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Making Values Live

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I helped to manage the production of a conference in Hull called Making Values Live – featuring the work of Mathew Smerdon and Geraldine Blake from Community Links. At the conference they provided an introduction to their report – Living Values: A report encouraging boldness in the third sector

The value-driven ethos of third-sector organisations is often cited as their distinguishing feature. But is this really the case?

The third sector has no monopoly on ‘values’. But are certain values more prevalent in the third sector than either the public or private sector? I have worked in all three sectors and from this personal experience – I doubt it.

Excellent organisations exist in all sectors. And excellent organisations always have strong values – a consistent set of values that runs through all of their work and helps to recruit, retain, and inspire talented people. The challenge is how to build an excellent passion and vision led organisation – regardless of its legal structure or the sectoral label it attracts.

The conference raised some further interesting questions – perhaps the main one for me being:

Is working explicitly with values worthwhile – or does it lead to hours of navel gazing with little real performance gain?

Can you work directly with something as abstract and ‘slippery’ as values?

How can you make the concepts involved more concrete and action oriented?

The best managers focus on working with behaviours, actions and results. Things that they can directly observe rather than infer. They then give affirmative feedback when these reinforce and express organisational values – or give adjusting feedback when they undermine them. This keeps the process of working with values very practical and action oriented.

In my experience though few managers give regular and rigorous feedback and many of those that do feel uncomfortable referring explicitly to values.

The Profit Distributing Social Enterprise?

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In a recent McKinsey article veteran researcher and business thinker Daniel Yankelovich reports that executives today in corporate America overwhelmingly agree that their businesses must not only make money, but must also serve the public good. Some 68% of executives believe that their business does both – only 48% of consumers agree with them.

It is clear that the ‘for profit distribution’ strategists are split over the role of ‘public service’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’ in the strategic mix. However the pendulum is clearly swinging in the direction of doing ‘public good’ as a core component of business strategy. The ‘profit distributing social enterprise’ is just around the corner – if it is not here already. Some would say that companies like SERCO, running everything from hospitals and prisons to railways and business support organisations, are already building this type of business structure – delivering ‘public good’ from a for profit platform.

What advantages will the third sector retain when more of the ‘for profits’ demonstrate a strong track record in providing public good? They might include:

  • the ability to release and channel the power of volunteerism in support of service delivery
  • the potential to attract philanthropic investments to fund the work
  • and perhaps most importantly a genuine passion for delivering the mission. A belief in doing it because it is the right thing to do; because it is an expression of what we value as human beings and not simply a preferred mechanism to increase return on investment to shareholder.

If we are serious about social enterprises challenging the dominant private enterprise model it is perhaps in these areas that strong management and leadership skills will be required.

Taking Established Social Enterprises to the Next Level

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Perth Concert Hall

S2S – the second annual Social Enterprise Trade Fair was held in Perth again this year. Blessed by sunshine and the usual diverse mix of delegates – bankers, bureaucrats and social activists – the event was highly enjoyable – and well worth the long drive.

I only managed to take in one workshop, “Striding Out – Taking Established Social Enterprises to the Next Level”. This featured three speakers, all of whom had experience of doing just that, either through acquisition (buying a business) or organic growth (winning more business and employing more people on the back of the surpluses created). The speakers were Mike Sweatman from the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative, Pauline Hinchion from FEAT Enterprises and Laurie Russel from the Wise Group

In all three cases the next level meant getting bigger. Only one of the presenters gave time to the possibility of staying small – working a niche as a way of moving to the next level. As someone who was brought up on ‘Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered’ – by EF Schumacher I am definitely not convinced that bigger is always the best route to better! Especially when ‘better’ means more effective delivery of a social purpose.

All three speakers emphasised the importance of good management in making the ‘transition to the next level’ and how much should be learned from the ‘for profit’ sector in this respect.

I don’t recall any of the speakers talking about the challenges of working with the key competitive advantage of the sector, namely the passion with which people, employees, volunteers and (some) funders subscribe to the cause. As a social enterprise gets larger how do you keep the passion burning?

Passion is the ‘kryptonite’ of the social enterprise. Management and leadership that nurtures passion and develops excellent management in pursuit of a social cause is what makes the third sector such a powerful force. My fear is that we may learn the wrong lessons from the private sector – about efficiencies and productivity – rather than how to inspire and lead passionate people.

There is a danger that ‘good management’ will quash what is excellent about social enterprise.

What suggestions can you offer about good management practices that help to keep the passion of social enterprise alive either when recruiting, acquiring or just in day to day management good practice?

How can you be rigorous in pursuit of your mission without being ruthless in your day to day management?