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Enterprise and Community Development

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Peter Block has been an incredibly powerful writer and thinker on development and change for decades, primarily in the context of business and organisation.  I am a big fan of his work.

His latest book is called “Community – The Structure of Belonging” and it  provides both practical and philosophical insights in to community development.

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Praise for Peter Block’s “Community: The Structure of Belonging”

“From the person who gave us the best book written on business stewardship comes the best book on how to transform the places where we live, work, and play into authentic, effective communities. Some of Peter Block’s conclusions may surprise you, but this compelling book is a must for all who love the places we call home enough to rethink our approach to building and maintaining community.”
–Dennis Bakke, CEO, Imagine Schools, Cofounder and CEO Emeritus, AES Corporation, and author of Joy at Work

“Every earnest public servant, every volunteer, every disillusioned citizen, every civic leader, and every community activist or businessperson who truly want to make their communities better should read this book. It can serve as a guide or manual, but Community at its heart is a book of questions, and Peter gently and persistently reminds us that we are the answers.”
–James Keene, President, Alliance for Innovation and Western Director, International City/County Management Association

“In this wonderfully practical book, Peter Block defines the nature of a community with manageable dimensions, creative directions, and hopeful possibilities. His methods lead us to a restoration of the joy of a genuine common life.”
–John McKnight, Professor of Education and Social Policy, and Codirector, Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Northwestern University

“Peter Block clearly identifies the essential ingredients, qualities, questions, atmosphere. and actions needed to create and build vital communities filled with possibility, generosity, accountability, and deep engagement. Outstanding in its relevance, practicality, and clarity.”
–Angeles Arrien, PhD, cultural anthropologist and author of The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom

“This book is more than practical advice on execution of theory; it is a spiritual primer for the building up of community and transforming hope that we so desperately need in today’s world. Peter has touched us once again in that place we call `soul'”.
–Clint Kemp, Founding Pastor, New Providence Community Church

“Peter’s work has become the cornerstone of how our police department has developed over the years. What we have pleasantly discovered is that the more our capacity grows to work in partnership with each other, the more our capacity to serve our community is enhanced.”
–Michael Butler, Chief of Police, Longmont, Colorado

“After being engaged for many years with transformations in the U.S., Latin America, and Africa, it is exciting to find a practical and deep methodology that integrates great ideas and points at new applications. Peter’s book is critical for anyone concerned about reenergizing the quality of life in our workplaces and in our communities.”
–Steve Zaffron, CEO, the Vanto Group, a Landmark Education Company

You can order the book online here.

If you have already read it perhaps you can share your thoughts?

Or else recommend your favourite books on enterprise and or community development.

A Sirolli Primer

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I am a big fan of the work of Ernesto Sirolli.  He has been working on encouraging enterprise, primarily in disadvantaged communities for over 30 years now and has built up a wealth of experience and knowledge on the field.  He has also developed a proprietary methodology called Enterprise Facilitation® that is taught to communities by the Sirolli Institute.  He has visited Leeds on a couple of occasions now and talked with members of the Sharing the Success programme and others interested in his work.

How much of what he teaches do we believe is relevant and valuable to our work in encouraging enterprise?

What aspects of his teaching do we choose to ignore?  Why?

What aspects have we learned from and put into practice?  What results have we got?

If you have not heard Ernesto speak there are several good places to start to learn about his ideas.  One of the best is this web page from New Zealand.

BizzFizz which is operated by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a very similar type of programme.  Links to both Bizzfizz and Sirolli can be found in the sidebar to the right.

Weasel Words – enterprise and community

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Weasel words are tricky.

We all think we know what they mean – but in fact their meanings are fluid. While two people may think they are talking about the same thing – often they are not. This is just one of the reasons why trying to make progress on ‘engaging communities in enterprise’ is so tricky. There’s another weasel word- ‘engaging’!

Perhaps one place to start is by collecting the ‘labels’ that people use to describe various ‘communities’ that they wish to engage in enterprise. In no particular order – and garnered from a number of policy/strategy type documents on the subject here we go:

  1. women
  2. people with low educational attainment/skills
  3. people with disabilities
  4. single parents
  5. recent immigrants
  6. people living in neighbourhoods with high rates of worklessness
  7. people living in neighbourhoods with low rates of enterprise
  8. people who have been long term unemployed
  9. black and minority ethnic (BME) groups
  10. incapacity benefit claimants
  11. ex-offenders
  12. people at risk of offending
  13. young people

Feel free to add your own ‘communities of interest’ using the comments box.

  • Can these labels help us with engagement? If so, how?
  • Do they hold clues that can help us to think about our approach to engagement?
  • How we design workshops, leaflets, posters etc?
  • Who we spend time with?
  • Where we choose to go?
  • What do we need to be like personally and as a service if people from these communities are to invite our help?
  • How do we go about winning an invitation?
  • Do the labels serve any purpose when we are face to face with a potential client?

Highlights from the World HR Congress

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‘Because so many organisations will be competing for the same resources, the (HR) profession will have to manage a marketplace which has changed from one where employers choose to one where potential employees choose.’

Florent Franceur – WFPMA President

I know it is not much of a highlight – but at least it has the virtue of being true.  If you want to recruit and retina good people you had better have  compelling offer – and you had better help them to achieve in their own terms – or they will go elsewhere. Only the whelmers will remain!

We are a reservoir of literally human resources, but we don’t always dig deep enough because it’s inconvenient. Sometimes tidiness and efficiency get in the way of creativity’

Charles Handy