Ripples Out – Reflections

First of all congratulations to everyone involved (Lippy Films, Yorkshire Forward, Together for Peace and local residents) in creating a powerful, provocative  film.

I sincerely hope that it helps disturb the comfortable equilibrium in Leeds (and beyond) that exists between the controllers of the public purse and the developers.  There maybe a brief window for reflection while development is ‘put on pause’ by recession – but I am sure that we will soon see business resumed as usual – if only temporarily.  At the moment, conveniently, there is no other game in town.

The likelihood of this will be increased if we focus our time and energies in trying to ‘influence’ the processes of planners and developers.  This will be playing their game – on their terms.  And I have a sneaking hunch about who might win – no matter how articulate and informed those that advocate the voice of the community are.  We also run the risk of further contributing to the dilution of our personal power as now, instead of relying on planners, we learn to rely on ‘our representatives’ to create a better future for us.  Developers and communities can become bedfellows – trading favours, but they are unlikely to become allies – they are seeking different and mutually exclusive goals.

The ‘Planners Analysis’ that says ‘give us time to finish‘, ‘forgive us a few mistakes‘ and ‘we just need to complete our investments‘ essentially says that ‘Planning’ works.  Visions, blueprints, plans and ‘investments’ will lead us to a better world.  ‘You ‘the people’ will be well looked after once we have engineered things fully – but we need more than 10 years – much more‘.

Can I be the only one that doubts this promise?

Am I the only one that thinks they, the planners, don’t really believe this themselves?

But it keeps the Porsches and the Mercedes on the road.  This is an unsustainable and unjust paradigm for progress that we engage with at our peril.  Our best endeavours are perhaps focussed on the search for a new paradigm for progress.

Perhaps the root of the problem is a perception that it is the decisions and actions of ‘others’ that largely determine the course and quality of our lives.  That the quality of our lives depend on decisions about where money is spent and what infrastructure is built.  If ‘others’ make the wrong decision or do their jobs badly our communities will be broken.  This is a dangerous and pernicious myth made even more dangerous and pernicious by an obvious ‘face validity’.  But we have learned that it takes more than PVC windows and doors to ‘renew’ communities.  Physical infrastructure creates profits (on a good day).  It rarely creates sustainable progress.

If we believe that others have ‘the power’ then we are relinquishing ours.

Finance and infrastructure accrue as a by-product of community.  As by-products of people (diverse tribes including inventors, creatives, workers, financiers, developers, mothers, carers, young and old, healthy and sick, bureaucrats and anarchists – you get the picture?) collaborating to make ‘good’ lives and ‘good’ work.  They are seldom the preconditions for it.

And now, more than ever before, what we need to produce is not profit or GDP – but ‘wealth’; that stuff which remains when the money has run out – wellbeing.

Learning to collaborate to do ‘good work’, understanding what ‘good work’ is – learning to use our talents to create (private and common) wealth (not just profits) for our communities offers us a more robust framework for progress.  These are the challenges that require our time and our attention.  Thankfully they are much less expensive than buildings and ‘walkways in the sky’.

If this analysis offers hope we need to allow a new cast to take to the stage.  Architects, planners and bureaucrats must become the servants of community rather than its masters.  Community development workers (not outreach workers paid for by the state to deliver outcomes), and educators (not teachers paid to deliver ’employer’ requirements) perhaps hold the keys to this kingdom.

Perhaps this is a crude analysis.  I do not believe that planners, architects and developers are bad people.  Nor that there is any planned assault on community.  This is cock-up – not conspiracy.  Nor do I believe that vibrant communities can develop without an effective dialogue with planners.

It is just that this is not the place to start.

Enterprise Coaching is Being Broken

Broken

I get so frustrated when I see a 4 day enterprise coaching course being commissioned that pays little or no attention to what makes the role of the enterprise coach different from the business adviser.

I witnessed one recently, delivered by an Enterprise Agency (so they MUST know what they are talking about) that started with a half day on ‘Building  empathy and rapport’ (this should have been subtitled ‘Using psychological flannel to manipulate your client’) before going on for a full three days about ‘business planning’, ‘marketing’ and ‘finance’.  It even included a ‘very useful’ glossary of financial terms that every enterprise coach should know (things like profit, loss, break-even and cash flow).  Essentially it was a four day course of basic business advice re-branded ‘Enterprise Coaching’.  SFEDI accredited which is handy, except as far as I know SFEDI have yet to do develop any standards for Enterprise Coaches (which makes me wonder how they can accredit the course)!

• The challenge facing the enterprise coach is NOT to provide business advice to people living in areas of deprivation.
• It is NOT to help people who want to start a business to develop viable business plans.
• It is not to sell them places on workshops or training programmes – even if this is what mis-guided funders incentivise them to do.

It IS to:

• make connections in communities
• become trusted
• have structured conversations that help people to uncover their aspiration and to get back in touch with their potential,
• help people assess their options and choices and make decisions that are most likely to help them make progress with their lives.
• to engage with pre-contemplators and to help them contemplate.  It is to help contemplators to prepare for change and to ensure that they can access relevant, high quality and personalised specialist services.

Enterprise coaches develop people.

They unstick people.

They help people to grasp the possibility and practicalities of progress.

They help people to get in touch which their enteprising soul.

They build social capital, they put people in touch with fellow travellers and with sources of specialist support.

They work on shaping social contexts to make them more supportive of enteprise.

Some of the people they work with will go on to develop businesses.  Others will go back into education and skills, some will remain as before.

After a relationship with a skilled and powerful enterprise coach each one of them will have been challenged to think about what they want to get from life and how they are going to get it.

They may not have had ‘Break-even’ explained.

The concept of enterprise coaching is being broken.

It is being broken by bureaucrats who believe that the best way to increase start up rates is to put watered down business advisers into deprived communities to push self employment and entrepreneurship.

It is being broken because the enterprise industry is exploiting an opportunity to re-package ‘bog standard’ business advice under another name and sell it to unsuspecting and ill-informed regeneration commissioners.

It is being broken because Reality TV and the media at large insist on promoting the ‘Entrepreneurship Fairytale’ in which all that is needed is a good idea and few hours with a business adviser.

It is being broken because we lack a brave, positive and long term approach to developing more enterprising communities.

It is being broken because we are not seriously trying to engage the disengaged in making a better life.

Anyone ready for a change?

The Emotional Content of ‘Enterprise Support’

I am no fan of entrepreneurship based reality TV – however I do make an exception for Gerry Robinson’s Big Decision.  The basic premise of the programme is as nauseating as most – Sir Gerry Robinson, one of Britain’s most respected businessmen, comes to the rescue of several companies across the UK, armed with his personal cheque book. The ‘white knight’ rides in carrying all before him with his expertise and cash.

But the reality of the programme is somewhat different.  On occasion Gerry refuses to open his cheque book because he recognises that an injection of cash will actually prevent the management team from doing what has to be done.  And he seldom ‘diagnoses and prescribes’, preferring instead to use good questions to get the various members of the management team to face up to what they know has to be done – but have previously repressed.

It is also clear that any help that Gerry is able to offer is based on a real human connection.  There are tears, anger, fear and real affection and caring  as well.  And in my experience these emotions are always present whenever help is ‘non-trivial’.  Yet most business advisers tend to professionalise their relationships with clients.  They objectify both the company and the management team – viewing it as a black box to be fixed – rather than a very human system of passions and self interest in which they too need to participate.

Carl Rogers in On Becoming a Person had this to say:

It has gradually been driven home to me that I cannot be of help …by any means of any intellectual or training procedure.  No approach which relies upon knowledge, upon training, upon the acceptance of something that is taught, is of any use.  These approaches are so tempting and direct that I have, in the past, tried a great many of them.  It is possible to explain a person to himself, to prescribe steps that should lead him forward, to train him in knowledge about a more satisfying mode of life.  But such methods are, in my experience, futile and inconsequential.  The most they can accomplish is some temporary change, which soon disappears, leaving the individual more than ever convinced of their inadequacy.

The failure of any such approach through the intellect has forced me to recognise that change appears to come about through experience in a relationship.

…

If I can provide a certain type of relationship, the other person will discover within himself the capacity to use that relationship for growth, and change and personal development will occur.

Carl Rogers – On Becoming a Person

Although Rogers background was in psychotherapy his practical interests were in all kinds of helping relationship.  I don’t know if Gerry has ever read any Carl Rogers, or is a student of person centred helping relationships, but I am certain that he understands that it is his relationship with the people behind the company that matters most to his ability to help – not his expertise and cheque book.

It is his ability to build the relationship through openness, empathy, rapport and congruence that makes Gerry perhaps Britain’s most powerful company helper.

• To what extent does your practice rely ‘upon knowledge, upon training, upon the acceptance of something that is taught’?
• How could you make your practice more ‘relationship based’?
• What risks might such progress entail?
• What benefits might accrue?

Knowing ‘Bugger All’

I spent a very pleasant afternoon recently in the offices of New Start Magazine researching what makes for an inspirational or transformational relationship and I came across this wonderful quote:

In my ethnographic work, with a head full of American methodologies and theory, I thought I knew a bit about local government, urban and social policy and the theory of community and activism.  However, I knew as Betty was to tell me, “Bugger all!”.  All I knew was learned, abstract and distinct from reality.  Betty knew it from 60 years of lived experience.

Neil McInroy Chief Executive, CLES

This is why we need to have a process for community development that is not controlled by local government but by the lived experience of local people.

Helping – Are We More Confused Than Most?

Much of the training and development world is confused about the difference between coaching and mentoring, and a wide range of other ‘helping’ roles.  I would contend that the world of enterprise support and entrepreneurship is more confused than most.  We label different types of helping intervention carelessly and frequently bastardise and corrupt subtle, powerful and transformational learning relationships.  We deploy mentors and coaches who are poorly trained and frequently lack the right experience to help.  It may come as a horrible truth but a middle manager from a ‘blue chip’ does not necessarily make for a great mentor – especially if  they have not been trained.

And this matters because a good understanding of the type of helping relationship that you are trying to offer is essential to making it work well, to developing your professional practice and to helping the learner to develop a support team that covers all of the right bases.  How to choose and use a team of helpers is perhaps one of the most powerful things we can teach.  If we confuse the type of helping relationships that we provide we are unlikely to make them as effective as they could be – and more importantly we are unlikely to inculcate good learning habits.

So what are the helping roles that we get confused and how can we start the job of clarifying them and improving their efficacy?

Coach – a relationship usually characterised by frequent and intense sessions designed to help the learner to raise their awareness of the current situation, generate options, take decisions and act.  Frequently coaching will involve goal setting and clarification and the development of formal action plans.  Coaches are usually expert in the process of personal development rather than the ‘content’ of what has to be learned.  Successful coaching does depend to a high degree on rapport, personal ‘chemistry’ if you like, so to be most effective it is important that learners are able to choose their preferred coach.  Coaching relationships usually run for months and occasionally years.  However good coaches teach learners to coach themselves effectively and it should be rare for a coaching relationship to extend beyond 12-18 months without the nature of the relationship evolving significantly.

Mentor – A mentor is perceived by the learner to be a senior practitioner in a field that the learner has identified as critical to their own development.  Mentors usually have ‘been there, done that and got the T-shirt’.  This means that it is highly beneficial if the learner is able to identify and recruit mentors (they may have more than one) that they respect and are hungry to learn from.  Appointing mentors to learners unless done with immense care usually results in ineffective mentoring, and means that the learner is denied the opportunity to learn about how to identify, recruit and use mentors.  Mentoring relationships are usually characterised by less frequent but longer meetings (perhaps 2-3 a year).  Mentoring relationship are usually driven by the learner, who takes responsibility for scheduling meetings and developing the agenda.  Learning to chose and use mentors effectively is a relatively advanced skill and is one that shold be explicitly taught.  Similarly it helps tremendously if mentors have had some training in what it means to be  a mentor and to establish some of the boundaries and practices of effective mentoring.  However if learners are encouraged to source their own mentors then mentor training becomes difficult.  In these circumstances it is even more helpful if learners have been effectively trained in choosing and using mentors.  Good mentoring relationship often run over a number of years, if not decades.  However they often have a high failure rate.  Learners have to be prepared to kiss a few frogs in pursuit of a powerful mentor.

Peer – Many learners gain great benefits from peer learning processes where they explore problems and solutions with fellow learners.   Peer learning is characterised by enquiry, reflection and exchange of experiences.  Because there is no ‘expert’ in the relationship peer learning promotes independence and critical thinking.  Again peer learning processes can be significantly improved if those involved are given some basic training in what makes peer learning work.  Buddy systems are a form of peer learning. More advanced forms of peer learning can involve co-counselling, co-coaching and action learning.  Effective peer learning processes, that move beyond support into transformational learning, can be difficult to establish.  However once a learner knows how to use peer learning in their own professional and personal development it becomes a powerful and transformative force in their lives.

Adviser – an adviser typically brings expertise, experience and, if you are lucky, wisdom to bring to bear on a speciifc problem or opportunity.  Learners should be careful about using advisers to help identify problems and opportunities as they are likely to find something in their area of expertise rather than in the learners area of greatest need.  Some advisers will simply solve problems.  Others will teach you how to solve the problem when it crops up again in the future.  If the task is likely to recur then working with an adviser with a strong track record of supporting learning and independence matters.  If the issue is a ‘one off’ then this is much less of an issue.  The role of an adviser is usually short term and project based.

Broker – a good broker, an honest and value adding middleman is a rare beast.  They will help a learner to reflect on their situation and the change they need to bring about and then put together an action plan, including information on sourcing other ‘helpers’ that are required.  Independent, leaner centred brokers are few and far between.  Most brokers are actually tied into the delivery of specific policy goals and objectives of their funders and so learner again should be trained in how to choose and use brokerage services.  Beware the broker who brings government subsidies!  It is tempting to do something because you can get 60% off.  If the intervention is worthwhile, and is likely to have a good return on investment then you should do it.  If ROI is marginal then you should look for other opportunities.   Relationships with brokers are usually short term and very tightly focused on problem solving or the exploitation of opportunities.

Trainer – trainers usually teach specific skills, knowledge and processes.  Trainers are generally driven by a body of content that they wish to impart – a curriculum that they teach.  In general the process is about grafting on more knowledge and skill to an existing base of practice.  It is about gap filling.

Master – the tradition of ‘the master’ has been somewhat lost in modern times – apart from in the martial arts.  A master is a senior practitioner who takes on number of learners in a highly disciplined and structured learning environment.  Masters are usually careful about selecting learners – as they recognise that real learning requires commitment, discipline and passion.  Learning from a master is not an easy option – an any devotee of Kung Fu Panda will know.  Mastery of a skill or discipline usually involves months if not years of disciplined study.  The tradition of mastery involved learners (apprentices in this context) recognising what they really needed to learn and then sub,itting themselves to the discipline of their chosen master.  Masters were all powerful in deciding who they would teach and to be accepted as apprentice was indeed cause for celebration.

My contention is that as a profession we frequently mangle these different types of helping relationship.  We confuse our learners about them as much as we confuse ourselves and we significantly reduce the both effectiveness and the uptake of helping relationships as a result.  We tend to overemphasise the potential of the adviser and the broker (perhaps because these are most successful in terms of chasing outputs) and we significantly undermine the potential of mentoring, peer learning and coaching by failing to invest adequately in professional development and robust service design.

So let’s start to take pedagogy seriously.  Lets develop robust methods of education, and let’s find ways to put the learners in control of their own enterprise education.

Because that really will be a lesson worth learning.

John Hegley – Enterprise Poet!

The Price of Art in Luton

On the bridge approaching the railway,
the man was begging.
I said draw me a dog
and I’ll give you a quid.
So I gave him some paper
and he did.
And I said, there you go, mate,
you can make money out of art!
Will you sign it?
As I handed him the one pound thirty-odd
I had in my pocket,
he informed me that the signed ones were a fiver.

More John Hegley here and here.

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Find Their Enterprising Soul

Enterprise is not the same as entrepreneurship.

Being enterprising has little to do with starting businesses.

Enterprise is ALL about:

• recognising how things are,
• recognising how you would prefer them to be
• having the self confidence, ideas, plans and taking action that helps to narrow the gap.

If we start from this premise we will find that we can engage far more people in learning the skills of enterprise than if we start with the tired old ‘Have you got  a great business idea?‘ line.

We enterprise professionals might even find that we get taken seriously by educators and community activists.  We might even find that we have something really powerful to offer to the social and economic development of communities.

And if we engage  people in ‘finding their enterprising soul’ then there is a good chance that some of them will go on to start businesses and social enterprises as they start to exercise their enterprise muscles.

Sounds exciting?  Then PLEASE leave a comment, get touch and ask others to the same.

Let’s reclaim enterprise from the ‘men in suits’.

Community Organising – Obama Style

Build It – And They Won’t Come!

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?

So, You Want to be an Entrepreneur

…is the title of an interesting blog post over at the Wall Street Journal.

I don’t agree with all of it  – for example you don’t HAVE to take big financial risks if you want to be an entrepreneur – but it does provoke thought.!