strategy – Page 23

Recognising the Real Problem?

March 27, 2009 by admin

Regeneration aims to bring opportunity to areas that are in decline, and to empower people to take advantage of those opportunities. The decline of an area is often caused in the first instance by structural economic change and a reduction in employment. Parts of the UK have experienced substantial deindustrialisation and loss of jobs since the 1970s, particularly during deep recessions in the early 1980s and early 1990s. In some areas there has been a rapid turnaround in employment; in others a cycle of decline has been set off.

Unlocking the Talent of Communities – DCLG 2008

This is a fairly standard analysis of the reasons for decline.

When industries pulled out things went wrong.

I believe things went wrong when the big employers moved in.

Policy and practice focused on providing a largely compliant workforce that was fit for purpose. Employer engagement ruled. All parties were more or less happy with the deal. At the time, and for many years after, it (arguably) worked reasonably well.

A bureaucratic mindset prevailed – characterised by patriarchal contracts between workers and employers which rewarded compliance. Industrialists and managers came up with the plans. Unions negotiated for pay and conditions and the majority just had to pick sides and choose leaders – on whom they felt they could depend.

A deep mindset of dependence set in. Dependence on employers, dependence on unions. DEPENDENCE. Generations learned how to successfully play the dependence game. Many still play it.

Entrepreneurial qualities were lost. Autonomy was devalued.

The genesis of the problem was not when the industries left, it was when they arrived.

For nearly 30 years now I think policy has largely neglected this deep change of identity, personality and self image that swept through many of these communities.

If we are serious about unlocking talent, then as well as providing skills training, CV clinics, classes in self employment, business planning and entrepreneurship we have also to tackle these issues of identity, personality and self image. And this is best done through conversation – not classes.

Challenging, caring, compassionate but powerful conversations. Conversations that accept, catalyse and confront. Conversations that are characterised by high trust and strong relationships. Conversations that are genuinely focused on helping to unlock potential and to enable potential to develop. Conversations that start from where people are at – and follow them where they need to go. Not the usual conversations that steer people towards opportunities predefined by the planners.

Instead we breeze into these communities and ask naive questions;

Have you got a great business idea?
Ever thought of starting a social enterprise?

Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Chris Grayling ‘Army of Entrepreneurs’ Proposal

March 24, 2009 by admin

Every business start-up has a cost, and if you’re on the dole you can’t easily afford to buy basic equipment. At the moment the only start-up cash available from the “new deal” for unemployed people trying to start a business is £400. We don’t think that’s nearly enough, so we’ll give the business start-up specialists the ability to fund costs of up to £2,500, and then reclaim the money from the benefits saved once the business is up and running.

Chris Grayling – How to Lift the EconomyWith an Army of Entrepreneurs

On the face of it this looks like a great idea. The logic is both simple and compelling. Startups cost money. People don’t have it. Let’s give them it, funded out of future benefits savings.

Several reasons why I think this might not work in practice:

It will attract a lot of people to the £2500 who are not sufficiently committed to enterprise and self employment – enterprise professionals will spend hours of their time wading through the sharks to find the genuine latent entrepreneurs.
It will encourage some people into enterprise for whom it is almost certainly not the best option – business failure rates are likely to increase with this type of soft start-up provision – damaging the enterprise culture in the medium term. Only if we use robust investment criteria will this be avoided. This means turning a proportion of applicants down – leading to bad word of mouth.
If business ideas are viable they will find investment – the problem is still not lack of cash – it is lack of investment ready business plans. Let’s spend our money here on providing inspirational coaching and good technical advice (NB there is already plenty of technical advice out there – labeit patchy in quality)
Sources of funding and sources of advice need to be kept separate. It is too easy to tell the funder what they need to to hear if they are to release the money. You MUST be able to speak the unvarnished truth with your advisers.

There maybe ways to overcome most of this stuff.

However IF the only reason a business gets started is because of a £2500 gift from the government – offset against future benfits savings – then I for one would worry. Unless there is real commitment, passion, talent and skill to invest in I can see lot of cash going down the tubes.

Your thoughts?

Dragons’ Den is a Bare Faced Lie About How Business is Done

March 24, 2009 by admin

You can usually trust a good comedian to get down the truth of the matter, and David Mitchell has done just this with the Dragons’ Den format.

“Dragons’ Den is a bare-faced lie about how business is done,” he says. “The people who do that job are not rude because there’s no percentage for anyone in them being so.

“They don’t sanctimoniously tick people off nor do they spend 10 minutes thinking up a weak pun which combines their wish not to invest with the field of the invention in question – ‘A new type of cheese, I’d have to be crackers to invest’ as if they’re auditioning for the Beano.

“Dragons den not only misrepresents rudeness for straightforwardness, but also implies that this is how successful business people behave.”

Rudeness aside Dragons’ Den is responsible for other misconceptions that damage the perception of enterprise and entrepreneurship:

Getting investment is a competition. The best entry wins whether it is good bad or indifferent. (Specifically this is what the enterprise professionals ‘teach’ when they try to piggy back on Dragon’s Den to get their engagement numbers up. The dragons themselves would invest in any and every opportunity that meets their investment criteria.)
Any business that does not meet the criterion for investment from a venture capitalist is not a good business. “It might make a decent business for you and your family – but there is not enough in it to interest me – I’m out“. This echoes and reinforces the disdain that much of the public sector has for ‘lifestyle’ businesses. They seem to forget that most entrepreneurs learn the ropes in life style businesses before some of them get bigger aspirations. As I believe Peter Drucker said – ‘You can’t have the mountain top without the mountain.’
You have to conform to venture capitalist norms and conventions if you are to succeed – everything from the way you dress, your hairstyle through to your knowledge of the numbers (you had better pretend WITH CONVICTION that your crystal ball is good for revenue forecasts at leas three years ahead.
Investment readiness should be evaluated on a single pitch – there is a simple binary response – yes or no. In fact most investments come as a result of a relationship between an investor and client.

So come on. Let’s drop the Dragon’s Den emulations. No more ‘Strictly Enterprise.’

Instead let’s get down to the hard work of having some informed conversations about enterprise and what it can do for our communities.

Enterprise Education Wrongly Understood?

March 20, 2009 by admin

Shout out to Gareth Sear for putting me onto this from TeacherNet:

Enterprise education consists of enterprise capability supported by better financial capability and economic and business understanding. Young people need opportunities to be enterprising through applying their knowledge, skills and attributes — to ‘make their mark’

Learners are expected to take personal responsibility for their own actions through an enterprise process that involves four stages.

Stage 1 — tackling a problem or need: students generate ideas through discussion to reach a common understanding of what is required to resolve the problem or meet the need.

Stage 2 — planning the project or activity: breaking down tasks, organising resources, deploying team members and allocating responsibilities.

Stage 3 — implementing the plan: solving problems, monitoring progress.

Stage 4 — evaluating the processes: reviewing activities and final outcomes, reflecting on lessons learned and assessing the skills, attitudes, qualities and understanding acquired.

Enterprise education consists of enterprise capability? Very enlightening!

Young people need opportunities to be enterprising? Young people are enterprising. Really enterprising. They have to be.

Even the ones who are quiet, shy and withdrawn are being enterprising. This is their ‘best plan’ for how to get by in life. Our job is to help them find a better, more powerful one that will help them fulfil their potential. Or to at least recognise the possibility.

Once again this all pervading direct linking of enterprise education with ‘financial capability, economic and business understanding’. Why?

Why not link it to sociological understanding? Or to psychology?

Why not link it to the Romantic poets and their descriptions of the transformational power of imagination and vision?

Why not link it to History and the power of some individuals to shape the course of civilisation? Hitler, Gandhi, Mandela as case studies in enterprise.

Why link it to money?

Why take such a utilitarian approach to enterprise?

In pursuing a narrow definition we are likely to turn students off rather than on. And certainly we will turn off other teaching staff who will continue to see enterprise education as just an extension of business studies, another example of the corruption of education by capitalism.

Learners are expected to take personal responsibility it says. Enterprise is the ultimate lesson in taking responsibility. It is only when we are enterprising – really living our lives in tune with our convictions that we have to take responsibility. All the time we operate in more bureaucratic modes we can duck responsibility by blaming others. “Sorry guv’ just following orders”.

There is nothing very enterprising about reaching a common understanding – although it is a valuable skill. It is holding a different understanding and having the courage to live by it that characterises enterprise. Seth Godin has just written on this.

And then the soulless linear process of develop an idea, develop a plan, implement it and then learn from it. The enterprising process is all about ups and downs; it is about emotions and resilience more than it is about ‘problem solving’ and ‘deploying team members’.

It is no wonder that we are struggling to embed enterprise in the curriculum.