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“Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?”

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“I once was with somebody I liked very much — an older person, when I was considerably younger than I am now.

That person said,

“Spend at least fifteen minutes a day weaving dreams. And if you weave a hundred, at least two of them will have a life.”

So continue with a dream and don’t worry whether it can happen or not; weave it first.

Many people have killed their dreams by figuring out whether they could do them or not before they dream them.

So, if you’re a first-rate dreamer, dream it out — several of them–and then see what realities can come to make them happen, instead of saying,

“Oh, my God. With this reality, what can I dream?”

Virginia Satir (1916 – 1988)

Cycle of Change Re-worked

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The Cycle of Change Redrawn
The Cycle of Change Redrawn

I have been thinking some more about the cycle of change and how it works when thinking about enterprise and transforming communities.

I think this re-work helps to show that there may be a lot of people who are not interested in changing to a ‘more enterprising’ set of behaviours.

If we are serious about transformation then we need to find ways to engage people in this group and understand what the barriers are to them even thinking about the possibility of change. Most efforts seem to be targeted at those who are already in the cycle at some point. You know the kind of stuff – ‘Have You Got a Great Business Idea’ or ‘Thinking of Starting a Business?’. Both of these will get a resounding ‘No’ from those not interested in change.

What kind of marketing messages might work for this group? Well how about:

‘Fed up with the same old, same old?’

‘Are you brassed off and angry?’

‘Ever felt like you are wasting your life away?’

‘Something that you want to make happen – but not sure how?’

It also shows the almost inevitable role of lapse and re-lapse in the change process. It is very unusual for someone to go from one set of behaviours to another without either lapses or relapses. Yet often lapse or relapse in the field of enterprise represents failure rather than progress.

What is your repsonse when one of your clients take a step backwards, misses an appointment or otherwise does not make the progress that you had hoped for?

“People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”

George Bernard Shaw

An Enterprise Marketing Fiasco?

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I have been doing some work for a while now with LEGI practitioners in Leeds looking at the quality of marketing that we use to promote enterprise services and the people that might respond to it. Below is a piece of (non LEGI) marketing collateral that is currently doing the rounds. I think it originates from Business Link – and is featured on their website.

All, the following FREE events are happening on:

14th July 5pm to 9pm at Met Hotel, Leeds
15th July 9.30 to 1.30 at Agbrigg/Belle Vue Community Centre, Wakefield
22nd July 5pm to 9pm at Leeds Media Centre
8th September 9.30 to 1.30 at St Roberts Parish Centre, Harrogate
18th September 9.30 to 1.30 at The Tower House Hotel, Halifax
29th September 9.30 to 1.30 at the Town Hall, Bridlington

Title:
Explore! – Motivational events for the BAME (Black and Ethnic Minority) and Diverse communities

Motivational events are aimed to enthuse, inspire and excite BAME and Women groups into exploring the world of business. These events will also offer further information on what to do next and how to move your idea forward.

Who should attend?
Individuals from BAME and Diverse communities who are looking to start-up in business and who will be inspired to make their business ideas a reality.

What will it cover:

  • Why you want to start your own business?
  • How to generate more ideas
  • Where to find customers
  • Building Confidence
  • Gaining inspiration from success
  • Learn from inspirational key note speakers
  • Showcase of successful entrepreneurs
  • Information sources and networks
  • Friendly people to talk through your idea

To find out more about these FREE events or to book a place immediately you can call on 0845 xxxxx or email xxxx

For more information about these and other events visit www.businesslinkyorkshire.co.uk and click on ‘Events’

Well it’s another piece of lovely piece of ‘enterprise’ marketing.

When you go the Business Link website (as instructed in the e-mail) to try to find more information about these events it takes a while to find exactly the information that is given above – no extra information at all!

When I rang the telephone number I got a loud piece of ‘Dire Straits/Mark Knopfleresque’ guitar music – almost painful on the ear – and I like Dire Straits!

At the third attempt I was successfully transferred to someone who worked on the events team who promised to e-mail me some further information. I am still waiting…watch this space…

The piece is written in a very passive and remote style.

It talks about BAME and Women Groups in one line and then BAME and Diverse communities in the next.

It talks about these communities rather than to individuals from these communities. (Is it just me or is this (close to being) insulting?)

I am not a marketing copywriter – but I can recognise this as BAD! It is unlikely to motivate anyone to want to attend the events.

What qualifies as a ‘diverse community’?

Are we really happy to group BAME/Women and Diverse communities into a workshop? Seems to me that only Caucasian men from ‘non-diverse’ communities need not apply!

Has it become ‘OK’ to use this sort of language in tokenistic efforts to be socially inclusive?

I don’t think so!

Or am I the one who is losing the plot?

ADDENDUM

I am delighted to say that I did get my e-mail from Business link – with exactly the same information that was on the website. They also gave me the name of the organisation that is running the programme and told me that one of the dates have been cancellled.

Enterprise, Entrepreneurs and the Fine Art of Progress

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‘Enterprising’ people can recognise a gap between the way the world is, and the way they would like it to be and are taking actions that they think will help to close the gap between the two.

They are practitioners of the fine art of progress. I would also make a case that everyone is already enterprising, acting in ways that we think will make things better. We are all practitioners of the fine art of progress.  It is a fundamental characteristic of of healthy people.  It is just that some – many –  of us have got ‘stuck’.

For some the nature of ‘progress’ is purely personal – making things better for themselves and their immediate families. For others it is a much more social objective – about making things better for others or for the planet. For the vast majority it is some combination of the two – which is why the distinction between the entrepreneur and the social entrepreneur, enterprise and social enterprise is such a tricky one to maintain.

If we want to develop more enterprising communities then our task is to:

  • encourage more people to reflect on the gap between the way the world is and the way they would like it to be;
  • nurture the skills and passions required to help more people believe that they can take action to close the gap;
  • help people to recognise that action can and often does lead to progress;
  • recognise that each ‘failure’ represents progress – a lesson learned.

It is about helping more people to become active citizens in shaping their own futures rather than to be passive consumers of whatever ‘life’ throws their way. It is about helping ‘stuck’ people to ‘unstick’ themselves.  If we can help more people to get on this ‘enterprise journey’ then incredible progress becomes possible. We will be building more enterprising communities. We will even find that the business startup (and survival) rates go up as some enterprising people become entrepreneurs. This will be a by-product of our efforts to develop a more enterprising community and not a cause of it! Indeed by pusuing business start-ups direclty we may become the victims of at least two unintended consequences:

  • we ‘skim’ the most enterprising people from the least enterprising communities
  • we temporarily increase start-up rates with a parallel increase in business failure rates  – the net result of which is more people even more certain that ‘enterprise’ is not for them

In some of the most deprived communities we have to recognise that large numbers of people have become stuck. The options for progress that they see are narrow. Their belief in their own ability to make progress has been eroded. They have little or no confidence in their own skills or their ability to develop them. This is one of the reasons that I have been finding out more about the work of The Pacific Institute.  The Pacific Institute started life in 1971 with a simple idea – if you open people’s mind to their own potential and how to achieve it, step changes in organisational and community effectiveness will follow.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr Neil Straker who heads up TPI here in the UK. I found out that they are already massively engaged with Leeds City Council and with Education Leeds – although the links to enterprise in the city do not yet seem to have been made.  They seem to have developed a strong track record in the city for helping individuals to recognise and develop their own potential.  They have developed a large number of ‘facilitators’ in the city who have worked with both children and parents in many of the secondary schools throughout the city as well as with young people and adults in some of our most deprived communities.

They may have an important part to play in the enterprise agenda in the city.

Enterprise Insight – Mind the Gap

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Although it is almost 12 months old now this report from Enterprise Insight carries much sensible advice.

‘Thinkers’ are overlooked

Large numbers of people think about setting up their own business, or becoming their own boss (which is an important difference) – but many of them don’t turn the thinking into action. Reasons for this include:

  • Believing that they don’t have what it takes to run a business, and
  • Not having a business idea

The first of these beliefs is perpetuated by much of the entrepreneurship reality programming on TV. Think The Apprentice, Dragon’s Den etc where only certain ‘types of people’ are deemed to have what it takes. I am sure that had Sir Richard Branson pitched some of his early business ideas (Budgerigar Breeding and Christmas Tree Farming – both of which he tried and failed at) to the Dragon’s he would have received the ritual humiliation that is meted out to so many.

The truth of the matter is that no-one knows what it takes to run a business until they try it. So when you here you someone say ‘Oh I could never run my my own business – I don’t have what it takes.’ ask them what they think it takes. This will get you much clearer on their perceptions on what business is all about.

The second is perpetuated by most of the enterprise marketing collateral I see. Most start of with some variation of ‘Do you have a great business idea?’. The implication being that if you don’t then perhaps enterprise is not for you.

Most entrepreneurs have to learn how to have, develop and let go of enterprise ideas before they find one that works for them. Anyone who wants to work for themselves or finds a way of expressing themselves can be helped to explore their passion and skill to develop some business ideas.

Ideas are the easy bits – its allowing yourself to believe that you could succeed that’s hard. So when you find yourself working with a thinker who never seems to act – exploring and challenging their ideas about the importance of ‘the business idea’ or ‘having what it takes’ can sometimes help them bridge the gap to action.

‘Some of the most significant barriers to starting a business are emotional and psychological such as lack of self-confidence’

Yet still so often we find it easy to judge the potential entrepreneur and their business idea. Learning to accept and not to judge is a critical skill if we are to succeed in helping people on their enterprise journeys.

‘Policy designed’ programmes are usually targeted at particular demographic groups based on gender, ethnicity, disability or disadvantage. Although this makes sense for addressing inequalities in society, such programmes tend to regard their audience as a homogeneous group. They tend to overlook the real needs, motivations and attitudes of individuals.

I have taught the fundamental importance of client centred enterprise coaching for a long time now. The sad truth is that most services are designed more for the convenience of the funder, the service provider’s organisational infrastructure (I have a manged workspace and I am gonna fill it!) or the individual advisers own comfort zones than they are for the needs of the client.

Targeted, customer-focused activities are needed to convert more young thinkers into doers. This audience is mobile and dynamic and communications campaigns are an effective way to encourage next steps. Personalised messages, stories, role models and competitions should be designed with a customer segment in mind.

Not only Young Thinkers – but most thinkers are far more likely to respond to well targeted marketing messages that speak to them as an individual. However better than that by far would be word of mouth recommendation to you and your service from someone they know and trust.

Encouraging-peer-to peer support can be effective in building the UK’s entrepreneurial capital and socially empowering young entrepreneurs.The knowledge economy depends on institutions that join up thinking and help bring together “the five tribes of enterprise”: creators, advisers, funders, facilitators and educators. We need diffused and cost-effective forms of support and less reliance on only professional business advisers. This requires greater use of mentors, ‘connectors’who can bring people together, the stimulation of support networks for young entrepreneurs as well as experimentation in the use of social media for enterprise purposes.

We have long known that entrepreneurs of almost any age and at almost any stage in the business cycle learn more from their peers than from professional advisers. Especially when advisers ADVISE instead of facilitate personal and entrepreneurial development.

You can download a summary of the Mind the Gap Report as well as the Full Monty here.