For a few years now I seem to have been living in Groundhog Day. \u00a0Not everyday, but enough to be disconcerting.<\/p>\n
I will be chatting with an enterprise professional, perhaps a lecturer in a University, an enterprise coach in a ‘deprived’ community, a start-up business adviser or a\u00a0bureaucrat\u00a0managing an enterprise project. \u00a0In our\u00a0conversations\u00a0about enterprise we will recognise how it is not all about business. \u00a0How enterprise can be expressed in a\u00a0seemingly\u00a0infinite number of ways. \u00a0Sure, for a significant and important minority, it is about commercial endeavour. Business, profit, and social impact in some combination. \u00a0In order to express their enterprising soul a minority have to start a business.<\/p>\n
But for the majority being enterprising, being proactive in pursuit of a better future, does not mean starting up a business. \u00a0It may\u00a0mean\u00a0making a phone call, having a conversation, calling a meeting or writing a letter. \u00a0Taking some action that increases agency and power in pursuing a preferred future. \u00a0It may be taking the opportunity to reflect on ‘The\u00a0direction\u00a0in which progress lies<\/em>‘, or ‘What are the next steps that I\u00a0can\u00a0take to make progress?<\/em>‘ \u00a0or ‘What options have I got?<\/em>‘<\/p>\n We will reflect on how some of the most enterprising people we know may work in the Council, or the University, or organise festivals and campaigns in the community. \u00a0That the enterprising soul finds its expressions in many forms and not just in entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n We will agree that the real point of leverage in our\u00a0communities\u00a0lies not in providing start-up advice with those who are already minded to start a business, although of course this IS\u00a0important. \u00a0The real leverage lies in helping more people to establish the direction in which progress lies for them and their loved ones and helping them to plan and execute actions designed to move them in that direction.<\/p>\n If we can significantly increase the stock of enterprising people then, as sure as eggs is eggs, we will also increase the stock of entrepreneurial people. \u00a0And we will not lose so many who are completely turned off by\u00a0enterprise\u00a0because\u00a0of the Gordon Gecko or Victorian perceptions of enterprise nurtured by the reality TV shows and newspaper headlines.<\/p>\n We will also increase the survival rate of new\u00a0businesses\u00a0as people make natural progress into\u00a0entrepreneurship\u00a0instead of being persuaded to start a business (‘all you need is the idea and the\u00a0determination\u00a0to succeed’) when they have not yet gained the real skills or capital that they will need to\u00a0succeed.<\/p>\n In our conversations we will agree on\u00a0these\u00a0things. \u00a0And then almost invariably they will head off to run another course on ‘Marketing and Sales’ or ‘Business Planning’ or to look at monitoring returns that count bums on seats and business start-up rates.<\/p>\n If ever there was an industry that needed to innovate and re-invent itself and its role in modern Britain it is the enterprise industry. \u00a0 If we really want to build a much more enterprising Britain then we need to break the\u00a0stranglehold\u00a0that the business start-up industry has on enterprise policy.<\/p>\n This might be just one of the ideas we can explore at Enterprising Communities: The Big Conversation<\/a> in Leeds on May 19th.<\/p>\n