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It’s not just about raising aspirations…

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This was one of the key points from the Enterprising Places Network event run by Enterprise UK in West Yorkshire yesterday:

  • It’s not just about raising aspirations but about raising realistic aspirations.
  • Projects and initiatives need to adopt a sustainable approach and offer support in long-term engagement.
  • Partnership working presents a great deal of opportunity.
  • Enterprise is often about taking risks.

And, yes, bears do sometimes go to the toilet in the woods.

Contrary to the blog and tweeting from the workshop (done in real time by a rep from the Enterprise UK PR company) for me at least the Enterprising Places Network event was ultimately a disappointment.

Our hosts at the Cottingley Cornerstone Centre were friendly and and the lunch was substantial – but the acoustics in the room were terrible.  I hate to think what it is like when the centre is full of children.

But the problems for me were the ‘case studies’.

After introductions and context setting, Wakefield District Housing kicked us off with Chief Executive Kevin Dodd talking about the importance of carrots and sticks (I think he called them incentives) to encourage people to be more enterprising.   And by more enterprising it seemed he meant mainly getting back into the labour market.  Indeed this theme about job creation and routes into employment kept recurring.  There is more to an enterprise culture than tackling worklessness.  If someone’s behaviour is motivated primarily by the way that bureaucrats arrange carrots and sticks it cannot be described as enterprising.  Compliant, yes.  Enterprising, no.   So think long and hard.  Do we want our tenants to be compliant fodder for employers or enterprising?

We then heard a little about what Wakefield District Housing is actually doing to promote enterprise.  This consisted mainly of sending young people on Outward Bound Courses and providing mentoring in Wakefield secondary schools.    I worked for Outward Bound for a couple of years and have much time for them.  They develop many things, teamwork, leadership, followership – but I am not certain about enterprise.  I would need to be convinced.

And I am not clear how mentoring programmes help individuals to become more enterprising.  Especially when mentors encourage young people to take their eye off of their dreams and start to think seriously about Plan B.  ‘I know you want to be bassist in a rock band but really, don’t you think you should apply to study plumbing at the local FE college?’   ‘We need to be realistic with our aspirations’.  I personally think this shows a weak understanding of how people hold and transform their dreams and ideals without being told what is realistic by ‘authority’ figures.  It is not our job to decide what is possible….

The main reason schools welcome Mentors is because they can provide a little bit of additional 121 support to help pupils at school.  It is not about making them more enterprising. It is about improving school performance.   Too often enterprise is snuck in on the back of ‘improving educational attainment’ or ‘improving attendance’ ie providing incremental support to the mainstream pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, when in fact it offers radically ‘different keys’ to ‘different kingdoms’ for an increasingly large group of pupils that mainstream education fails to serve well.

But what was most puzzling to me was why a social landlord in particular would engage in such activities.  In what way does this build on the relationship between landlord and tenant?    Mentoring in schools is a fine way of delivering corporate social responsibility.  Personal development too is extremely worthwhile.  But neither of these builds on the unique relationship between landlord and tenant that I had hoped the workshop might explore.

Next up it was Connaught with a re-hash of last years Strictly Come Business competition.   Now I have problems with most types of ‘Enterprise’ competition and especially with those that base themselves on the Dragon’s Den format.  Dragon’s Den is  not a competition.  If investors believe a business offers a return, they invest.  You don’t have to ‘win’.  You just have to be investment ready.    In my opinion most winners of Dragon’s Den style enteprise competitions are not yet investment ready.  The journey to investment readiness can take years.

Does this competition format provide a serious and sustained methodology for creating an enterprise culture?  Or is it an easily costed and managed process that ticks the enterprise boxes?

If we put a leaflet through a door that says ‘Do You Have A Big Community Idea?’ most people will say ‘No!’.  The leaflet goes in the bin and those that might benefit most from our help to think in  more enterprising ways are lost.  At best we find a small minority who are already thinking ‘enterprise’ and give them a leg up.  This kind of enterprise skimming provides the sweet illusion of instant results but in reality changes little.  Indeed I think this kind of approach makes many of the 10 Commonest Mistakes in Encouraging an Enterprise Culture.

Networking over lunch, provided by local social enterprise Daisies, was fine and the presentations after lunch were good.  I especially enjoyed finding out more about CREATE and how they operated.  Competing on the basis of quality products and services rather than on the moral high grounds of SE seems like a winning and novel concept!

And a final talk through the development of Cottingley Cornerstone by our hostess for the day just re-affirmed how bloody hard this social enterprise game can be.  On a shoe string and continually seeking funding – but only that which fits with their mission and objectives.  Fingers crossed it stays that way.

My only problem with the afternoon sessions was that they seemed only loosely, if at all, connected to the theme of enterprise and social landlords.

So my main take aways from the day:

  • Social Landlords are coming under pressure from policy makers in Whitehall and the Housing and Communities Agency to do more to get their tenants to be enterprising.  The interest in enterprise is primarily policy led rather than informed by any real insights into how it might help to provide a better housing service and better places to live.
  • Landlords are not well placed to respond to this pressure because of their ‘unique’ relationship with tenants and also their relative lack of knowledge and understanding about developing an enterprise culture. It is not about ‘incentives’.  It is about power and self interest.
  • Just to be clear, I don’t think being a landlord helps if you are trying to promote behavioural change.  The tenants will always be looking for the ulterior motive.  For some housing cooperatives this maybe less of an issue.  But when did you last have a landlord who you could really trust to be working in your best interest rather than theirs?
  • There is an apparent willingness to adopt what has not worked in the past rather than to explore innovative approaches to building an enterprise culture.
  • There seems to be a conflation of enterprise with entrepreneurial.  A belief that more enterprising means more business-like.

So, as I said on my evaluation, the day was good in parts – although I  think we failed as a group to really get under the skin of the role of the social landlord in supporting an enterprise culture.

My notes on Doug Richard’s Entrepreneurship Manifesto

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While reading the manifesto I made some pretty comprehensive notes and numbered them for ease of reference.  No analysis yet – just my notes…pieces that especially provoke or intrigue me I have highlighted in blue…

Doug Richards Entrepreneurs Manifesto

1 Public declarations aimed at supporting UKs 4.4m entrepreneurs

2 Manifesto

2.1 A statement of principles highlighting challenges to overcome to release entrepreneurship

2.2 Spectre of capitalism

2.2.1 Greedy bankers

2.2.2 Amoral corporations

  • Pitting tax regimes against each other
  • Failure of a global commons means they can escape costs of infrastructure and society that supports them

2.2.3 Bloated State incapable of controlling capitalism

  • failing to deal with poverty, worklessness etc
  • Outgrowing the economy
  • We are demonstrably poorer – the system does not work

2.2.4 States competing to be servants of capitalism

2.2.5 The environment has no voice/the consumer no collective

2.3 Unleashing the Wealth Creators

2.3.1 Wealth of the nation rests on entrepreneurial activity

2.3.2 The state as a servant of society

2.3.3 Must harness the power of the entrepreneur to improve services

2.3.4 Size of the state is not the enemy

2.3.5 State run services immune from creative destruction

2.3.6 Fairness of the least…only the State can ensure fairness in health, education etc – no-one can have more than the least.

We cannot improve until we can improve everyone – and therefore we improve no-one

2.3.7 State’s role is to create playing fields on which entrepreneurs can be released to deliver service

2.3.8 Harness collective creative self interest of our entrepreneurial output for the benefit of meeting our social objectives

We will see a flowering of ideas, a manifold unfolding of new approaches and a gale of creative destruction

3 Declaration of Rights

3.1 Practical recommendations to clear the path for an explosion in entrepreneurship

3.1.1 Entrepreneurial culture as the only force that exists for growth, prosperity, fairness and social justice

3.1.2 Not about privilege; few getting rich at expense of poor;

3.1.3 About creating ladders of social mobility

3.1.4 Increasing wealth so we can afford services, health education etc

3.1.5 To harness entrepreneurship first we must understand it

  • Risk and reward

3.1.6 Must increase economic freedoms for all businesses taking business risks

3.1.7 Cut the time it takes to start a new business

3.1.8 Streamline regulations, exempt small business where possible

3.1.9 Get government out of Business Support – just focus on regulation

3.1.10 Free up family savings for investment in nascent business with credits and exemptions

3.1.11 Stop paying people to be unemployed – share costs of ‘teaching them to be employed’

3.1.12 Employers have no means to underwrite the costs of turning students into productive employees

3.1.13 Govt is largest consumer – must change procurement patterns

  • Must drive revenue to entrepreneurs
  • Open doors to innovation

3.1.14 Use new legal frameworks to broaden scope for social entrepreneurs – encouraging for profit co-owned businesses and for profits that deliver social benefits

3.1.15 Understand that we do not understand

3.1.16 Must empower people to step out on their own, take risk, hope for reward and move on from failure.

3.1.17 The corrosive impact of an over protective state is not merely the loss of our sense of responsibility to a civil society; it is the even more profound loss of our sense of capacity to change society, to have an impact, to be an entrepreneur.

3.1.18 Entrepreneurship can be taught and must be learned

Enterprise Development Needs a Very Different Response

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If we are serious about developing more enterprising individuals and communities, rather than managing the outputs that most enterprise funders are looking for (start ups and VAT registrations), we need to concern ourselves with the development of self-interest and the accrual of power through organisation, association, collaboration and the acquisition of ‘knowhow’.   We are in the realms of person centred facilitation, community development and education.  Not business planning.  This requires an enormous shift both in what we do, and how we do it.

Helping people to clarify their self-interest and find the power to pursue it requires very different structures and processes to those that we currently use to develop enterprise. It is not about setting up a business.  It is not about experiencing ‘Industry Days’ at school or attending ‘Enterprise’ Conferences with (not so) secret millionaires, dragons and ministers.  It is not about Catalyst Centres and managed workspaces (although these might be useful for the small percentage of people who choose entrepreneurship as the most appropriate way to express their enterprising souls).

It is about engaging in a dynamic and continuous reflection on who we are and what we want to become, and managing processes that will help us move in that direction in a complex and rapidly changing world.

The Davies Review defined enterprise as  the capacity to:

  1. handle uncertainty and respond positively to change – Resilience
  2. create and implement new ideas and ways of doing things – Creativity and change
  3. make reasonable risk/reward assessments and act upon them in one’s personal and working life – The Pursuit of Progress

No mention of employment, entrepreneurship or business. Instead it is about resilience, change making and progress.  Enterprise development needs to find a new home where this broader conception can flourish without the distorting, primarily economic calculus of entrepreneurs and The Treasury.  They will have much to offer to the development of entrepreneurship – but that is only ever likely to be relevant to a minority.  Enterprise needs to escape, what for many is, the deadening hand of business.

The art and science of enterprise is relevant to all and we need to build communities and relationships that understand how to nurture it.

One of my big regrets is that so little LEGI funding has been used to drive this sort of innovation.  Instead it has been used, often wastefully, in the short term pursuit of business startups and in placing cuckoos in the heart of some of our poorest communities.

Anyone up for some innovation in Local Enterprise?

Warming the Cockles of Enterprising Hearts

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I recently ran some 2 hour workshops for staff at Wakefield College where steps are being undertaken to ‘Embed Enterprise’ across the curriculum.  I got some lovely feedback about the sessions:

  • Enjoyable structure to lesson; enterprise from another angle.
  • Great presenter learnt a lot of new ideas of how enterprise can be embedded across the college.
  • Good varied discussion; topic was quite thought provoking, good and interesting speaker.
  • Inspirational; thought provoking.
  • Really helped me understand the concept of enterprise, both personally and to help the adults I work with.
  • Interactive: Thought provoking
  • Very interesting presenter, stimulating & thought provoking, it flew by.
  • Session leader engaging, funny, and interesting – actually had something important to say.
  • Excellent input led by an interesting person who has credibility and vision.
  • Motivational speaker, clear messages, fun! Message matured my view of what teaching is about.
  • Right messages about enterprise, good pace, good balance of theory and anecdote, good understanding of issues in FE.
  • Stimulating, helped me look at my position at college in a slightly more “empowered way”.
  • Thought provoking, lots of ideas I would like to follow up on / research (if time permits).
  • Food for thought, helped me to basically understand the role of enterprise, training and business has to fill the gap not the need.  A really good session.
  • Flexible, great knowledge, inspiring.
  • Fab delivery, stimulating ideas I’d really like the power points and any refs etc.
  • Brilliant!…….. really interesting, interactive.
  • Variety,  fantastic thanks.
  • Very interesting, good tutor, good use of IT.
  • Interactive excellent, provoking thoughts, highlighted further development, how to manage entrepreneurship.  Team sessions with staff about developing enterprise.
  • Varied session covering a wide topic.  Encouraged reflection on own practice and future role in college.
  • Made us think, interactive, quite moving at times.
  • Very thought provoking, interesting topics and examples, well presented.
  • Good depth.
  • Fantastic delivery, so useful and incredibly inspiring.  Very relevant and realistic, thoroughly enjoyable.
  • (Strengths), presenter and activities, style personality knowledge.

Do get in touch if your team could do with the cockles of their enterprise hearts warming.

Helping – Are We More Confused Than Most?

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Much of the training and development world is confused about the difference between coaching and mentoring, and a wide range of other ‘helping’ roles.  I would contend that the world of enterprise support and entrepreneurship is more confused than most.  We label different types of helping intervention carelessly and frequently bastardise and corrupt subtle, powerful and transformational learning relationships.  We deploy mentors and coaches who are poorly trained and frequently lack the right experience to help.  It may come as a horrible truth but a middle manager from a ‘blue chip’ does not necessarily make for a great mentor – especially if  they have not been trained.

And this matters because a good understanding of the type of helping relationship that you are trying to offer is essential to making it work well, to developing your professional practice and to helping the learner to develop a support team that covers all of the right bases.  How to choose and use a team of helpers is perhaps one of the most powerful things we can teach.  If we confuse the type of helping relationships that we provide we are unlikely to make them as effective as they could be – and more importantly we are unlikely to inculcate good learning habits.

So what are the helping roles that we get confused and how can we start the job of clarifying them and improving their efficacy?

Coach – a relationship usually characterised by frequent and intense sessions designed to help the learner to raise their awareness of the current situation, generate options, take decisions and act.  Frequently coaching will involve goal setting and clarification and the development of formal action plans.  Coaches are usually expert in the process of personal development rather than the ‘content’ of what has to be learned.  Successful coaching does depend to a high degree on rapport, personal ‘chemistry’ if you like, so to be most effective it is important that learners are able to choose their preferred coach.  Coaching relationships usually run for months and occasionally years.  However good coaches teach learners to coach themselves effectively and it should be rare for a coaching relationship to extend beyond 12-18 months without the nature of the relationship evolving significantly.

Mentor – A mentor is perceived by the learner to be a senior practitioner in a field that the learner has identified as critical to their own development.  Mentors usually have ‘been there, done that and got the T-shirt’.  This means that it is highly beneficial if the learner is able to identify and recruit mentors (they may have more than one) that they respect and are hungry to learn from.  Appointing mentors to learners unless done with immense care usually results in ineffective mentoring, and means that the learner is denied the opportunity to learn about how to identify, recruit and use mentors.  Mentoring relationships are usually characterised by less frequent but longer meetings (perhaps 2-3 a year).  Mentoring relationship are usually driven by the learner, who takes responsibility for scheduling meetings and developing the agenda.  Learning to chose and use mentors effectively is a relatively advanced skill and is one that shold be explicitly taught.  Similarly it helps tremendously if mentors have had some training in what it means to be  a mentor and to establish some of the boundaries and practices of effective mentoring.  However if learners are encouraged to source their own mentors then mentor training becomes difficult.  In these circumstances it is even more helpful if learners have been effectively trained in choosing and using mentors.  Good mentoring relationship often run over a number of years, if not decades.  However they often have a high failure rate.  Learners have to be prepared to kiss a few frogs in pursuit of a powerful mentor.

Peer – Many learners gain great benefits from peer learning processes where they explore problems and solutions with fellow learners.   Peer learning is characterised by enquiry, reflection and exchange of experiences.  Because there is no ‘expert’ in the relationship peer learning promotes independence and critical thinking.  Again peer learning processes can be significantly improved if those involved are given some basic training in what makes peer learning work.  Buddy systems are a form of peer learning. More advanced forms of peer learning can involve co-counselling, co-coaching and action learning.  Effective peer learning processes, that move beyond support into transformational learning, can be difficult to establish.  However once a learner knows how to use peer learning in their own professional and personal development it becomes a powerful and transformative force in their lives.

Adviser – an adviser typically brings expertise, experience and, if you are lucky, wisdom to bring to bear on a speciifc problem or opportunity.  Learners should be careful about using advisers to help identify problems and opportunities as they are likely to find something in their area of expertise rather than in the learners area of greatest need.  Some advisers will simply solve problems.  Others will teach you how to solve the problem when it crops up again in the future.  If the task is likely to recur then working with an adviser with a strong track record of supporting learning and independence matters.  If the issue is a ‘one off’ then this is much less of an issue.  The role of an adviser is usually short term and project based.

Broker – a good broker, an honest and value adding middleman is a rare beast.  They will help a learner to reflect on their situation and the change they need to bring about and then put together an action plan, including information on sourcing other ‘helpers’ that are required.  Independent, leaner centred brokers are few and far between.  Most brokers are actually tied into the delivery of specific policy goals and objectives of their funders and so learner again should be trained in how to choose and use brokerage services.  Beware the broker who brings government subsidies!  It is tempting to do something because you can get 60% off.  If the intervention is worthwhile, and is likely to have a good return on investment then you should do it.  If ROI is marginal then you should look for other opportunities.   Relationships with brokers are usually short term and very tightly focused on problem solving or the exploitation of opportunities.

Trainer – trainers usually teach specific skills, knowledge and processes.  Trainers are generally driven by a body of content that they wish to impart – a curriculum that they teach.  In general the process is about grafting on more knowledge and skill to an existing base of practice.  It is about gap filling.

Master – the tradition of ‘the master’ has been somewhat lost in modern times – apart from in the martial arts.  A master is a senior practitioner who takes on number of learners in a highly disciplined and structured learning environment.  Masters are usually careful about selecting learners – as they recognise that real learning requires commitment, discipline and passion.  Learning from a master is not an easy option – an any devotee of Kung Fu Panda will know.  Mastery of a skill or discipline usually involves months if not years of disciplined study.  The tradition of mastery involved learners (apprentices in this context) recognising what they really needed to learn and then sub,itting themselves to the discipline of their chosen master.  Masters were all powerful in deciding who they would teach and to be accepted as apprentice was indeed cause for celebration.

My contention is that as a profession we frequently mangle these different types of helping relationship.  We confuse our learners about them as much as we confuse ourselves and we significantly reduce the both effectiveness and the uptake of helping relationships as a result.  We tend to overemphasise the potential of the adviser and the broker (perhaps because these are most successful in terms of chasing outputs) and we significantly undermine the potential of mentoring, peer learning and coaching by failing to invest adequately in professional development and robust service design.

So let’s start to take pedagogy seriously.  Lets develop robust methods of education, and let’s find ways to put the learners in control of their own enterprise education.

Because that really will be a lesson worth learning.