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 [...]

Mentoring for Enterprise

Thinking of setting up a mentoring scheme?
Here are some top tips to improve the chances of success:

Educate mentees in how to choose and use a mentor – this will provide a better return on investment than training people in how to be good mentors
Offer a mentor matching service – but always encourage people to look [...]

Tackling Enterprise Head On Is Wrong-Headed

Most projects designed to promote enterprise tackle the problem head on.
When we say that a community ‘lacks’ enterprise we are saying that we believe fewer businesses are starting per head of population than is ‘normal’.  Typically in a community that ‘lacks’ enterprise you might get 4 new starts per hundred adults per year.  In an [...]

Enterprise at its best—decoupled from self-interest?

Julia Middleton has written an interesting piece for the Institute of Directors.  She argues that we need to decouple ‘enterprise’ from ’self interest’.
Julia contrasts the motivations of the bankers  – ‘primarily financial‘ with the interests of Narayana Murthy, Chair of Indian IT giants Infosys – primarily about a ‘wider social gain‘.
Julia suggests that ‘Bankers’ are [...]

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 [...]

Why Enterprise and Entrepreneurship?

A short film from across the pond – with hat tip to @johnpopham.

Thoughts?

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 [...]

The End of (Enterprise) Education?

My eldest daughter came home from school last week with something like 10kg of university prospectuses.  She spent much of the week-end browsing the frightening range of courses available. 
And it got me thinking about whether the compulsory education that she has experienced so far, all 13 years of it, have really provided her with an excellent [...]

Teaching Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (or any other Significant Learning)

When I did my teacher training back in 1986 I remember having my world rocked by a book called ‘Teaching as a Subversive Activity’ by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner.   They make reference to a piece by Carl Rogers in ‘On Becoming a Person’.
“Rogers concludes:

My experience has been that I cannot teach another person how [...]