Enterprise Coaching – One Day Workshop

Just been putting together a one day Introduction to Enterprise Coaching programme. Unfortunately because delegates are coming from far and wide we have a late start and early finish.
Here is the outline:
10.30 Arrive, register, welcome etc
11.00am Introductions and Objectives Exercise
11.30 – What are we Trying to Achieve with Enterprise and Entrepreneurship?
12.00 – Self Directed Learning [...]

Enterprise Coaching is Being 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Hunger for Inspiration

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think this offers us some powerful, but largely ignored, clues as to how we should design our enterprise development services.  We need to offer a service that helps people to seek, find and, crucially, act on [...]

Why Making It Easy to Start a Business is a Bad Idea

Not so small fortunes are being invested to encourage people, especially those living or working in areas of deprivation, to start their own businesses or to go self employed.  This makes lots of sense to economists, especially if people were previously ‘economically inactive’ or on benefits.  The ‘tax take’ goes up and the cost to [...]

Why We Must Develop People and not Entrepreneurs

Economic growth is supposed to deliver prosperity. Higher incomes should mean better choices, richer lives, an improved quality of life for us all. That at least is the conventional wisdom. But things haven’t always turned out that way.
An even stronger finding is that the requirements of prosperity go way beyond material sustenance. Prosperity has vital [...]

Community Empowerment Misunderstood? The Role of Enterprise…

First let’s look at some definitions of community empowerment:
‘Community Empowerment’ is the giving of confidence, skills and power to communities to shape and influence what public bodies do for or with them.
An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on Success – October 2007
Community Empowerment is about people and government, working together to make life better.  [...]

How Long Did it Take to Launch Your Business?

This is the title of a great post over at mynameisscott.
What do you mean by launch?

Open for business?
Make a sale?
Break-even?

He ends,
if by launch you mean figure out what I am doing – well I am still working on that one!
Interestingly Scott starts his exploration of ‘launch’ with ‘idea generation’.  But we could trace the origins [...]

The Information Problem…

Todd Hannula has blogged about the possibility of an open source information platform for social entrepreneurs.  He posits that such a platform might help more social entrepreneurs get the information that they need at the right time.  Sounds like the kind of idea that the public purse might get interested in investing in.
But does it [...]