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Enterprise is More than Entrepreneurship

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One of the things that bugs me (especially when I catch myself doing it) is when we use enterprise and entrepreneurship as if they were almost the same thing.

For me, ‘enterprise’ describes a set of behaviours that are defined at the level of the individual. For example, if Richard Branson were to set up another major record label and make a few quid – by his standards that would not be very enterprising. Stuff he has done before – to great success – so where’s the enterprise? However for him to get into space travel, railways, ballooning, cosmetics etc is enterprising because they are new challenges.

So enterprise is a relative concept defined by the individual and where they are starting from. If we want to encourage more ‘enterprise’ especially in areas of deprivation with few enterprising role models we have to be prepared to accept wider definitions of enterprise. We have to acknowledge the concept of introducing people to an enterprise journey that may take years to get close to ‘starting a business’ or that may head in a completely different direction.

So a young person in South Leeds who attends a training course to qualify as a referee is ‘enterprising’. The provision of the referee training course has encouraged enterprise. If we are canny, once we have engaged that individual in their enterprising journey we can then help them to plot the next steps – to help keep them moving forward. Enterprising people are making positive things happen.

By defining enterprise too narrowly as ‘starting a business’ or ‘becoming self employed’ we are often encouraging people to start their enterprise journey at a point that is already a very long way down the tracks. This significantly increases the chances of failure and loss of engagement.

To avoid this trap we need to be very careful in the way we specify, commission, deliver and evaluate the impact of ‘enterprise growth’ projects.

When the Business Idea Just Will Not Work…

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Pet Rocks

I am currently putting together a professional development programme for people who provide a range of ‘enterprise support services’.

I am trying to establish the challenges that they face and where professional or service development support might help. One of the commonest problems reported is that of helping the client to recognise when their business idea is just ‘not viable’.

The implication of this is that as ‘professionals’ we know whether a business idea can or cannot be made to work. We understand the financial dynamics of the business and the marketplace and we can foretell the future – absolutely. The challenge is how to get the client to recognise what we already know to be true.

  • Do we just tell them that we know the business won’t work?
  • Or do we carefully lead them to the same, ‘obviously right’, conclusion.
  • Or do we recognise that our beliefs could be wrong and focus on helping the client to develop their own business idea free of any negative bias from us?

My guess is that there are many, many very successful businesses that would never of started trading had their adviser not carefully and skillfully pursued this third option.

For example there is this company that sells tumbleweed (‘I would just like to talk to you about an idea that I have for a business. You see all these weeds that are blowing across the prairie? I reckon I can sell them mail order over the Internet….’). Any takers for the first Dandelion Emporium or Himalayan Balsam Wholesaler?

  • Then, closer to home there is this company that makes haute couture for ferrets.
  • Then there are doggles (goggles for dogs),
  • And a guy who will sell you a ‘pixel‘ on the Internet for a dollar (don’t laugh, he has sold them all and made his million!).
  • Or this company who make plastic ‘wishbones’ so there are no more fights over who gets the wishbone (does anyone still do that?)
  • Or this company who sell plastic balls to go on the end of your car aerial and make them look pretty!
  • Or the pet rock company that started in 1975 and swept the planet!

The big lesson for me has to be that it is impossible for us to ‘know’ whether a business idea is viable or not.

Some real stinkers have made millions and even more really great ideas have bombed. Learning to recognise and set aside our own prejudices and beliefs so that we can help the entrepreneur to explore and develop their business idea and manage there own exposure to financial and psychological risk must be an important professional development goal for many of us.

There is a link here to my earlier post on barriers to enterprise. ‘Adviser negativity’ surely has to be added to the list!

Let me know your favourite ‘business ideas that should never of worked’ so we can grow the collection.

Maslow on Management

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Maslow on Management

First published back in the 1960s Eupsychian Management made neither the best sellers list nor the bookshelves in airports and railway stations. In fact it barely sold its first modest print run. No doubt this was in part because the business book industry had yet to take off, and in part because of his obscure choice of title. Re-published as ‘Maslow on Management‘ almost 40 years later it seems to be creating a bit more of a stir.

Maslow was one of the the fathers of ‘Third Force’ or ‘Humanistic Growth’ psychology. (First force psychology was that of the Freudians and Jungians; second force was that of the behaviourists – Skinner and his pigeons.) Third force or human growth psychology was developed by Freud, Rogers, Fromm, Adler and Maslow as a serious attempt to understand human potential and how it can best be realised.

In the early 1960s Maslow spent a summer observing life in a business and maintained a journal that reflected his observations and thoughts on  the practice of management and the relevance of third force psychology to the world of commerce – and vice versa. This journal became ‘Maslow on Management‘.

Maslow was a contemporary of Drucker and one of the things he found was that much of what Drucker had written about effective and efficient management as a theorist and consultant with no psychological training was aligned with Maslow’s own thinking. Management theory and Third Force Psychology converged on a set of ‘truths’ about management and the realisation of human potential – individual, team organisational and social. Wow!

As Maslow said:

…this is not about new management tricks or gimmicks or superficial techniques that can be used to manipulate human beings more efficiently. Rather it is a clear confrontation of one basic set of orthodox values by another newer system of values that claims to be both more efficient and more true. It draws on some of the truly revolutionary consequences of the discovery that human nature has been sold short.

Barriers to Enterprise

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The Separation Wall - Palestine

I am starting a collection of barriers to enterprise – reasons why people do not put their enterprising ideas into practice.

My collections is a little small at the moment – so please help me by using the comments box to add to the collection:

  1. If I start my own business I will lose my benefits and be worse off – The Benefits Barrier
  2. I don’t have the ability to run my own business – The Confidence Barrier
  3. I don’t have any ideas for a new business – The Creativity Barrier
  4. Whatever I try to do will end in a mess – The Confidence Barrier II
  5. I don’t have any cash to help me start up a business – The Access to Finance Barrier
  6. I can’t start a business – who would look after the kids – The Childcare Barrier
  7. I haven’t got anywhere to run a business from – The Premises Barrier
  8. I haven’t got any way of getting around – the Transport Barrier
  9. If I start a busniess the taxman will not make it worth my while – The Taxation Barrier
  10. I don’t know how to go about employing people – The ‘HR’ Barrier

So please add to my collection – either new barriers or different examples of the barriers already identified. Then perhaps we can look at ways to remove them…

Wonderful Advice for the Would Be Entrepreneur

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Wally Bock is one of Americas top management coaches.  To celebrate National Entrepreneurship week in the US and his 25th anniversary in business he has been reflecting on what advice he would give to people thinking of starting a business now.

His advice includes the following:

  1. If you’re thinking about starting a business today, listen. It will always be hard. It will never be the right time. You will never know enough. And you are certain to have at least one big, bad surprise along the way.
  2. Hook up with people who can fill in your gaps and give you good advice. Learn the basics of business.
  3. I suggest that you acquire a rudimentary knowledge of bookkeeping. It will help you understand, in your bones, that to make Profit go up, either Expenses have to go down or Revenue has got to go up.
  4. Cash flow is king. You can make a profit and still be in trouble if your cash flow is bad.
  5. No marketing, no money. It doesn’t matter how good your product or service is. It won’t sell itself.
  6. You have to be willing to be accountable for everything. For some people that creates awesome stress. Others use it as a source of energy.

It all sounds pretty spot on to me – and not a word about a business plan!  I would especially endorse the recommendation about hooking up with people who can fill your gaps.  Recognise your strengths and play to them.  Recruit others who love to do the stuff that you hate.

The best entrepreneurs, who start the most successful businesses, are builders of great teams.

You can read his full article here.