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Year 10 – Industry Day

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My 15 year old daughter brought home a letter yesterday telling me about Industry Day:

In conjunction with our Work Related Learning programme, we have organised Enterprise Days in which all year 10 pupils will participate.

Hidden curriculum lesson 1: Enterprise is not about freedom of expression and choice – it is about complying with the policy dictats of bureaucrats. You’d better get used to following orders.

Teams of personnel from Industry will be coming into school to help run the days which aim to introduce pupils (to) aspects of Enterprise education.

Hidden curriculum lesson 2: Forget being a living, breathing person full passion, aspiration and imagination. Once you are in Industry (why the capital – Orwellian reference perhaps?) you are just personnel in teams. This way you don’t have to exercise any autonomy – you just have to follow orders. Enterprise is a bit like a strange cult – we will introduce you to some aspects. But others had best remain a mystery….

Hidden curriculum lesson 3: Understand the power of language to obfuscate and confuse. I am a professional in enterprise education and I have no idea what ‘aspects of Enterprise education’ are.

Activities will focus on developing skills such as team building and communication and will be an excellent preparation towards work experience and the world of work.

Hidden curriculum lesson 4: There is a thing called the ‘world of work’. It has laws, practices and ways of being that are different to the rest of society. You had better know how to conform.

Hidden curriculum lesson 5: If you struggle with team work and communication then the world of work/enterprise/Industry is not for you. You had better develop your potential to survive in other worlds. See Hidden curriculum lesson 14 below

Pupils will be working in teams and your child will take part in the Industry Day on one of the following days…

(and yes the first one is on April 1st – perhaps the whole thing is a spoof!)

Hidden curriculum lesson 6: There is little room for the individual in Industry. They had better learn how to smooth of the sharp edges and get along with people. We wouldn’t want too many ‘rugged individualists’ in Industry. Forget what George Bernard Shaw said about all progress depending on the unreasonable man. In industry we are polite, formulaic team players.

It is intended that pupils will not follow normal timings for the school day. The day will be as follows:

08:45am – Sign in at Reception

9.00am – Industry conference starts

10.50am – Break

11.10am – Conference resumes

1.00pm – Conference ends – pupils involved in the Industry Day should go home

Hidden curriculum lesson 7: The world of work is dominated by the bosses clock. You will do as you are told – when you are told. Because employers are benevolent you will get a break.

Hidden curriculum lesson 8: If we do not have enough for you to do you will be laid off early.

Hidden curriculum lesson 9: You had better get used to confernces in Industry. They are a lot like lessons – but longer.

In order to give the pupils a chance to experience some aspects of the world of work the pupils will be required to:

  • wear appropriate clothing for business; for the boys this could be simply school trousers, white shirt and a different tie (The David Brent school of office dress then). For girls, an appropriate example would be their normal trousers or skirts and a plain top (as opposed to the haute couture that they usually wear to school). This should not, therefore involve extra expense and I would stress that this is definitely not a ‘non uniform’ day.

Hidden curriculum lesson 10: In the world of work you will be one of many clones – similarly dressed and equipped to deal with the challenges of the stationery cupboard. In the world of work we will continue to discriminate by gender.

  • sign in at Reception by 9.00am. This will mean that for this day the pupils will enter through the main entrance.

Hidden curriculum lesson 11: We will confuse you by our ambiguity over timings. Although earlier we said that you could sign in at Reception at 08.45am – you must be signed in by no later than 09.00. Got it? Any non-compliance in the first instance will be dealt with by sarcasm. You should be clear that in the world of work though time-keeping is a tool of power and any difficulty you have with it could lead to severe disciplinary consequences

Hidden curriculum lesson 12: The world of work is obsessed with clocking in and clocking off on time – get used to it. Again forget autonomy, initiative and flexibility.

  • behave in an appropriate, business-like manner and follow all instructions from the personnel running the Industry Days

Hidden curriculum lesson 13: Learn to moderate your behaviour when in the world of work. Understanding the mysteries of what constitutes ‘business-like’ could hold the keys to the kingdom of the corner office on the third floor.

Hidden curriculum lesson 14: There are alternatives to the ‘world of work’. These include the worlds of:

  • warcraft
  • benefits
  • crime

If the ‘world of work’ as experienced on Industry does not set your heart racing and your soul singing then perhaps one of these is right for you?

It is no wonder that so many highly committed educationalists who take the development of young people seriously are less than supportive when it comes to ’embedding enterprise in the curriculum’.

If Enterprise champions are pedalling such ill-conceived and poorly thought through programmes they deserve to be left to their own devices.

My eldest daughter went through a similar programme last year. The highlight for her was the ‘Enterprise Wordsearch’. You have to love those teachers for their great sense of irony!

A Fresh Look at Enterprise

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That is the title of a workshop I am running tomorrow for the Young People’s Enterprise Forum at a conference to look at Embedding Enterprise in Further Education.

A fresh look at enterprise….Not an easy challenge when you have been looking at it for decades!  How do we engage the history department and the art team?

So how about if we look at Enterprise as a mathematical expression.  How would you express it?

I think this has a lot to offer:

E = P x SI

Enterprise is the product of Power multiplied by Self Interest.

Power is the capacity to make things happen to get things done.  It is about the ability to organise people, money and other resources to make things happen.

Self Interest is the extent to which we know what it is that we want to achieve.  It is about vision, ambition, goals, vocation, purpose, dreams, aspirations and hopes.  But self interest is not selfish.  Self interest is mediated through a set of relationships with others.  With supporters, colleagues, investors and activists (who might have an interest in whether we are helping or harming).  Self interest (rightly understood) is the driving force for making progress, for realising potential, for negotiating an interesting and worthwhile life.  Increasingly self interest and therefore enteprise is associated with interest in global issues such as climate change, social justice and wellbeing as much as it is about financial wealth.

If this expression has any merit then to embed enterprise in FE – or anywhere else –  we need to understand it as an act of embedding the development of power and self interest – rightly understood.

Enterprise becomes a genuine developmental process.  It is about equipping people with the knowledge, skills, wisdom and experience to develop their power (capacity to act; to get things done) and really develop an understanding of what lies in their own self interest.  It comes straight from the schools of Alinsky and Freire as much as it does from the beliefs of Branson, Sugar et al.

Under this formulation the relevance of enterprise to:

  • History and politics (think of  Hitler, Gandhi and Mandela as studies in power and self interest as examples of enterprise in action),
  • English and the arts (think communication, imagination, visioning), and
  • Vocational education becomes very clear.

Doesn’t it?

It allows enterprise to be applied to much more than entrepreneurship.  It becomes a discipline for living an interesting and worthwhile life.

And isn’t that what education is meant to prepare us for?

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Build It – And They Won’t Come!

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Why are so many ‘entrepreneurial’ workspaces so empty?

I have visited many recently. Those that pursue sustainability through membership fees and rentals are often the emptiest. Or full of people from out of town who can recognise a bargain when/if they see one. Those that recognise that local people often cannot afford to pay and therefore offer their services for free seem to have customers literally queuing up. However these are written off as ‘unsustainable’. Investing in the development of people – ‘Obviously unsustainable’!

The symptoms are obvious to the semi-expert eye. Tired signs saying ‘under offer’ for months without new tenants materialising? Acres of untouched hot desk space. Continual assurances that we were busy yesterday. Caterers that come and go – because the footfall that they anticipated has not materialised.

Promises lying broken.

When we build these places – WHY DON’T THEY COME?

This is an important question. And one that we CONSISTENTLY fail to address.

Why do those charged with developing a more enterprising culture believe that building catalyst centres, managed workspaces, incubators and other spaces will somehow change the psychology, the prevailing beliefs of a community?

Why is the “build it and they will come” mentality so prevalent? And so successful in unlocking the wallets of planners, politicians and commissioners alike?

Why in the face of refurbished or newly built, but largely empty, buildings do we insist on building yet more? Is it in the name of job creation?

We develop a more enterprising culture when we tell better, different stories. Stories of hope, aspiration, potential and achievement. Stories of progress, passion, skill and learning.

When we provide respect, encouragement and transformational relationships built on trust and wisdom. When we engage people as individuals and help them to clarify and achieve their own goals – not those pre-defined by some policy maker.

When we listen to them talk about their hopes and dreams – not tell them about the great deal we can do them if they take rent our workspace.

We don’t transform a culture by providing people with access to whitewashed vanilla workspaces and the chance to use a shared laptop with a keyboard dirtier than a toilet seat.

It is not just the waste of valuable resources that is so galling when we see buildings refurbished just because they can be. It is the ongoing waste of money as we try to cover up our mistakes in a futile effort to make them work. As commissioners cover their backs and hide behind and fall back on the recession as an excuse for their failed investments. Buildings don’t change cultures even in the good times. They don’t narrow the gap between the haves and the have nots even when the economy is on a roll. People do.

Now I hate to see a beautiful building falling into decay just as much as the next man. But I hate to see the talent and potential of people being wasted even more. Those buildings were a by-product of a vibrant, creative and enterprising community – not the cause of it.

To develop a more enterprising culture we first have to stimulate the demand side – get more people wanting to do stuff. Believing that THEY can do stuff. That they have a right to succeed or at least try – and that they will be supported with care, compassion, competence and creativity.

Only when this work on the demand side is underway and delivering tangible results should we invest in the infrastructure that they need – because then we have a chance of making an investment in something that people really want.

Something that might just fit.

Something to which they will come.

NB Of course if you build high quality entrepreneurial spaces in places that are already enterprising then they fill quickly.  Anyone else see a pattern emerging here?

Fighting the Recession – ‘Buildings and Others’ or Social Capital?

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So Dundee is looking to get an outpost of the V&A museum, housed in a  new £42 million building – with a business plan that suggests it could feature local strengths in illustration, comics, animation, interactive media and computer gaming.  So much for  jam, jute and journalism.

It appears to be part of a longer term strategy that the city has been following based on the thinking of Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class).

Florida suggests that urban regeneration depends on a city attracting enough of the right kind of people – the creative class – to create businesses and jobs.  And the way to attract the right kind of people is to have the right kind of buildings – good housing stock, excellent public parks and other amenities. At its hearts appears to be a belief that if a city is failing it is because it does not have enough of the right kind of people.

This is an expensive strategy, and there is a real risk that it widens the gap between the haves and the have nots.  There is a reliance on trickle down and a hope that some of the magic pixie dust of these creatives will rub off on the locals.  And even if it doesn’t? Well they constitute a ready made supply of willing labour for the creatives – its better than nothing

I got to visit Dundee several times in recent years as I helped the Sirolli Institute to set up an Enterprise Facilitation™ Project in the City.  The project had a relatively modest investment requirement.   The investment was in building social capital, a group of local people who believe in the potential of local people and the power of enterprise as a process and a discipline to help them to transform their lives.  They recruit and manage a person centred coach whose sole job is to facilitate the hopes and dreams of local people.  To hep them make progress on their projects on their own terms.  It is based on a belief that the City already has all of the resources that it needed to manage its own regeneration.  It is an approach that recognises that the best hope for a good economic and social future lies in the long term development of local people – not in attracting outsiders and depending on them to deliver a better future.

Yesterday I got the chance to visit UrbanBiz in Leeds.  They have a small, poky office on the main road through Chapeltown.  Poorly designed and basically equipped; it is hardly a ‘signature building’.

Yet it was jumping!

People waiting to use computers, to talk with advisers to make something happen for themselves.  The centre may not win any design awards – but it is convivial.  It is ‘of the people’.

Regeneration does not depend on buildings to attract outsiders.  It depends on the engagement and sensitive but powerful facilitation and co-ordination of local people. On the development of social capital.

Losing the fixation with buildings and others – and knocking a couple of noughts of regeneration budgets (the people focused approach is so much cheaper) might just be the way forward.

The Advantage of Social Enterprise

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Rob Greenland over at The Social Business has written a piece about how the ‘table’ that social enterprise has fought so hard to get a place at has collapsed.  I am assuming Rob means the table where policy is thrashed out and funds are allocated.

The high political table.

The table of the bureaucrats and the planners.

Rob’s analysis is that this table has collapsed.  They have no cash to spend since the bankers have grabbed it all.  So “What is a social entrepreneur meant to do now?” Rob asks.

Well I think the collapse of this table could be just the tonic that the social enterprise sector needs.

The sectors’ advantage is not in being a cheaper route to market for bureaucrats  – implementing their policies and plans (although this may be a legitimate benefit it CAN offer).  Its’ advantage lies in the ability of social entrepreneurs to tell stories of social change, social injustice and progress. In being able to attract, retain and develop talented and committed people who share in the vision and have the potential to manifest it.  In harnessing the potential of those affected by injustice and using it to drive progress.

So instead of trying to manoeuvre to catch the crumbs from the top table perhaps the sector should focus on sharpening vision, improving stories, and building a movement that people will want to join and work in because of its autonomy, independence and creativity; its ability to provide fulfillment and a decent wage – not because of the funding streams that it can secure (along with KPIs, evaluation frameworks and other game playing  inducements attendant with the mainstream).

When we are sat at the top table we have our backs to the real social enterprise marketplace.

Of course the sector needs to maintain good relationships with the ‘top table’.  It needs to influence, lobby, advise and occasionally disrupt.  If it can secure investment on its terms than so much the better.  But it needs to ensure that the money and power available does not corrupt – as it so often has.  That the pull of the cash does not lure us away from core purpose and beliefs.  That it does not allow us to kid ourselves that the latest funding stream to ‘do things to people’ might just work – this time – if we can only get our hands on the cash.  The social enteprise sector has to have the guts to be uncompromising on vision, values and beliefs.  It has to maintain integrity.

This requires the sector to develop an entreprenurial management and leadership culture.  A progressive mindset.  Progressive management.  Not Political.

The social entrepreneur needs to be comfortable and competent at managing and leading through vision, values, social goals and objectives and then relying on creativity and innovation to secure sustainable investments.  They must be obsessed with the social change they are trying to deliver and the recruitment and retention of a tribe of professionals and volunteers who can help.  Not with reading the political runes.  They need to promote change, not maintenance, autonomy not dependence (on the top or any other table), courage not conventionality.

The advantage of social enterprise is that it can be transformational.  People will join a transformational movement and bring to it their passion, creativity and hard work.  Turn it into another transactional part of the prevailing bureaucracy and this advantage will be lost.

And finally of course any organisation can be a social enterprise regardless of structure.  Many ‘for profits’ have learned how to create social change and a sustainable profit!