The Art and Enterprise of the Luthier

A Secret that Few Business Planners Know…

“It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.”

Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister and Novelist, 1804-1881

Nor is it reason, logic and a good business plan that helps a business succeed.

So spend less time developing the business plan and more time developing the vision, passion and skills.

It’s passion, energy, commitment and often a lot of luck that makes a business thrive.

With thanks to Andy Maslen for the quote!

Should Enterprise Education Be More Than Business Literacy?

I was approached by a young woman in the Holiday Inn in Garforth yesterday.  She tugged gently at my trousers and asked me if I was interested in buying.

She was clutching a beetroot plant in a wonderfully hand painted plant pot, with a colourful and neatly laminated label saying ‘BEETROOT’.  She must have been six or seven and barely reached waist height.  She had a badge on her that gave me the name of her school and her job title in the social enterprise that they ran.  She was the “Sales Executive”.

She was one of the students from Leeds taking part in a wonderful event called ‘Social Enterprise Takes Off’ organised by the brilliant team of Enterprise Ambassadors at Education Leeds, led with so much enthusiasm, energy and knowledge by Mike Cooper and Chris Marsden.

“Do you want to buy my beetroot?” she asked.

“I would love to” I said, “but tell me, what should I do with it when I go on holiday?”

“That’s not  a problem – just put it in a bag and take it with you!”

“Ok. How much is your beetroot plant?” I asked sensing that she had not really grasped my holiday concerns.

“£1″

“And do you know how much profit you will make if I buy your plant for £1?”

“Yes, about 80p.”

Sold – in so many ways!

The event was wonderful – not withstanding the slightly tired and dated environs and buffet of the Holiday Inn.  Some great speakers including Magic Man John Hotowka, Beermat Entrepreneur Mike Southon (“some people become entrepreneurs because no-one else will give them job – like my mate Mike Chitty over there” – thanks for that one Mike!), Make Your Mark Ambassador Sabirul Islam (check him out) and Nick Bowen inspirational head teacher of St Benet Biscop RC High school and advocate for Benet Enterprise – a school owned social enterprise into everything from professional theatre production (from scriptwriting to travelling productions) and event management to video making.  They are tapping into the current (and I suspect temporary) rich veins of public funding for all things social enterprise and turning over hundred of thousands each year raising significant funds to improve facilities at the school.  Apparently more skeptical members of staff  ‘were soon won over when they saw the laptops and other kit that the ‘surpluses’ from Benet Enterprises were able to supply‘.  Setting aside the issue of using unpaid pupils and adults paid by the state to compete with local businesses for a minute they are doing some remarkable work.

Mercifully not a Dragon, Failed Apprentice or (not so) Secret Millionaire in sight.  (I have no problem if they bring real substance and experience and engage fully, ‘Yorkshire boy done good’ Carl Hopkins is a great example of this – it is when they just bring their ‘celebrity’ and a carefully honed sales pitch for their latest book/consultancy/educational board game/business development workshop that I struggle.)

But the star attractions were the students working (and I mean WORKING) an exhibition space that felt more like a Mediterranean souk than a fusty business exhibition.  As soon as I got my wallet out to exchange my pound for my beetroot I was beset by passionate sales executives hawking fair trade chocolate, handmade wooden signs (“any design, any wood you like”) and glassware. Young people selling with energy and passion, plants, books, woodwork, plastics, ‘stone’ plant troughs made from polystyrene.  Young people who clearly loved their businesses and their products.  Contrast this with the (almost uniformly) sombre, conservative and impassionate business exhibitors at the Chartered Institute of Housing a few miles up the road in Harrogate.

I have no doubt that work of the Enterprise Ambassadors from Education Leeds and the hard working pupils and teachers who make these things happen will lead to a much more business literate generation in the future.  And that matters.

However there is more to excellent ‘enterprise education’ than business literacy and great teamwork.

It is about understanding passion and potential whether that lies in ‘business’, ‘ballet’, ‘beatboxing’ or ‘beetroot’.

It is about belief in ‘self’ as an active agent in shaping the future and building a better life, society and world.

It is about the power of education and the development and realisation of potential in whatever Ken Robinson refers to as your ‘Element’.  And the point of engagement for that, indeed the vehicle for the fulfillment of that, might not be ‘business’.

So it is time for a broader conception of the enterprising student.  It is not about the next generation of entrepreneurs but about the next generation of cellists, authors, policemen and women, nurses, gardeners, mathematicians, politicians and bankers.  About the next generation full stop.

Everyone should have the opportunity to become ‘business literate’ by the time they leave full time education.  But primarily, fundamentally and at their very heart they need to be enterprising, creative, innovative, bold and self confident – and this might have little or nothing to do with entrepreneurship and business literacy.

As I write this sat at my kitchen table I am looking out the door at my beetroot plant in its brightly hand painted pot.  There is a part of me wondering about their costings and worrying that, like so many social enterprises, they have missed or chosen to hide, some of their real costs of production.

But there is a much, much larger part of me that hopes and prays that the young ‘sales executive’ has learned much more than just how to spot opportunities to turn a profit.  That she has learned more about herself and what she could become.  About her self interest and her power to realise her potential and how she might really be able to make the difference that she wants to see in the world.

It is these lessons that we enterprise educators should be teaching.

I am a freelance trainer, consultant, thinker, speaker and writer on the subjects of enterprise, entrepreneurship, management and leadership If you would like to work with Mike then please get in touch.  mikeatmichaelchittydotcodotuk

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Why Do I Work In Enterprise?

‘We pass through this world but once.

Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life,

Few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive,

Or even to hope,

By a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within.’

Stephen Jay Gould

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Year 10 – Industry Day

My 15 year old daughter brought home a letter yesterday telling me about Industry Day:

In conjunction with our Work Related Learning programme, we have organised Enterprise Days in which all year 10 pupils will participate.

Hidden curriculum lesson 1: Enterprise is not about freedom of expression and choice – it is about complying with the policy dictats of bureaucrats. You’d better get used to following orders.

Teams of personnel from Industry will be coming into school to help run the days which aim to introduce pupils (to) aspects of Enterprise education.

Hidden curriculum lesson 2: Forget being a living, breathing person full passion, aspiration and imagination. Once you are in Industry (why the capital – Orwellian reference perhaps?) you are just personnel in teams. This way you don’t have to exercise any autonomy – you just have to follow orders. Enterprise is a bit like a strange cult – we will introduce you to some aspects. But others had best remain a mystery….

Hidden curriculum lesson 3: Understand the power of language to obfuscate and confuse. I am a professional in enterprise education and I have no idea what ‘aspects of Enterprise education’ are.

Activities will focus on developing skills such as team building and communication and will be an excellent preparation towards work experience and the world of work.

Hidden curriculum lesson 4: There is a thing called the ‘world of work’. It has laws, practices and ways of being that are different to the rest of society. You had better know how to conform.

Hidden curriculum lesson 5: If you struggle with team work and communication then the world of work/enterprise/Industry is not for you. You had better develop your potential to survive in other worlds. See Hidden curriculum lesson 14 below

Pupils will be working in teams and your child will take part in the Industry Day on one of the following days…

(and yes the first one is on April 1st – perhaps the whole thing is a spoof!)

Hidden curriculum lesson 6: There is little room for the individual in Industry. They had better learn how to smooth of the sharp edges and get along with people. We wouldn’t want too many ‘rugged individualists’ in Industry. Forget what George Bernard Shaw said about all progress depending on the unreasonable man. In industry we are polite, formulaic team players.

It is intended that pupils will not follow normal timings for the school day. The day will be as follows:

08:45am – Sign in at Reception

9.00am – Industry conference starts

10.50am – Break

11.10am – Conference resumes

1.00pm – Conference ends – pupils involved in the Industry Day should go home

Hidden curriculum lesson 7: The world of work is dominated by the bosses clock. You will do as you are told – when you are told. Because employers are benevolent you will get a break.

Hidden curriculum lesson 8: If we do not have enough for you to do you will be laid off early.

Hidden curriculum lesson 9: You had better get used to confernces in Industry. They are a lot like lessons – but longer.

In order to give the pupils a chance to experience some aspects of the world of work the pupils will be required to:

• wear appropriate clothing for business; for the boys this could be simply school trousers, white shirt and a different tie (The David Brent school of office dress then). For girls, an appropriate example would be their normal trousers or skirts and a plain top (as opposed to the haute couture that they usually wear to school). This should not, therefore involve extra expense and I would stress that this is definitely not a ‘non uniform’ day.

Hidden curriculum lesson 10: In the world of work you will be one of many clones – similarly dressed and equipped to deal with the challenges of the stationery cupboard. In the world of work we will continue to discriminate by gender.

• sign in at Reception by 9.00am. This will mean that for this day the pupils will enter through the main entrance.

Hidden curriculum lesson 11: We will confuse you by our ambiguity over timings. Although earlier we said that you could sign in at Reception at 08.45am – you must be signed in by no later than 09.00. Got it? Any non-compliance in the first instance will be dealt with by sarcasm. You should be clear that in the world of work though time-keeping is a tool of power and any difficulty you have with it could lead to severe disciplinary consequences

Hidden curriculum lesson 12: The world of work is obsessed with clocking in and clocking off on time – get used to it. Again forget autonomy, initiative and flexibility.

• behave in an appropriate, business-like manner and follow all instructions from the personnel running the Industry Days

Hidden curriculum lesson 13: Learn to moderate your behaviour when in the world of work. Understanding the mysteries of what constitutes ‘business-like’ could hold the keys to the kingdom of the corner office on the third floor.

Hidden curriculum lesson 14: There are alternatives to the ‘world of work’. These include the worlds of:

• warcraft
• benefits
• crime

If the ‘world of work’ as experienced on Industry does not set your heart racing and your soul singing then perhaps one of these is right for you?

It is no wonder that so many highly committed educationalists who take the development of young people seriously are less than supportive when it comes to ‘embedding enterprise in the curriculum’.

If Enterprise champions are pedalling such ill-conceived and poorly thought through programmes they deserve to be left to their own devices.

My eldest daughter went through a similar programme last year. The highlight for her was the ‘Enterprise Wordsearch’. You have to love those teachers for their great sense of irony!

Inspiration and Learning from the Arts

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Irish playwright and critic

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?

Enterprise Lessons from Frazer Irving

Had the privilege of attending my first Creative Networks event at Leeds College of Art.  Frazer Irving – a wonderful illustrator talked about his career – from which I took the following:

1. the seeds of your (your clients) future are often sown early – go back to the early years to see if the basis for an enterprise were sown then
2. just because it sells does not mean it is good – heroin is not better than tofu – even if it does shift more units – selling stuff is not the be all and all – truth and beauty matter too
3. provoke, invoke, evoke – apparently John Lennon said that – not a bad JD for an enterprise coach either
4. 5 years of crappy jobs and being on the dole – being on the dole were the ‘happy days’
5. ‘ideas burning on the inside’
6. managers/editors can leave you with tears streaming down your face and your soul ripped out and thrown on the floor
7. the bad times provide the fuel and drive to allow the good
8. an incessant streak of optimism helps – on being rejected by judges in a portrait competition Frazer chose to believe it was because he wasn’t important – ‘although it might have been because, then, I wasn’t very good’
9. it takes a lot of time, training, passion and life experience to really master your subject
10. great technology combined with great passion and skills produce remarkable, beautiful and important results
11. sometimes you need someone to say ‘chin up – you will be alright’
12. sometimes when your art is ripped off it gets you great new gigs – life-changing breaks…
13. be a slave to the muse – let the story dictate the style – if the story is trivial don’t expect to get great results
14. it is really about finding out who you are and what you can become – enterprise is about the emergence of identity – the process of becoming…
15. treat me as a ‘pencil monkey’ and you will get mediocrity
16. in the comic world a lot of bad product is there because of poor management – comics and every other industry on the planet – management is perfectly designed to get the results it gets
17. if it is bad it is (nearly always) because the managers/editors have put the wrong people on the job
18. if you have recruited the wrong people then forcing them to compromise WILL lead to mediocrity
19. recruit great talent carefully and then trust it to deliver on its own terms – not yours
20. when your hobby becomes your job – you get another hobby
21. musicians jam and sometimes the results are great – what is the jamming equivalent for you?
22. be careful about your reputation – one person saying you might not hit a deadline in a public forum can be a killer
23. sometimes it is best not to claim the credit for all your ideas
24. it really is full of ups and downs – but you come out of the downs with even more resources – psychological and technical if not financial

This was a great networking event – convivial atmosphere – great facilities – good food – great speakers and good management.

If only all networking opportunities were this good!

The Recipe for Entrepreneurial Success

Most enterprise support services are designed around the assumption that if the entrepreneur has the right business idea (one that is ‘viable’) then they can be helped to make a successful business from it. It is the quality of the idea that is central and we develop the entrepreneur around it.

This is putting the cart before the horse:

Most entrepreneurs make money out of plans b, c, d or z rather than plan A. However it is plan A that they love at the moment – and if you want to work with them positively this is the plan that you will have to help them to explore and develop. If you do your job well they will make the right decision about whether to put it into practice or not – and learn a lot in the process. Building the entrepreneur is more important than building the business.

Entrepreneurs are not born – they are made. They learn how to act, think and make decisions that are entrepreneurial. ‘If you disagree then let’s pop down to the maternity ward and you show me the borne entrepreneurs’. Our job in developing an enterprise culture is to build the skills and commitment of would be entrepreneurs so that they keep developing and evaluating ideas until they find the right one for them. This process of choosing the right idea to invest time and money in is the really enterprising bit. This is where the gold is and the value can be added.

• So why do we put so much time and effort into helping people to refine ideas instead of in having more ideas?
• Why don’t we encourage people to be dispassionate about their ideas – until they have courted enough to be REALLY passionate about the one they love?