical Model – Prochaska and DiClemente
  • Motivational Interviewing
  • The Solutions Focussed Approach
  • Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for Enterprise
  • GROWing and GRINning – powerful coaching models
  • Learned Optimism – Challenging Self-Talk
  • Achievement Goal Theory
  • Self Directed Learning

With a short introduction to each technique and its psychological grounding, we will put the emphasis on how you can apply what you learn to help your clients make rapid progress.

‘Approaches to Enterprise‘ will be held on March 23rd in Leeds.  You can find out more about this event and reserve your place here.  Book before February 27th and save £50.

In ‘An Introduction to Enterprise Coaching‘ we teach an approach to enterprise support that starts from the premise that we advise and advocate far too much and listen and enquire far too little.  As a result we often weaken our clients ability to solve their own problems and actually make them less enterprising as a result.  The workshop introduces a tried and tested Enterprise Coaching process model and a range of four different styles of coaching.  This gives a solid and comprehensive theoretical underpinning to inform your practice with clients.

Enterprise Coaching Dates

March 6th, London – £349 or £299 if you book before Feb 14th
March 18th, Leeds – £299 or £249 if you book before Feb 19th

‘Marketing Enterprise‘ is a one day workshop designed to help you to improve your effectiveness in attracting enterprise clients.  The workshop covers:

  • What is Social Marketing and Why it Matters to Enterprise Professionals
  • Developing Marketing Collateral that Might Just Work
  • Learning from Current Practice
  • Developing Market Segments that Work
  • Strangers, Prospects and Customers
  • How to Build a Word of Mouth Strategy
  • Using Gatekeepers to Reach the Market

‘Marketing Enterprise‘ will be held on March 27th in London.  The workshop costs £349 per person.  Book before Feb 21st and save £50 – pay just £299 per person.

If you would like to:

  • know more about any of these programmes
  • run them in house or in a different location, or
  • negotiate a discount for multiple bookings

then please do get in touch.

Building the Entrepreneurial Team

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One of the most powerful and effective things we can do for our clients is to help them to think really hard about how they build the full range of skills and passion that their enterprise is going to need if it is to really work well.

It will need a managing director – someone to work on the business rather than in it.  Someone who can make objective decisions for the benefit of the organisation.

It will need someone who is passionate and knowledgeable about the product or service, someone who is passionate about marketing and sales and someone who loves doing the books and preparing financial projections and cases for investment.

  • Can your client really fulfil all these demands?
  • Will they?
  • Or will they default to doing the stuff that they love most?

If they do then at least one vital part of their business will be stunted – and that will be enough to bring them down.

Even if we train the entrepreneur to do everything this problem will develop – because they will always be drawn towards the work that they love – and away from the work that they hate – no matter how important it is to the success of the business.

The biggest favour that we can do them is to help them to build a team that they trust, where other in the team love to do the bits that they hate.

If we don’t do this then it might be easy for us to diagnose the problem (your financial management is weak) and to make a recommendation (why don’t you spend more time on it?) but we will be wasting our breath.  If they don’t love financial management they are not going to do it well.

So why do so few advisers actively encourage entrepreneurs to build a team before they write their business plan?

Do you?