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Right to Read

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I have blogged before about the Right to Read campaign.  I was reminded of it by this list of 30 dyslexic entrepreneurs.

I wonder what they would have achieved had they let their dyslexia define them?  Had they listened to those who said ‘you won’t amount to much until you learn to read and write well’.

Perhaps some of them did overcome their dyslexia and become fluent readers and writers anyway – but my guess is that most found coping mechanisms that meant their difficulties with the written word were minimised.

This kind of re-framing is possible in so many areas where people are defined by their problems rather than their potential.  The problem is that often we only engage with their problems and not with their potential.

So people are defined by their addictions, fecundity, immigration status or their age – instead of by their aspirations – and potential is lost.

Call for Papers – Anyone Up for It?

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International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research Special Issue on Developing Enterprising Individuals

In 1993 Gustafson suggested that entrepreneurship education would be an ideal context for students to address “their identity, objectives, hopes, relation to society, and the tension between thought and action”.

In 1995 Kourilsky commented on the over-focus of much of entrepreneurship education on business management rather than other aspects such as recognition of opportunities.

…the traditional focus on business and new venture management provides an inadequate basis for responding to societal needs and proposes the wider notion of ‘enterprise’ (Gibb, 2002).

HALLELUJAH!  We say it – but we don’t do it!

Anyone interested in helping me put together a paper?

My only question is that if academics have been onto this for almost 20 years – how come they have had little or no impact on enterprise education  or business support?

Kevin Horne on ‘Solutions for Business’

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Kevin Horne is CEO of one of the UK most successful enterprise agencies.  He has been in the game for a long time now and understands, as well as anyone, how it works, both in terms of policy and operations.  So when he writes a blog post about the new ‘Solutions for Business‘ we should listen to him.  Carefully.  We should listen between the lines too.

The government has recently launched its “Solutions for Businesses” product portfolio which is the result of much consultation under the Business Support Simplification Programme. On reading the proposals it is difficult to see much to argue with; the product range is rationalised, it hits the main elements of support that a new, growing and maturing business will need and it is simple to understand. So why is it that I still retain some element of doubt that we will see real change?

Is it just me that reads ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose‘? (The more it changes, the more it is the same thing).

I wanted to post a comment of my own thoughts.  Kevin’s analysis says essentially that the bureacrats and policy wonks have once again provided a framework in which things can change and yet WILL remain the same.  I agree with him.  However I do think the entrepreneur can find another option.  Here is the jist of what I would have commented (had I been smart enough to find the comment buttton!):

Kevin, over the last 20 years I have witnessed a number of such re-births of business support – as have you.  None have been transformational, either for us as suppliers or for our customers.

It is easy for us to blame the policy makers for this.  They are culpable.  This is a classic bureaucratic mindset.  ‘Sorry our services remains so far beneath their potential to transform and inspire.  Our managers/funders won’t let us deliver on such lofty ambitions.’

What would an entrepreneurial mindset think?  ‘We can and must transform and inspire.  How can we do this within the existing rules of the game?  How can we effectively engage the guardians of the rules of the game so that they are changed?  Substantially?

Once you engage advisers and other service providers on the challenge of transforming and inspiring they become liberated, imaginative and creative.  They get fired up.  They form more honest and powerful relationships with clients.  They no longer turn the handle on the sausage machine.  They engage.

Instead of pointing the finger at the bureaucrats (which is one of my favourite past-times too) we have to find the wriggle room to do something exceptional.  Because if we believe we are to preside over yet another re-arrangement of the deck chairs then that is ALL we will do.

As an aside I suspect that Kevin’s comments and my reactions will hardly be noticed.  The business support industry has still not discovered the web.  Where it does use the web it uses it as an extension of its push marketing stratgey.  It certainly does not get web 2.0.

That in itself tells us why so often business support still fails to engage.