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A Compass for LEPs…

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LEPs are of course Local ENTERPRISE Partnerships.

But enterprise cannot be developed without full attention being paid to its wider impact on nature, society and personal health and well-being.  David Cameron has talked more than once about economic progress needing to be balanced with progress in well-being.  Pursuing the growth of GDP outside of this wider social context would seem to be a fool’s errand.

An enterprise policy that grows GDP, but increases illness or is not environmentally sustainable or increases inequality in our society may not be a good thing.

So, how about developing a simple compass that can form the basis of a practical evaluation for new enterprise proposals?  I was very taken by this simple framework that Danone use when evaluating their innovation projects…

N = Nature – will the development respect natural limits?  Is it environmentally sustainable?

S = Social – will the development lead to improvements in society?  Fair wages, good governance, increased equality, better access to finance to all  etc.  Will the goods and services produced enhance life in our communities?

E= Economic – will the project work economically? What payback periods are we looking at here?  How can we encourage doing the right thing even when payback periods may take longer than usual business conventions would allow?

W= Wellbeing or health – the Danone mission is to improve health for the greatest number of people through food.  If the project does not fit the mission then it will not move forward.

Smart Lord Sugar…

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Nice move by Lord Sugar to choose Tom Pellereau as his business partner.  Seriously nice move because Tom’s skills complement those of the Lord Sugar rather than replicate them.

So many people go into business with people who share similar skills, values and attitudes leading to a very lop-sided business indeed.  Perhaps half a dozen people who understand the product or service, but NONE who really love marketing, sales, financial management, compliance or governance.

And I don’t think that Lord Sugar is a product man.  At least not any more.  He is now a ‘sales and marketing man’ a distribution expert. Someone who can get products into the hands of the masses.

I just hope that poor old Tom is given the chance to develop products that not only make him wealthy, but also make him proud and enhance the lives of the people who buy them.

This would indeed be progress.

Stating the Bleedin’ Obvious…(unless you are policy wonk or their lackey…)

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  1. Not every small business or micro-enterprise owner needs a mentor.
  2. Mentoring is NOT the only helping relationship.
  3. Good mentors are rarely trained in ‘mentoring’, nor are they picked from a register.
  4. Successful mentors are usually selected from within the pre-existing network of the mentee.  They are spotted and developed as someone from  whom the mentee really wants to learn.
  5. Mentoring is an intermittent rather than a continuous relationship.
  6. Access to good mentors is usually restricted and respectful rather than a tradeable commodity.
  7. The success of the mentorship is usually down to the mentee rather than the mentor.  Good mentees know how to choose a mentor and manage the relationship with them to get the learning and the introductions that they need.
  8. The commoditisation of mentoring is not a good thing.
  9. Mentors are not coaches, advisers, consultants, counsellors or facilitators.  People looking to learn and develop themselves and/or their organisations should think carefully about the kind of ‘help’ they need.
  10. We should help people explore what they want to learn and how they are going to learn it – rather than prescribe yet another ‘cure-all’ that happens to be ‘affordable’.
  11. We should focus our efforts on building social learning contexts and helping people manage their learning processes rather than setting up registers and schemes.
  12. If the national association of image consultants got their lobbying act together I am sure we might all end up being encouraged to use a national register of image consultants in pursuit of GDP.

If you are interested in implementing ill thought through policy and exploiting it as way to make a few bob please do not get in touch.  If on the other you are serious about building a context in which people  can really learn then I would love to hear from you.

Just leave a comment below.