How does a community get the leadership that it needs to thrive? Is it a question of finding an elite cadre of movers and shakers, networking them, hot-housing them and amplifying their power? Or is it about offering the opportunity for anyone to 'lead' on whatever matters most to them, their loved ones and their neighbours? Can we design leadership development processes that: support and reward mass participation? are inclusive rather than exclusive? respect local starting conditions (values, cultures and issues)? Certainly this kind of leadership development is possible. By giving people space to talk about what matters to them and encouraging them to think through what they can do about it and whether they want to move from words to actions we can find 'leaders'. But they rarely see themselves as such. They don't see their agenda as being 'leadership'. They may see it as developing a 'local community website', or 'starting an urban gardening project' or 'finding opportunities for young people to learn and earn in our community'. There are plenty of people looking to do plenty of good things and the truth is that what we usually describe as 'Leadership Development' … [Read more...]
The Purpose of a City: economic development or something more?
Why do we choose to live cities? What are they for? Well, for many of us they are 'Where the jobs are'. We don't choose to live in or near them. We do so because that is how our economy is configured. We are drawn into they city and 'enslaved' by it and the economy is exists to serve. But many of us are, on the whole, happy slaves as the city fathers and their investor friends ensure we are regularly supplied with both 'bread and circuses', superficial means of appeasement, from which they too can often make a handsome profit. And, on one level, this is a purpose of the city. To organise a modern population effectively and efficiently for the benefit of employers and those who bankroll and tax them. They are above all else economic entities, where 'culture' and 'community' play secondary roles as part of the mechanisms for appeasement while the primary narrative is about the economy, productivity, profitability and gross domestic product. As Margaret Thatcher put it "Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul." But, we can look at a city differently. We could choose to believe that "Head, heart and soul are the method; the object is to change the economy" We can … [Read more...]
A City of Entrepreneurs
http://youtu.be/61rQczKZB0w They have of course got this wrong. Their ambition should be to become the most enterprising city - because though business is important it should not be the be all and end all.... … [Read more...]
‘The Impotence of All Governments…’
A provocative phrase used by Jeremy Paxman last night to describe the inability of any government to effectively manage an effective path through the current economic crisis. But we could extend it to many other areas of our lives. The impotence of governments to: build the affordable houses that we need provide the stable macro-economic climate in which trade can thrive keep significant numbers of our citizens, young and old, out of poverty equip people with the skills and attitudes required to thrive in the 21st century reduce carbon emissions to a level that mitigates the risk of significant environmental trauma provide affordable, sustainable and efficient mass transit systems Here in Leeds we have got to the point where all political parties see the construction of a new station at Kirkstall as some kind of triumph. Building one station that will serve a few thousand people in a city of nearly 800 000. A new station that will provide the key infrastructure link to enable further private sector development in that area of the city. I just hope that any future planning application gets the balance of affordable housing right, otherwise I suspect we will see the poor once again displaced … [Read more...]
Community, Cultural and Economic Development – On a Shoestring…
This is the modest challenge I have set myself. A challenge for several reasons. Firstly these phenomena are usually divided up and tackled by different teams, using different professional jargon, working to different policy objectives in different departments and sectors (for profit, public and third). Tackling community, cultural and economic development as a kind of holy trinity vitally important. Yet we usually separate them and often end up with economic development that breaks community or ignores culture and vice versa... Another challenge is the fixation that many policy makers and leaders have with 'big ticket' solutions. Want to stimulate culture? Let's build an Arena or a Gallery? Need to stimulate economic development? How about an Enterprise Zone or a Technology Park? Or, anyone for high speed trains? Multi-million pound projects that rely on politicians, bureaucrats and professionals working together to invest millions. In these austere times there are economic development consultancies that will write you papers on how to finance these projects using tax increment finances and other such stuff! But let's get back to basics on this. Community, Culture and Economy are like … [Read more...]
There is Another Game in Town….and she is called Elsie
You might be forgiven for thinking that traditional 'economic development' is the only game in town. Shopping centres, arenas and enterprise zones, vocational education and training producing a workforce to meet the needs of employers. This kind of stuff has been the mainstream of economic development for as long as I can remember. But there is another game that WE can play.. One which relies less on 'attracting' talent and wealth from outside and more on developing the passion, aspiration and skills of the people that already make up our communities. It works with what we have got, starting from where we are. It relies on the ability of local people to support each other, with knowledge, skills, networks and wherever possible custom. Instead of looking to buy 'star players' to join the team we instead set up an academy, a place and a process in which we can explore our potential and find the people and other resources that we need to move our projects forward. This is where Elsie comes in. Leeds Community Enterprise Accelerator (Elsie) is a project designed to build the capacity of ordinary people in the Leeds community to shape their own future according to their own hopes and … [Read more...]
What are You Working For? The Gospel of Consumption
[A modern economist] is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum well-being with the minimum of consumption... Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of economic activity. - EF Schumacher Poverty is not just the absence of money; it is also the absence of a belief in the future...What we need for real prosperity is what money can't buy.... Block and McKnight By the late 1920s, America's business and political elite had found a way to defuse the dual threat of stagnating economic growth and a radicalised working class, in what one industrial consultant called "the gospel of consumption" - the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn't enough. President Hoover's 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes observed in glowing terms the results: "By advertising and other promotional devices...a measurable pull on production … [Read more...]
Economic Gardening or Economic Hunting?
Economic Gardening and Economic Hunting are two very different approaches to developing an enterprise culture. An economic gardening approach sets out to create jobs and entrepreneurial activity by investing in local people and their talents, cultures, passions and skills. It is an endogenous "arising from within" approach to community and economic development. The starting point for economic gardening says that 'in this community we have all that we need to build a vibrant and sustainable future'. It may need careful nurturing to help it thrive but the seeds of our future success are already sown. The key tools of economic gardening include: building open and accessible networks for potential and current entrepreneurs that foster the exchange of ides and collaboration signposting to existing and continually improving support services that help local people on their enterprise journey locally available, convivial and very low (preferably no) cost coaching support to help local people to nurture their dreams and aspirations and to believe in their ability to develop them access to commercial finance for local people with investment ready business ideas support services that recognise that … [Read more...]
What do we want Enterprise to do for us?
This is an important question and one that is rarely given serious consideration. Of course more entrepreneurs means more wealth means better communities. Right? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In the current context most enterprise programmes focus on finding individual entrepreneurs and helping them to find ways of making their business ideas work. There is a good chance that as soon as this happens the entrepreneur will find their new found success gives them the option of leaving the community for a more prosperous one. This is because their success has been in spite of the local community and not because of it. The community is something to be escaped from. This approach to enterprise in the community plays up the role of the entrepreneur as individualistic hero(ine) fighting against the odds. If it succeeds then the community is actually weakened as successful people are able to leave. So if we want enterprise to enable individuals to succeed and escape 'deprived communities' then this sort of individualistic approach to enterprise can work. However if our goal is to transform communities through enterprise then we need to adopt very different models of enterprise development. We need to develop a context in … [Read more...]
