Every once in a while you learn something now. A penny drops. Having spent most of the last week or so among people leading out social enterprise spin-outs from the public sector I realised two things.
Firstly, that being a leader means you have be strong as a bull. This inspires people to come with you, scares the shit out of people who oppose you and wears down those that would throw marbles in your path.
Secondly that when it comes to negotiation, it isn't all about win-win. It's actually often a zero-sum game. A lot of these guys are cutting good deals from the public sector because they are intransigent buggers who just won't budge beyond a particular line. It works. Think abou the Chinese, elderly carers, Bob Crowe. After a while, these people set the parameters in the form they want them. So much for meeting half way.
Is all this new to me? Of course, not entirely. But it somehow escaped me that to be a good leader, it isn't enough just to be inspriational, well intended or courageous. You've also got to be as tough as old boots. Further to this, you've got to unreasonable when necessary and, yes, intransigent in pursuit of what you want in negotation and we willing to say 'Fuck the other side!'.
As a leader I was never that good at either of these. While I had stamina I tended to be a pushover and in negotiation my own desperation for progress and consensus would overwhelm a focus on result. Seeing some of these guys in action reminded me of where I struggled as a leader myself.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Views from the Bridge of the Big Society
I have deliberatley crafted my life so that I have a line-of-sight on how things are playing out. So what am I seeing, in January 2011?
THE COMMUNITY? At the ultra-local level, during three evenings spent in residents' kitchens and peeling community-centres, the cuts are beginning to be noticed. Councils are proving a bit Neanderthal, as everyone expected. So rather than cut a few posts that nobody will notice, they pull their funding for lollipop men and ladies. These people work for about a fiver an hour and are, literally, highly visible. One major accident and there will be clamour to get them back. Let's hope it doesn't happen!
LOCAL GOVERNMENT? One level up, in the Council, they are scratching their heads about how to approach the cuts intelligently. Although in opposition in Suffolk, I have decided, where politically possible, to help where I can. Few Councillors or senior officers know anything about social enterprise or charity sectors. So I try, where I can, to help them think through how to engage in a way that enables SE and charities as alternative providers - rather than eviscerating them as has happened in many parts of the UK (e.g. Nottingham City Council wiping half of its homelessness budget in one go - clever).
IN THE SE AND THIRD SECTOR? Among the third sector and social enterprise sector, blood-pressure is running high. Many organisations are realising, fairly late in the day, that they are out of road and urgently looking for a way out. Few people I know are not in some kind of merger or deep-partnership conversation. All talk of 'independence', seemingly forgotten as CEOs and their Boards face the Void.
THE WIDER PUBLIC SECTOR? As PCTs begin their death-throes, before our eyes, they are, like any endangered being, going through the stages of grief. Disbelief has been replaced by anger and, in some cases, some fairly shitty behaviour. Particularly towards some of the new Right to Requests, which, unlike them, will escape the grave. While I think Lansley is daft to do away with them in one go, I can see why he thinks they are a waste of space. Not a lot I have seen leads me to believe they are adding much value.
THE COMMENTARIAT? The wider commentariat and policy community - of which I am a sort of partcipant-onlooker - is either obsessed with the cuts and what this all means - or working out how we turn the language of new approaches into a tangible approaches. The problem is that many of the best solutions - like the stuff being pioneered by social enterprises and charities - are SO radical (e.g. Partciple's stuff ) that you can't just jump to them immediately. You need bridges over the ravine, not just beautiful stuff growing on the other side). Politicians are left trying - and often failing - to think about how to transition in a managable way.
MY VIEW? Indeed it were possible to bridge from Public Services Mark I to Mark II in a straightforward way, replacing one set of ideas, people and systems with another, we'd all be in clover. In truth, we're looking at replacing a Machine with a new Eco-System, some of which is beyond the control of anybody. The future quality of life will, in reality, be very tricky to create, even with their fulsome participation. If the Big Society is right in one regard, it's that change won't happen in the way it always has in the past.
THE COMMUNITY? At the ultra-local level, during three evenings spent in residents' kitchens and peeling community-centres, the cuts are beginning to be noticed. Councils are proving a bit Neanderthal, as everyone expected. So rather than cut a few posts that nobody will notice, they pull their funding for lollipop men and ladies. These people work for about a fiver an hour and are, literally, highly visible. One major accident and there will be clamour to get them back. Let's hope it doesn't happen!
LOCAL GOVERNMENT? One level up, in the Council, they are scratching their heads about how to approach the cuts intelligently. Although in opposition in Suffolk, I have decided, where politically possible, to help where I can. Few Councillors or senior officers know anything about social enterprise or charity sectors. So I try, where I can, to help them think through how to engage in a way that enables SE and charities as alternative providers - rather than eviscerating them as has happened in many parts of the UK (e.g. Nottingham City Council wiping half of its homelessness budget in one go - clever).
IN THE SE AND THIRD SECTOR? Among the third sector and social enterprise sector, blood-pressure is running high. Many organisations are realising, fairly late in the day, that they are out of road and urgently looking for a way out. Few people I know are not in some kind of merger or deep-partnership conversation. All talk of 'independence', seemingly forgotten as CEOs and their Boards face the Void.
THE WIDER PUBLIC SECTOR? As PCTs begin their death-throes, before our eyes, they are, like any endangered being, going through the stages of grief. Disbelief has been replaced by anger and, in some cases, some fairly shitty behaviour. Particularly towards some of the new Right to Requests, which, unlike them, will escape the grave. While I think Lansley is daft to do away with them in one go, I can see why he thinks they are a waste of space. Not a lot I have seen leads me to believe they are adding much value.
THE COMMENTARIAT? The wider commentariat and policy community - of which I am a sort of partcipant-onlooker - is either obsessed with the cuts and what this all means - or working out how we turn the language of new approaches into a tangible approaches. The problem is that many of the best solutions - like the stuff being pioneered by social enterprises and charities - are SO radical (e.g. Partciple's stuff ) that you can't just jump to them immediately. You need bridges over the ravine, not just beautiful stuff growing on the other side). Politicians are left trying - and often failing - to think about how to transition in a managable way.
MY VIEW? Indeed it were possible to bridge from Public Services Mark I to Mark II in a straightforward way, replacing one set of ideas, people and systems with another, we'd all be in clover. In truth, we're looking at replacing a Machine with a new Eco-System, some of which is beyond the control of anybody. The future quality of life will, in reality, be very tricky to create, even with their fulsome participation. If the Big Society is right in one regard, it's that change won't happen in the way it always has in the past.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Are you a Social Enterprise Yourself, Then??
'So is Stepping Out a social business'? I get asked this quite a lot, occasionally by potential customers. It's a fair question. The simple and honest answer is 'No, it ain't'. The profits, or rather those that it makes, go to me, the sole owner.
How do I defend this, when I'm going around preaching the virtues of social enterprise? Well, firstly, as you know, I feel that social social enterprises are defined too narrowly - namely by how you use profit and how much of your business you own. Let's focus on this for a second. How many businesses do you know that operate in the social space that are particularly profitable? The whole discussion about 'reinvesting profit' is normally pretty academic for most of these businesses. Truth is, there ain't much profit to begin with.
So then we're discussing ownership. Ownership is a literal, legal thing. You own something when it has value. This can be either monetary value or the other things ownership brings - like control. Owning something normally involves one or the other of these benefits. For me, it is mostly the latter. Ownership of Stepping Out brings me control over it. When I need other people's help with this business in terms of finance or especial commitment, I will share ownership. At some point, I may even share this with employees. But when it is appropriate, fair and just to do so, not when the CIC regulator or trademark says I do.
By fixing on profit and ownership, the social enterprise mindset overlooks the crucial question of how social entrepreneurs tend to use time. We do not tend to have built up capital so time is still our principal resource. I give away about a quarter of my own time each month. I see it as my contribution. I don't want any praise for this, but it's my decision. It is, however, time which isn't going on building the profitability of my business. It is time taken from the normal business of business to do my tiny bit.
Extending the tent to the many people who use their time and resources for social purposes - people who use time as well as money in an entrepreneurial way would be, for me, welcome. Because the brutal truth would be that if I registered Stepping Out as a CIC, I would need to give up virtually all of the things I am doing outside of work in order to get my 50% of profit required to eke out my life. Yes, there'd be profit to give away - but next to the benefits of my donated time I am unconvinced it would be a better way forward.
Overall, there is more to being a social entrepreneur and enterprise than being owned by other people and giving half of your profit away. It's about how you use your time too. This is the one resource you have to enrich either yourself or others. How you use it is one of life's biggest decisions. It should therefore be part of the modern account of how we describe the social entrepreneur.
How do I defend this, when I'm going around preaching the virtues of social enterprise? Well, firstly, as you know, I feel that social social enterprises are defined too narrowly - namely by how you use profit and how much of your business you own. Let's focus on this for a second. How many businesses do you know that operate in the social space that are particularly profitable? The whole discussion about 'reinvesting profit' is normally pretty academic for most of these businesses. Truth is, there ain't much profit to begin with.
So then we're discussing ownership. Ownership is a literal, legal thing. You own something when it has value. This can be either monetary value or the other things ownership brings - like control. Owning something normally involves one or the other of these benefits. For me, it is mostly the latter. Ownership of Stepping Out brings me control over it. When I need other people's help with this business in terms of finance or especial commitment, I will share ownership. At some point, I may even share this with employees. But when it is appropriate, fair and just to do so, not when the CIC regulator or trademark says I do.
By fixing on profit and ownership, the social enterprise mindset overlooks the crucial question of how social entrepreneurs tend to use time. We do not tend to have built up capital so time is still our principal resource. I give away about a quarter of my own time each month. I see it as my contribution. I don't want any praise for this, but it's my decision. It is, however, time which isn't going on building the profitability of my business. It is time taken from the normal business of business to do my tiny bit.
Extending the tent to the many people who use their time and resources for social purposes - people who use time as well as money in an entrepreneurial way would be, for me, welcome. Because the brutal truth would be that if I registered Stepping Out as a CIC, I would need to give up virtually all of the things I am doing outside of work in order to get my 50% of profit required to eke out my life. Yes, there'd be profit to give away - but next to the benefits of my donated time I am unconvinced it would be a better way forward.
Overall, there is more to being a social entrepreneur and enterprise than being owned by other people and giving half of your profit away. It's about how you use your time too. This is the one resource you have to enrich either yourself or others. How you use it is one of life's biggest decisions. It should therefore be part of the modern account of how we describe the social entrepreneur.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Losing My Religion? The Theology of Social Enterprise
Debate about the essential nature of social enterprise, like that of the existence of God, will, I think never end. The theology of social enterprise, like the God-debate seems to hinge on the question of whether or not it is 'real' - as in distinguishable from other things which already have well-established names such as 'charity' or 'business'. Attempts to nail the issue include the Social Enterprise Mark and SE even now has its own legal form - the CIC - though note that a SE can also take other forms - a bit like the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Like a lot of people I find this debate pretty deathly. If I hear two people talking about it, I steer clear. It's a debate that will always be with us, I fear. Essentially, like religion, social enterprise comes down to whether you believe in it or not. It's about faith as much as reason, passion as much as logic. Like a religion it is full of contradictions and oddities. Even its believers do not agree on everything. Our Catholics prefer a strict interpretation of the scripture which tells us that only firms that are not in private ownership count among the Faithful. Our Protestants seek to open the door to everyone who believes in the idea of business run for multiple goals and that your state of mind matters more than what some old priests tell you.
Of course we all live in a real world, a world that, by its nature, craves definition and clarity. We have responded by making social enterprise something that the public can see, touch and feel. However in doing so, we have, possibly, robbed it of some of its subtlety and grace. We have closed its walls to the many who feel like social entrepreneurs but who, now, can't be - because they own their businesses or only give some of their money away, not the lion's share.
For me, a Social Enterprise Protestant, this is sad. People who seek to create social good through their own businesses deserve a place in our church. I would even welcome people who simply do their business in an ethical fashion rather than one which puts profit ahead of all other things. Welcome, then Johnson and Johnson, Richer Sounds.
I already hear the high-priests in my ears making the very good point that such a wide net devalues the religion altogether. By admitting everyone, we reduce what we're about to nothing very much. I can't really argue with that from a day-to-day point of view. To create a backable brand we probably do have to draw the line tighter than feels comfortable.
But, taking another lesson from great religions, I think it makes better longer term sense to think of SE a bit like a very big religion - like Christianity - which has lots of sects and believers - many of whom have very different ways of going about things. The underpinning beliefs, yes, are common, but that's what they are - beliefs. In our case, the underlying belief is that business for and with a social purpose. We all go at it in different ways - but the core of SE, like the Christian core, is based on, yes, a state of mind, an outlook (business for social purpose) and some basic beliefs, not a single core form. But they all live under the same 'Christian' label - and are much stronger for it. Why can't we be a similarly broad church?
Our challenge, long-term, I think, is to be less Catholic about SE, to have our own 'Reformation' and, ultimately, create the biggest business sector in the world. Diverse and plural - but progressive and dominant. It means going beyond today's pressure to be distinctive - but it may well be better long-term.
Like a lot of people I find this debate pretty deathly. If I hear two people talking about it, I steer clear. It's a debate that will always be with us, I fear. Essentially, like religion, social enterprise comes down to whether you believe in it or not. It's about faith as much as reason, passion as much as logic. Like a religion it is full of contradictions and oddities. Even its believers do not agree on everything. Our Catholics prefer a strict interpretation of the scripture which tells us that only firms that are not in private ownership count among the Faithful. Our Protestants seek to open the door to everyone who believes in the idea of business run for multiple goals and that your state of mind matters more than what some old priests tell you.
Of course we all live in a real world, a world that, by its nature, craves definition and clarity. We have responded by making social enterprise something that the public can see, touch and feel. However in doing so, we have, possibly, robbed it of some of its subtlety and grace. We have closed its walls to the many who feel like social entrepreneurs but who, now, can't be - because they own their businesses or only give some of their money away, not the lion's share.
For me, a Social Enterprise Protestant, this is sad. People who seek to create social good through their own businesses deserve a place in our church. I would even welcome people who simply do their business in an ethical fashion rather than one which puts profit ahead of all other things. Welcome, then Johnson and Johnson, Richer Sounds.
I already hear the high-priests in my ears making the very good point that such a wide net devalues the religion altogether. By admitting everyone, we reduce what we're about to nothing very much. I can't really argue with that from a day-to-day point of view. To create a backable brand we probably do have to draw the line tighter than feels comfortable.
But, taking another lesson from great religions, I think it makes better longer term sense to think of SE a bit like a very big religion - like Christianity - which has lots of sects and believers - many of whom have very different ways of going about things. The underpinning beliefs, yes, are common, but that's what they are - beliefs. In our case, the underlying belief is that business for and with a social purpose. We all go at it in different ways - but the core of SE, like the Christian core, is based on, yes, a state of mind, an outlook (business for social purpose) and some basic beliefs, not a single core form. But they all live under the same 'Christian' label - and are much stronger for it. Why can't we be a similarly broad church?
Our challenge, long-term, I think, is to be less Catholic about SE, to have our own 'Reformation' and, ultimately, create the biggest business sector in the world. Diverse and plural - but progressive and dominant. It means going beyond today's pressure to be distinctive - but it may well be better long-term.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
How Productive are You?
While there's a massive literature on time-management and how to be more effective at work, I am often struck by how little discussion there is of this among third sector and SE professionals. We see at as something possibly to teach our staff and we laugh at the public sector but we tend, in an unspoken way, to assume that we are optimally productive.
But are we? I'm certainly not. Well, not all of the time. I spend a lot of time on low-priority stuff. I waste time on stuff I enjoy rather than needs doing (like this). I procrastinate for England. I often fail to prioritise for weeks on end.
Yet I do also get it dead-right sometimes. These are the times I make a monthly list of priorities, decide what has to be done, and plough through it all. This rids me of distraction and gives me energy. I find a kind-of sweet-spot of focus, energy and momentum.
My biggest inspiration was years ago reading Stephen Covey's book 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. Despite the god-awful title, this is one hell of a book for someone trying to raise their game. I read it on a beach in Goa ten years ago where I had gone after one of my many burnouts while developing the early Speaking Up.
It grabbed me for three reasons. First, it told me what I needed to do: choose a small number of high-impact priorities, write them down and pursue them exclusively. Second, it taught me that I needed to work consciously on improving my character. Being not just myself, but my best self. Thirdly, I got from that book a clear sense that it was down to me what I made of my life - it was about choice not predestination or script.
One of the biggest take-aways from that holiday was my annual, monthly and weekly list of must-do's. I used this until relatively recently. I like to think that I internalised the habit but the truth is I may have gotten a bit too pleased with myself and put this trusted tool aside too early. My productivity is certainly no longer what it was.
Kids and age have a bit to do with this. But there is no real substitute for knowing, every day, what you are going to achieve, writing it down and committing to it. All a bit American for some people I know but I bet it would add 15% to most people.
But are we? I'm certainly not. Well, not all of the time. I spend a lot of time on low-priority stuff. I waste time on stuff I enjoy rather than needs doing (like this). I procrastinate for England. I often fail to prioritise for weeks on end.
Yet I do also get it dead-right sometimes. These are the times I make a monthly list of priorities, decide what has to be done, and plough through it all. This rids me of distraction and gives me energy. I find a kind-of sweet-spot of focus, energy and momentum.
My biggest inspiration was years ago reading Stephen Covey's book 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. Despite the god-awful title, this is one hell of a book for someone trying to raise their game. I read it on a beach in Goa ten years ago where I had gone after one of my many burnouts while developing the early Speaking Up.
It grabbed me for three reasons. First, it told me what I needed to do: choose a small number of high-impact priorities, write them down and pursue them exclusively. Second, it taught me that I needed to work consciously on improving my character. Being not just myself, but my best self. Thirdly, I got from that book a clear sense that it was down to me what I made of my life - it was about choice not predestination or script.
One of the biggest take-aways from that holiday was my annual, monthly and weekly list of must-do's. I used this until relatively recently. I like to think that I internalised the habit but the truth is I may have gotten a bit too pleased with myself and put this trusted tool aside too early. My productivity is certainly no longer what it was.
Kids and age have a bit to do with this. But there is no real substitute for knowing, every day, what you are going to achieve, writing it down and committing to it. All a bit American for some people I know but I bet it would add 15% to most people.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Black Dogs and Social Entrepreneurs
I am one Follower short of 40. Come on, someone, please make me happy! I have been blogging for a couple of years now and it does build up very slowly. But I get enough people saying they like stuff to keep me motivated. And, yes, I enjoy it. Its the nearest thing I do these days to therapy.
I am going through one of my lulls at the moment. I'm not in a bad way, particularly, but a bit out of sorts, not quite my normal self. If I was being dramatic, I'd call it mildly depressed, but I am not so I won't. I've talked about mental health on here from time to time, mainly to say that I consider myself someone with relatively fragile mental health. I have limits around stress than I have to keep within. Anxiety is never that far away and its cousin, depression, have popped up in my life at regular intervals.
Thankfully, both of these have eased over time. I spent much of my young life feeling properly depressed. I even called it that then. But this was the 80s and kids didn't get 'depressed'. But I know I was, and it was more than just too much Morrissey. This was the real deal and really I should have got myself some pills or something.
As it was, I didn't and my teens turned into my 20s then BANG the real fun started and, at 21, it all turned into a horrible mess and I got really, quite seriously ill. To people around me it wasn't terribly obvious. However, I knew it needed sorting if my life was going to be worth living. Thanks to some very good pills and probably the best therapist in Northern England, I got together enough to build from there. The rest of my life, despite some fairly unpleasant hiccups has been a story of gradual improvement, including very long periods of feeling utterly well and, yes, happy. But the Black Dog doth return, or in a smaller, Terrier-like form, from time to time.
Why return to this? Well, I guess I use this space, partly as indulgence. To say it how it is. To show who I really am, behind the stuff I am known for. And, perhaps least significantly, to emphasise that having a shitty episode or three in your life doesn't mean you can't go and do stuff that others say is pretty good. Indeed, it can be spur, even if not always for the right reasons (recognition, compensatory self-worth etc).
Indeed, I'll never forget a conversation I had with a guy who worked closely with loads of social entrepreneurs who said that he found, time and again, that many of them had been through mental pain, and, in many cases had been abused. Their reaction to this - the re-directed anger, the guilt-made-good - was often, he observed expressed through social entrpreneurialism. Was he right? I don't know, but I will never forget that comment.
He was right about me, that's for sure.
I am going through one of my lulls at the moment. I'm not in a bad way, particularly, but a bit out of sorts, not quite my normal self. If I was being dramatic, I'd call it mildly depressed, but I am not so I won't. I've talked about mental health on here from time to time, mainly to say that I consider myself someone with relatively fragile mental health. I have limits around stress than I have to keep within. Anxiety is never that far away and its cousin, depression, have popped up in my life at regular intervals.
Thankfully, both of these have eased over time. I spent much of my young life feeling properly depressed. I even called it that then. But this was the 80s and kids didn't get 'depressed'. But I know I was, and it was more than just too much Morrissey. This was the real deal and really I should have got myself some pills or something.
As it was, I didn't and my teens turned into my 20s then BANG the real fun started and, at 21, it all turned into a horrible mess and I got really, quite seriously ill. To people around me it wasn't terribly obvious. However, I knew it needed sorting if my life was going to be worth living. Thanks to some very good pills and probably the best therapist in Northern England, I got together enough to build from there. The rest of my life, despite some fairly unpleasant hiccups has been a story of gradual improvement, including very long periods of feeling utterly well and, yes, happy. But the Black Dog doth return, or in a smaller, Terrier-like form, from time to time.
Why return to this? Well, I guess I use this space, partly as indulgence. To say it how it is. To show who I really am, behind the stuff I am known for. And, perhaps least significantly, to emphasise that having a shitty episode or three in your life doesn't mean you can't go and do stuff that others say is pretty good. Indeed, it can be spur, even if not always for the right reasons (recognition, compensatory self-worth etc).
Indeed, I'll never forget a conversation I had with a guy who worked closely with loads of social entrepreneurs who said that he found, time and again, that many of them had been through mental pain, and, in many cases had been abused. Their reaction to this - the re-directed anger, the guilt-made-good - was often, he observed expressed through social entrpreneurialism. Was he right? I don't know, but I will never forget that comment.
He was right about me, that's for sure.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Going with the Flow
Another Year. I am 42 this year. It's the first year I have actually felt 'Not-OK' about saying my age. For a long time I have been a Young This or Upcoming 30 something That. Now I would only just count as a young football manager or maybe Prime Minister. The number of things to be Young-At seem to diminish by the year. I feel accepting of this, but a little depressed.
So what of ambition? Writing in the Observer on Sunday, Tim Lott speaks of middle-age as liberation from needing to show that you are 'it'. He feels pleasantly free of the need to prove himself. Which is fine, actually, very nice - in a sense. But what if that turns you into a bit of an idle knob-end? Someone who used to do lots of good stuff and now, frankly, can't be arsed because he doesn't need the approval any more?
You do notice it though, this loss of drive for uber-attainment. You kind of realise that achievement, a bit like money, gets you high for a bit - then leaves you feeling just like your old self again. Recognition used to be a big one for me. It got me proper-motivated, willing to walk through fire. Now I've had a little fix of it, I'm not particularly bothered any more. It's done my confidence the world of good. Which, given my formerly super-size inferiority complex (now about average), was probably for the best.
Is 'can't be arsed' liberating though? I am not so sure. One's neediness, I find, simply displaces itself. You get money, it goes to making a difference. You make a difference it goes to recognition. You get recognition it goes to..something else. How many middle-aged blokes do you see in the quiet desperation of the the car showroom or the ill-judged shag? In my case, the same old stuff needy stuff whirrs round, begging for the busyness of life to drown out the noise.
When do you feel happiest? In my case it's when I am throroughly absorbed in doing something. Work is often that something but writing does the same job, as does running and reading. The social scientist Czensenzilaghi wrote about 'flow'- that state of being where we are in the 'zone' and we lose self-awareness. That's, for me, the place to be. I love it, I feel most alive there, even, far more so than when I am trying to enjoy myself. Which seems like a paradox, somehow. Out of ourselves, we are our best selves. It's true enough, though.
So what of ambition? Writing in the Observer on Sunday, Tim Lott speaks of middle-age as liberation from needing to show that you are 'it'. He feels pleasantly free of the need to prove himself. Which is fine, actually, very nice - in a sense. But what if that turns you into a bit of an idle knob-end? Someone who used to do lots of good stuff and now, frankly, can't be arsed because he doesn't need the approval any more?
You do notice it though, this loss of drive for uber-attainment. You kind of realise that achievement, a bit like money, gets you high for a bit - then leaves you feeling just like your old self again. Recognition used to be a big one for me. It got me proper-motivated, willing to walk through fire. Now I've had a little fix of it, I'm not particularly bothered any more. It's done my confidence the world of good. Which, given my formerly super-size inferiority complex (now about average), was probably for the best.
Is 'can't be arsed' liberating though? I am not so sure. One's neediness, I find, simply displaces itself. You get money, it goes to making a difference. You make a difference it goes to recognition. You get recognition it goes to..something else. How many middle-aged blokes do you see in the quiet desperation of the the car showroom or the ill-judged shag? In my case, the same old stuff needy stuff whirrs round, begging for the busyness of life to drown out the noise.
When do you feel happiest? In my case it's when I am throroughly absorbed in doing something. Work is often that something but writing does the same job, as does running and reading. The social scientist Czensenzilaghi wrote about 'flow'- that state of being where we are in the 'zone' and we lose self-awareness. That's, for me, the place to be. I love it, I feel most alive there, even, far more so than when I am trying to enjoy myself. Which seems like a paradox, somehow. Out of ourselves, we are our best selves. It's true enough, though.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Hunkering Down...Then a Fright!
I always enjoy the end of the year. I make it a rule to stop working by 23rd at the latest and not to start again till at least the 3rd Jan. There's something about the ritual I like, the mid-winter break to refresh, refuel and go back to base.
This year's Christmas has been enhanced by the final purchase of a car, something about which, with my mild OCD tendencies, I was taking too much time and energy in the research. I located target vehicle up in Leeds so popped in after a very pleasant lunch with superblogger/Tweeter Rob Greenland. After a protracted but friendly negotiation I emerged ten grand poorer but with a three year old Ford people-carrier that down south would have cost a grand more.
With its blacked-out rear windows and 'panther black' metallic paint, it looks kind of like a bullet-proof taxi, designed perhaps for a developing world politician. But I love it - and love the fact that I didn't pay over the odds for it. Three years business and family motoring for me then I will palm it off to my missus as a the local runaround till 2020.
That out of the way, I am settling down to the peace of pastoral Suffolk. I live in a quiet village just south of Bury St Edmunds but it feels well out of the way. I can go running for ten miles round here without seeing anything except hedgerows and fields.
My peace today was disrupted a bit when my boy, Wilf, woke up with breathing difficulties. He's had a bad cough for days but this was something else. The GP's first words were "He may have pneumonia and I might need to admit him to hospital'. My face dropped. Within an hour we were on the Xray machine at the West Suffolk and wondering which of us would be doing the bedside duty on Christmas Eve. It turned out that the lad has a very nasty chest infection which could turn to pneumonia very easily but he's been given super-strength antibiotics - and sent home with us - with strict instructions to take him straight to hospital if he takes a turn for the worse. Poor little lad doesn't know what's going on - but he's comfortable and, I think, improving a little.
Couldn't fault the NHS today. We got an appointment super-quick on the electronic system run by the Swan Surgery - one of these large GP practices you get these days - and from there we got booked straight into Xray and I got a call from my GP early afternoon telling me what was happening. My wife used to babysit for our doctor when his kids were small. Bury St Edmunds is like that. People tend to stick around. This is one reason, I venture, why the place feels like it works. Had we been living in parts of London or inner city Birmingham, I doubt we'd have had such an easy time of it.
My son is feeling well enough now to be demanding my attention so its goodbye from me till...probably 2011. Thanks for reading this year. Hope it's been worth your time.
This year's Christmas has been enhanced by the final purchase of a car, something about which, with my mild OCD tendencies, I was taking too much time and energy in the research. I located target vehicle up in Leeds so popped in after a very pleasant lunch with superblogger/Tweeter Rob Greenland. After a protracted but friendly negotiation I emerged ten grand poorer but with a three year old Ford people-carrier that down south would have cost a grand more.
With its blacked-out rear windows and 'panther black' metallic paint, it looks kind of like a bullet-proof taxi, designed perhaps for a developing world politician. But I love it - and love the fact that I didn't pay over the odds for it. Three years business and family motoring for me then I will palm it off to my missus as a the local runaround till 2020.
That out of the way, I am settling down to the peace of pastoral Suffolk. I live in a quiet village just south of Bury St Edmunds but it feels well out of the way. I can go running for ten miles round here without seeing anything except hedgerows and fields.
My peace today was disrupted a bit when my boy, Wilf, woke up with breathing difficulties. He's had a bad cough for days but this was something else. The GP's first words were "He may have pneumonia and I might need to admit him to hospital'. My face dropped. Within an hour we were on the Xray machine at the West Suffolk and wondering which of us would be doing the bedside duty on Christmas Eve. It turned out that the lad has a very nasty chest infection which could turn to pneumonia very easily but he's been given super-strength antibiotics - and sent home with us - with strict instructions to take him straight to hospital if he takes a turn for the worse. Poor little lad doesn't know what's going on - but he's comfortable and, I think, improving a little.
Couldn't fault the NHS today. We got an appointment super-quick on the electronic system run by the Swan Surgery - one of these large GP practices you get these days - and from there we got booked straight into Xray and I got a call from my GP early afternoon telling me what was happening. My wife used to babysit for our doctor when his kids were small. Bury St Edmunds is like that. People tend to stick around. This is one reason, I venture, why the place feels like it works. Had we been living in parts of London or inner city Birmingham, I doubt we'd have had such an easy time of it.
My son is feeling well enough now to be demanding my attention so its goodbye from me till...probably 2011. Thanks for reading this year. Hope it's been worth your time.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Is Nick Boles MP right to call for 'chaos' in public services?
You may or may not have caught the Cameroon outrider Nick Boles MP opining in recent days about the creative beauty of chaos within public services. What he was saying was that you need to remove most of the institutional processes involved in the planning of public services to make the vital Great Leap Forward we are all seeking.
I have some sympathy with this view, particularly since I have become a Councillor. The modus operandi of local government, and indeed the whole public sector, often resembles what I imagine Czechoslovakia was like circa 1982. Just replac iron-ore or butter with adult social care and you've pretty much got the same meeting. Lots of preoccupation with 'co-ordination', joining up' etc, not much on delivering the right service at the right time in the right way. That somehow gets lost in the mix.
So I have some time for Boles and his world-view. We do need to throw out a lot of the outdated nonsense which passes for good planning and governance. However, we also have to be bright about this. Planning is necessary. So too is Governance. We need enough grit and wagons to salt the road. If Nick Boles slips on the ice and bangs his head, we need to ensure that somebody gets to him quickly enough and takes him through the right procedures - ones he knows he will receive whether he falls over in Westminster or Walsall.
There is, whatever anybody says, a role for planning, even in the internet age. I am currently reading an amazing book about the development of management thinking in America called 'The Puritan Gift' by William and Jim Hopper. The book charts the way Puritan values of thrift, hard work, honest and, yes, good planning, gave America the management model through which it established its 20th century dominance.
By way of example, the book details the meticulous planning that went into the Puritan migrations to New England, the most successful in history up to that time and, following that, the Mormon migration to Utah. Huge efforts were taken to learn from previous failed migrations. Enormous time was taken to ensure that risks could be mitigated. Planning is not all bunkum.
What would the Puritans of the 17th century make of the situation in today's public services? Well, my guess is that they would do three things. Firstly, they would be unimpressed by the way we have separated out the delivery of things from the managing of them. In their day, the planners also had to implement and the processes were iterative. Today's leaders would be forced to actually put into practice what they espoused as operating principles.
Second, they would, I believe, like Boles, be deeply bemused by the level of activity taking place in the name of planning, co-ordination etc which actually did not serve much real purpose. Like him, they would seek to tear apart much of what passes for
necessary administration and planning.
Thirdly, however, unlike Boles, they wouldn't, I venture, be seeking to leave a vacuum into which an informal market kind of sorts things out. They wouldn't be happy with that because it forgets the important roles of both planning and leadership. You do not regenerate communities by merely stepping back. Neither do you achieve it by saying 'You do this, not us'.
My guess is that the Puritans would take a highly pragmatic view: getting rid of many of the current structures which clog up the way we are governed but, at the same time, being zealously organised in their long-term planning for the creation of a strong economy, a capable citizenry and the levels of social capital needed to sustain all of this. Not for them 'creative chaos' - just creative planning.
I have some sympathy with this view, particularly since I have become a Councillor. The modus operandi of local government, and indeed the whole public sector, often resembles what I imagine Czechoslovakia was like circa 1982. Just replac iron-ore or butter with adult social care and you've pretty much got the same meeting. Lots of preoccupation with 'co-ordination', joining up' etc, not much on delivering the right service at the right time in the right way. That somehow gets lost in the mix.
So I have some time for Boles and his world-view. We do need to throw out a lot of the outdated nonsense which passes for good planning and governance. However, we also have to be bright about this. Planning is necessary. So too is Governance. We need enough grit and wagons to salt the road. If Nick Boles slips on the ice and bangs his head, we need to ensure that somebody gets to him quickly enough and takes him through the right procedures - ones he knows he will receive whether he falls over in Westminster or Walsall.
There is, whatever anybody says, a role for planning, even in the internet age. I am currently reading an amazing book about the development of management thinking in America called 'The Puritan Gift' by William and Jim Hopper. The book charts the way Puritan values of thrift, hard work, honest and, yes, good planning, gave America the management model through which it established its 20th century dominance.
By way of example, the book details the meticulous planning that went into the Puritan migrations to New England, the most successful in history up to that time and, following that, the Mormon migration to Utah. Huge efforts were taken to learn from previous failed migrations. Enormous time was taken to ensure that risks could be mitigated. Planning is not all bunkum.
What would the Puritans of the 17th century make of the situation in today's public services? Well, my guess is that they would do three things. Firstly, they would be unimpressed by the way we have separated out the delivery of things from the managing of them. In their day, the planners also had to implement and the processes were iterative. Today's leaders would be forced to actually put into practice what they espoused as operating principles.
Second, they would, I believe, like Boles, be deeply bemused by the level of activity taking place in the name of planning, co-ordination etc which actually did not serve much real purpose. Like him, they would seek to tear apart much of what passes for
necessary administration and planning.
Thirdly, however, unlike Boles, they wouldn't, I venture, be seeking to leave a vacuum into which an informal market kind of sorts things out. They wouldn't be happy with that because it forgets the important roles of both planning and leadership. You do not regenerate communities by merely stepping back. Neither do you achieve it by saying 'You do this, not us'.
My guess is that the Puritans would take a highly pragmatic view: getting rid of many of the current structures which clog up the way we are governed but, at the same time, being zealously organised in their long-term planning for the creation of a strong economy, a capable citizenry and the levels of social capital needed to sustain all of this. Not for them 'creative chaos' - just creative planning.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Is Lansley wrong to abolish PCTs?
The Observer today is full of angst about Andrew Lansley's health reforms. In short, everyone inside the NHS - managers, GPs, hospitals - seems to think that abolishing PCT's - the 'bulk-buyers' of health care for local people - and giving the task - and funds - to GPs is a risk too far. GPs, they say, want to just do their core job - not that of commissioning and procurement of services. And what will happen in areas where GPs don't take this on? At the moment, I'm working quite a bit NHS people and I hear similar things from people to whom I speak. To far, too fast, is the over-riding message.
That the NHS needs further reform isn't, in my mind seriously in doubt. To see the way things are done is to see a tangle of groups, sub-groups, mazy reporting lines all of which suck power and energy away from otherwise talented people. Throw in a tetchy operating culture, the clinician/management tension, the primary/acute divide, the special pleading from all professional quarters and the presiding overlord of the Strategic Health Authority and you've got a viscous treacle through which even a boiling hot spoon will struggle to pass.
And all of this costs a fortune to run - so I can see why the Secretary of State, like his zealous Cabinet colleagues want to just get rid of it all - PCTs, SHAs, the lot. As Andrew Rawnsley said today, they have all read their Tony Blair and want to use this term to get radical. But the question to be asked here is whether, in trying to avoid Blair's cautious approach, they risk going in the other direction - and wreaking havoc?
In the case of health, my own view is that the Coalition would have been foolish to leave the NHS to itself entirely. The problems listed above are real and hinder productivity, innovation and change. The NHS was given extra funding without being properly reformed. Yes, we saw some good come of that era - Foundation Hospitals, unprecedented capital spend and an end to some of the worst aspects of the pre-1997 system. But we were slow to diversify supply of healthcare, too worried about the reaction of the NHS establishment to devolve funding to the lowest possible point.
However, while I would be happy to abolish the Strategic Health Authorities tomorrow, I am less convinced that PCTs should go. They play an important function in many healthcare economies. When they go, their function will need to be picked up elsewhere, probably by consortia of GPs which themselves will require an organisational infrastructure. An alternative to abolition would be to reshape the Governance of PCTs to make them more GP-driven organisations.
This wouldn't be a gigantic shift. The PCTs no longer provide many services themselves. This, quite rightly, has been taken off them and given either to social enterprises, an NHS Foundation Trust or the open-market. What remains is relatively small, quite focused on locality with a history and skill-set which is useful in getting the mix of healthcare right in any given area. And unlike GPs Consortia on their own, they include the voice of patients, other professions and sectors. It is easy to forget, especially when we think about our own GP, that this group inevitably have interests which they will, almost certainly use any spending power they have to defend.
The other reason I would defend PCTs at the current time is that they do mitigate the risks incumbent in any system going through change. Payment by outcomes, Any Willing Provider and a much tighter cash environment are all big waves crashing, simultaniously, on the healthcare sector between now and 2013. Individually, each of these will have positive effects. That I do not dispute. But there will also be unintended outcomes, which will need to be managed. The PCTs - were they left in place be in a good position to help to manage the new ecology of healthcare at local level. Now that they too are in the mixer, it feels like there are no fixed institutional points around which to implement change - or manage risk.
Right across Government, similarly bold experiments are taking place in welfare, education and criminal justice. Local government is also having to reinvent itself in the face of unprecedented cuts. In all of these areas, there are huge potential gains to be made - and I applaud the Coalition for being courageous in what they are prepared to do. However, the change, in each case will need parts of the system to remain in place - rather than caught themselves in the vortex - to ensure sound implementation and to deal properly with any intended outcomes.
That the NHS needs further reform isn't, in my mind seriously in doubt. To see the way things are done is to see a tangle of groups, sub-groups, mazy reporting lines all of which suck power and energy away from otherwise talented people. Throw in a tetchy operating culture, the clinician/management tension, the primary/acute divide, the special pleading from all professional quarters and the presiding overlord of the Strategic Health Authority and you've got a viscous treacle through which even a boiling hot spoon will struggle to pass.
And all of this costs a fortune to run - so I can see why the Secretary of State, like his zealous Cabinet colleagues want to just get rid of it all - PCTs, SHAs, the lot. As Andrew Rawnsley said today, they have all read their Tony Blair and want to use this term to get radical. But the question to be asked here is whether, in trying to avoid Blair's cautious approach, they risk going in the other direction - and wreaking havoc?
In the case of health, my own view is that the Coalition would have been foolish to leave the NHS to itself entirely. The problems listed above are real and hinder productivity, innovation and change. The NHS was given extra funding without being properly reformed. Yes, we saw some good come of that era - Foundation Hospitals, unprecedented capital spend and an end to some of the worst aspects of the pre-1997 system. But we were slow to diversify supply of healthcare, too worried about the reaction of the NHS establishment to devolve funding to the lowest possible point.
However, while I would be happy to abolish the Strategic Health Authorities tomorrow, I am less convinced that PCTs should go. They play an important function in many healthcare economies. When they go, their function will need to be picked up elsewhere, probably by consortia of GPs which themselves will require an organisational infrastructure. An alternative to abolition would be to reshape the Governance of PCTs to make them more GP-driven organisations.
This wouldn't be a gigantic shift. The PCTs no longer provide many services themselves. This, quite rightly, has been taken off them and given either to social enterprises, an NHS Foundation Trust or the open-market. What remains is relatively small, quite focused on locality with a history and skill-set which is useful in getting the mix of healthcare right in any given area. And unlike GPs Consortia on their own, they include the voice of patients, other professions and sectors. It is easy to forget, especially when we think about our own GP, that this group inevitably have interests which they will, almost certainly use any spending power they have to defend.
The other reason I would defend PCTs at the current time is that they do mitigate the risks incumbent in any system going through change. Payment by outcomes, Any Willing Provider and a much tighter cash environment are all big waves crashing, simultaniously, on the healthcare sector between now and 2013. Individually, each of these will have positive effects. That I do not dispute. But there will also be unintended outcomes, which will need to be managed. The PCTs - were they left in place be in a good position to help to manage the new ecology of healthcare at local level. Now that they too are in the mixer, it feels like there are no fixed institutional points around which to implement change - or manage risk.
Right across Government, similarly bold experiments are taking place in welfare, education and criminal justice. Local government is also having to reinvent itself in the face of unprecedented cuts. In all of these areas, there are huge potential gains to be made - and I applaud the Coalition for being courageous in what they are prepared to do. However, the change, in each case will need parts of the system to remain in place - rather than caught themselves in the vortex - to ensure sound implementation and to deal properly with any intended outcomes.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Are Mutuals Fit for Purpose?
Mutuals and co-ops once passed me by as an idea. The only co-ops I really knew about for a long time were vegetarian wholefood joints staffed by pony-tailed graduates and Christians. These places seemed desperately worthwhile - and very low on consumer-values such as atmosphere, service and range.
So I put co-ops into the 'nice but ineffective box' in my mind. The recent push for more mutuals has prompted me to look again at this format. To this end, I have read two superb books in the last month. One is 'Spedan's Partnenership' by Peter Cox, all about the rise of John Lewis. The other is David Erdal's book about Loch Fyne Oysters, which was taken into employee ownership following the death of one of its founders.
Both books helped to smash some of my misconceptions about employee-ownership. Firstly, these firms do not have group decision-making on all issues. Votes are not taken on which cleaning firm to use or even on many key management decisions. Expertise is respected in all areas - including management.
What's different though are three things. The first is accountability -and therefore culture. In an employee owned firm, the senior team reports back to the shareholders - who are also employees. This creates a very different dynamic inside a firm to one in which managers report to external owners. Managers are there by consent of the managed.
Secondly, employees are more involved in decision-making than in a typical firm. The culture of the all-powerful CEO is not typical to employee-owned firms - and the default position is that everyone's ideas have value.
The third is motivation. In an employee owned firm, everyone has 'skin in the game'. This creates a healthy peer-pressure to perform and deliver. There is now mounting evidence that employee-owned firms are more productive and resilient than their privately owned counterparts.
There's all sorts of info in both books about how employee ownership structures can be created, even when the firm starts out private. The most popular is for shares to be taken into a trust for employees rather than given out individually. But Loch Fyne does both, as they believe it makes ownership more tangible. Erdal's book is a touching, convincing account of how this works in practice.
What does all this mean for public services? Perhaps the strongest message I got is that for the magic of employee ownership to work, it is vital that employee ownership is as near-total as possible. Many of the mutuals setting up are only part-employee owned, the rest spread among users, other stakeholders etc. In the view of these writers, and mounting evidence from people like the Office of Public Management (itself a mutual) is that any dilution of ownership also dilutes the benefits too.
This week I attended a gathering of the 'Pathfinder' Mutuals at the Cabinet Office. All are finding their way in a public services environment in which they are, in different ways, an anomoly, often struggling to fit. These are the Early Adapters which others will watch and follow. What stands out is their determination to succeed in a tough environment. Ownership is undoubtedly part of the magic-mix which keeps these excellent people in the game, despite the odds.
All power to them.
So I put co-ops into the 'nice but ineffective box' in my mind. The recent push for more mutuals has prompted me to look again at this format. To this end, I have read two superb books in the last month. One is 'Spedan's Partnenership' by Peter Cox, all about the rise of John Lewis. The other is David Erdal's book about Loch Fyne Oysters, which was taken into employee ownership following the death of one of its founders.
Both books helped to smash some of my misconceptions about employee-ownership. Firstly, these firms do not have group decision-making on all issues. Votes are not taken on which cleaning firm to use or even on many key management decisions. Expertise is respected in all areas - including management.
What's different though are three things. The first is accountability -and therefore culture. In an employee owned firm, the senior team reports back to the shareholders - who are also employees. This creates a very different dynamic inside a firm to one in which managers report to external owners. Managers are there by consent of the managed.
Secondly, employees are more involved in decision-making than in a typical firm. The culture of the all-powerful CEO is not typical to employee-owned firms - and the default position is that everyone's ideas have value.
The third is motivation. In an employee owned firm, everyone has 'skin in the game'. This creates a healthy peer-pressure to perform and deliver. There is now mounting evidence that employee-owned firms are more productive and resilient than their privately owned counterparts.
There's all sorts of info in both books about how employee ownership structures can be created, even when the firm starts out private. The most popular is for shares to be taken into a trust for employees rather than given out individually. But Loch Fyne does both, as they believe it makes ownership more tangible. Erdal's book is a touching, convincing account of how this works in practice.
What does all this mean for public services? Perhaps the strongest message I got is that for the magic of employee ownership to work, it is vital that employee ownership is as near-total as possible. Many of the mutuals setting up are only part-employee owned, the rest spread among users, other stakeholders etc. In the view of these writers, and mounting evidence from people like the Office of Public Management (itself a mutual) is that any dilution of ownership also dilutes the benefits too.
This week I attended a gathering of the 'Pathfinder' Mutuals at the Cabinet Office. All are finding their way in a public services environment in which they are, in different ways, an anomoly, often struggling to fit. These are the Early Adapters which others will watch and follow. What stands out is their determination to succeed in a tough environment. Ownership is undoubtedly part of the magic-mix which keeps these excellent people in the game, despite the odds.
All power to them.
Monday, December 13, 2010
A Day at the Auction
Continuing the frugal theme one more time, I am, for the first time in years, in the market for a car. Not any car, however, a 7seater job to fit my young family and serve as a credible business car too. Giving professional colleagues lifts in my own has become a bit tricky due to the smell of damp in my Focus. Seeing an elegantly dressed consultant wince a few weeks ago on sitting down next to me, I decided that enough was enough.
The next task was to research the market. I found that by far the cheapest place to buy was the auction. You can find out what the trade pays for cars this way and, by posing as an Arthur Daley, you can pick up a nice set of wheels for a song. Armed with this knowledge - and the excellent website WeBuyAnyCar.com, I took off to Colchester last Tuesday in search of a bargain.
The auction itself was a cheerful places full of rough-hewn blokes, mostly dealers, armed with their catalogues (none of this internet bullshit) nodding up the prices of Astras and Beemers. The cars - thousands of them - sit gleaming, all buffed up like prize dogs about to go through crufts. The auction room has three 'lanes' and the cars parade through, each taking about 45 seconds to sell, an unending monologue from the auctioneer 434344444444445doIhave46464646?46?46?46?lastime?gone(hammer).
The whole operation runs with military precision, like a civilian Dunkirk, the cars driven in slowly, hazard lights on by an army of grizzled, quite elderly men. A huddle forms around each car before the bidding then, as quickly as it arrived its gone. Now my target car comes. I had set myself a budget of ten grand. They start on ten. Damn. It's proving a popular car. It goes eleven, twelve, twelve seven. A popular vehicle. I drop out before 11 grand and go home empty handed.
That's the thing with auctions, you might not win. I get back, go online and before I know it I find a dealer that has the car I want. It's up in Leeds but I'm going there next week. I figure the grand I pay extra might be worth it if I avoid another day's faffing around. Next to the Arthur Daleys I don't really feel quite up to the task anyway. No social entrepreneurs here!
The next task was to research the market. I found that by far the cheapest place to buy was the auction. You can find out what the trade pays for cars this way and, by posing as an Arthur Daley, you can pick up a nice set of wheels for a song. Armed with this knowledge - and the excellent website WeBuyAnyCar.com, I took off to Colchester last Tuesday in search of a bargain.
The auction itself was a cheerful places full of rough-hewn blokes, mostly dealers, armed with their catalogues (none of this internet bullshit) nodding up the prices of Astras and Beemers. The cars - thousands of them - sit gleaming, all buffed up like prize dogs about to go through crufts. The auction room has three 'lanes' and the cars parade through, each taking about 45 seconds to sell, an unending monologue from the auctioneer 434344444444445doIhave46464646?46?46?46?lastime?gone(hammer).
The whole operation runs with military precision, like a civilian Dunkirk, the cars driven in slowly, hazard lights on by an army of grizzled, quite elderly men. A huddle forms around each car before the bidding then, as quickly as it arrived its gone. Now my target car comes. I had set myself a budget of ten grand. They start on ten. Damn. It's proving a popular car. It goes eleven, twelve, twelve seven. A popular vehicle. I drop out before 11 grand and go home empty handed.
That's the thing with auctions, you might not win. I get back, go online and before I know it I find a dealer that has the car I want. It's up in Leeds but I'm going there next week. I figure the grand I pay extra might be worth it if I avoid another day's faffing around. Next to the Arthur Daleys I don't really feel quite up to the task anyway. No social entrepreneurs here!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Is Frugal is the new Black?
You will recall that frugality is one of my lead-values. In many ways, this is a good, virtuous thing. However it does occasionally get me into trouble. Last week I managed to disgrace myself at my London club (£170 pa - bargain), leading to a potential exclusion from said establishment.
It all started very innocently. I had been running back to back all day and on my way back from the bathroom at about 2.30pm I realised I was starving. In the corner of my eye, I saw the lunch from a conference being closed up and beginning to be cleared. My eyes fixed on a glistening piece of salmon, only moments away from an encounter with a black plastic bag. So over I went, grabbed a plate and piled the stuff on.
'Excuse me?', a young, female voice sounded, in my ear. 'Are you with the Cement Mixers Convention? (not the real name). 'Errr, no' I replied, through my salmon. Stood in front of me now was this pretty 20-something, berating me about not nicking food. 'But the event's finished', I pleaded - this was going in the bin'. ' Not the point - you could have at least asked'. In this last point, she was right. So I shuffled off, humbled.
This, however, wasn't the end of it. Fifteen minutes later I was approached by the Maitre D' of the Club who reminded me of the difficult position I, as a Member had put the Club in the eyes of his client. Not content with bollocking me, the prissy 20-something had dobbed me in to the management. I offered to pay - which they accepted - and noises were made about me being asked to apologise to the committee - utterly mortifying.
However, I was out last night with some of my old mates from voluntary work. We all met 15 years ago, in our mid-20s and it was the first time we'd all been in the same room for a couple of years. All of them, I was delighted to find, were becoming more frugal than me. Martin (a mathematician) only reads books from libraries while I am never off Amazon. Anna (a mental health nurse) only buys second hand or half-price clothes while I will always go for Paul Smith (if its in a sale). Fiona (a conservationist) lives on nine grand a year and I need at least four times that.
All of these people - mid 30s to early 40s - share on thing as well as their frugality: they are happy people doing what they enjoy and not worrying too much about acquiring stuff. Only one has a car or owns a house. After a delightful dinner (cost £25 for five!) we walked, or trained home. Except me, of course, who drove.
So is frugality the way to go? I think it could be - as long as you don't forget your manners!
It all started very innocently. I had been running back to back all day and on my way back from the bathroom at about 2.30pm I realised I was starving. In the corner of my eye, I saw the lunch from a conference being closed up and beginning to be cleared. My eyes fixed on a glistening piece of salmon, only moments away from an encounter with a black plastic bag. So over I went, grabbed a plate and piled the stuff on.
'Excuse me?', a young, female voice sounded, in my ear. 'Are you with the Cement Mixers Convention? (not the real name). 'Errr, no' I replied, through my salmon. Stood in front of me now was this pretty 20-something, berating me about not nicking food. 'But the event's finished', I pleaded - this was going in the bin'. ' Not the point - you could have at least asked'. In this last point, she was right. So I shuffled off, humbled.
This, however, wasn't the end of it. Fifteen minutes later I was approached by the Maitre D' of the Club who reminded me of the difficult position I, as a Member had put the Club in the eyes of his client. Not content with bollocking me, the prissy 20-something had dobbed me in to the management. I offered to pay - which they accepted - and noises were made about me being asked to apologise to the committee - utterly mortifying.
However, I was out last night with some of my old mates from voluntary work. We all met 15 years ago, in our mid-20s and it was the first time we'd all been in the same room for a couple of years. All of them, I was delighted to find, were becoming more frugal than me. Martin (a mathematician) only reads books from libraries while I am never off Amazon. Anna (a mental health nurse) only buys second hand or half-price clothes while I will always go for Paul Smith (if its in a sale). Fiona (a conservationist) lives on nine grand a year and I need at least four times that.
All of these people - mid 30s to early 40s - share on thing as well as their frugality: they are happy people doing what they enjoy and not worrying too much about acquiring stuff. Only one has a car or owns a house. After a delightful dinner (cost £25 for five!) we walked, or trained home. Except me, of course, who drove.
So is frugality the way to go? I think it could be - as long as you don't forget your manners!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Aren't many private business also social businesses?
We in the ‘for good’ world often get in a twist about defintions and distinctions. To accommodate this we have developed a typology of organisational types - charities at one end and co-ops at the other with CICs, social firms and 57 other varieties inbetween.
Business doesn’t bother with this nearly as much. But there are as many different types of business, in my experience, as there are types of ‘for-good’ bodies. For a start, there are small, medium and large ones. There are private and public ones. Manufacturing and services. And there are some which are, essentially, values-driven and some which are excessively profit driven.
It is this ‘grey zone’ between exclusively profit focused business and the harder-nosed end of social business that is, I believe, little understood by our sector. It is most often found in the privately owned medium sized business sector, where owners are long-term engaged and also rooted in their own communities. In such companies, there is less short-termism, no remote shareholders and a relationship with staff that means that jobs are preserved where possible. We tend to lump these businesses in with the red-claw private sector, but, in reality, trust is high, employees involved and the business views itself in the round as an employer and a contributor to the local community.
This is a type of capitalism that was once prevalent in the UK but which has been slowly eroded by harder-edged shareholder- capitalism and its endless take-overs. Small and medium-sized firms do, of course, still exist in vast numbers, particularly in our smaller cities and towns, but they are not the force they are in, say Germany, where the 'Mittelstrand', of middle-level of family-owned business with up to 250 employees is still prevalent.
For me, this socially responsible form of capitalism - local, connected, balanced is actually not a million miles from social business. While ownership is still concentrated in a few hands, the modus operandi and social benefit of these ventures - employment, training, economic stimulation - often compares favourably to the charities and social businesses operating in the same space.
Here's a question for social enterprise to think about: Is it is better to run a 20 person business, private profit-making in Merthyr Tydfil...or set up a social enterprise? You would get grants for both, true, but which would need less long-term subsidy? Which would generate and sustain most jobs? Bring most money into the local economy? Train most people? Pay most tax? I think I know the likely answer.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t set up social businesses in places like this. We should - business might fail to tackle specific problems that a social venture wouldn’t shy from - e.g. employing disabled people - but I think the social enterprise sector should get its head around the fact that not all businesses are the same and in terms of everything except ownership, some businesses probably deliver stronger social returns to capital than certain social enterprises.
Where would you put your money?
Business doesn’t bother with this nearly as much. But there are as many different types of business, in my experience, as there are types of ‘for-good’ bodies. For a start, there are small, medium and large ones. There are private and public ones. Manufacturing and services. And there are some which are, essentially, values-driven and some which are excessively profit driven.
It is this ‘grey zone’ between exclusively profit focused business and the harder-nosed end of social business that is, I believe, little understood by our sector. It is most often found in the privately owned medium sized business sector, where owners are long-term engaged and also rooted in their own communities. In such companies, there is less short-termism, no remote shareholders and a relationship with staff that means that jobs are preserved where possible. We tend to lump these businesses in with the red-claw private sector, but, in reality, trust is high, employees involved and the business views itself in the round as an employer and a contributor to the local community.
This is a type of capitalism that was once prevalent in the UK but which has been slowly eroded by harder-edged shareholder- capitalism and its endless take-overs. Small and medium-sized firms do, of course, still exist in vast numbers, particularly in our smaller cities and towns, but they are not the force they are in, say Germany, where the 'Mittelstrand', of middle-level of family-owned business with up to 250 employees is still prevalent.
For me, this socially responsible form of capitalism - local, connected, balanced is actually not a million miles from social business. While ownership is still concentrated in a few hands, the modus operandi and social benefit of these ventures - employment, training, economic stimulation - often compares favourably to the charities and social businesses operating in the same space.
Here's a question for social enterprise to think about: Is it is better to run a 20 person business, private profit-making in Merthyr Tydfil...or set up a social enterprise? You would get grants for both, true, but which would need less long-term subsidy? Which would generate and sustain most jobs? Bring most money into the local economy? Train most people? Pay most tax? I think I know the likely answer.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t set up social businesses in places like this. We should - business might fail to tackle specific problems that a social venture wouldn’t shy from - e.g. employing disabled people - but I think the social enterprise sector should get its head around the fact that not all businesses are the same and in terms of everything except ownership, some businesses probably deliver stronger social returns to capital than certain social enterprises.
Where would you put your money?
Monday, December 6, 2010
Wonking Versus Doing
If you haven't read Tony Blair's book, then consider giving it a try. Even if you think you can't stand him, it is compelling reading. For me the most interesting bits are the passages on public services. Quite early on he felt uneasy that his Government didn't have what it took to reform public services. Labour was, in its DNA, always going to find it hard to challenge what had become a massive vested interest.
Now Blair sensed this and looked around for answers. He went to the Thinktanks, academia and experts. He found plenty of political stuff but very little, in his own words, of practical value. I was stunned by this. London is stuffed with the cleverest, most competitive and politically savvy people around. I have always assumed that, although a lot of what is produced by them is useless shit, there was always enough red meat for policy-makers to feast on.
Not so, it seems. I found Blair's comments strangely comforting. Didn't he have Matthew Taylor sitting downstairs? Geoff Mulgan down the corridor? Tony Giddens up the M11 in Cambridge? Although I have now overcome my complexes about Very Clever Metropolitan People, I kind of believed that these guys and women tended to deliver. Turns out they didn't and the poor PM of the time was left riffing through the Number 10 library for ideas. Quite a thought.
Perhaps one reason I took a small satisfaction in Blair's confession was that my own approach has always been a funny mix of dong stuff, writing about it, networking it and improving it. Speaking Up was a bit like that - try things, fail a bit, adapt and so on - or 'iterate' to use the vogue term. I was never one for sitting in a quiet room trying to come up with the answers. My hunch was that this wasn't the way social progress happened. Progress isn't mathematics, it is a much messier business.
Stepping Out is kind of the same. While there are plenty of people bashing out clever-sounding ideas about public sector reform, conjuring frameworks and pathways, you can be sure that most of them haven't set foot in a surgery or ward for a long time - except, possibly, for botox. This isn't the stuff out of which change is made. You end up, as Blair said, with a lot of fairly superficial, political short-term stuff that never really gets to the heart of things. Just expensively conceived crowd-pleasers such as all the crap 'tools' being brought out around the Big Society - itself a biddable idea, stuck in with many of the wrong kind of people working on it.
But this blog is not a simple 'Out there in the Real World' piece. Far from it. What I am trying to say is that we gain most useful knowledge about making change, and even grand-theories, from the mucky business of doing it, then theorizing it, then doing it again. However, somewhere on the road in our intellectual tradition we seem to have lost that fascination with getting stuck in. The thing we remember people like Michael Young for. These days, that is for the Boring Folk (possibly like me!) to do once the Clever Ones have done their work. Bland implementation versus Grand Policy.
"Oh but what about NESTA, Carnegie, RSA, Young, other 'Do-Tanks'?" I hear some of you shout. Well, yes, these lot are more engaged and doing some fascinating work that we can learn from. This is 2010 not 1998, when Blair was feeling adrift. Thank Goodness for them indeed.
But I am pretty confident that in 50 years time, the stuff that is seen as the key to change won't be the outputs of 'Do-Tanks' but other stuff, quite outside this world. Things that have grown, in the first instance, out of experience of people close to the issues and for whom getting the policy right is far from the first concern, when pushed. Change starts with action not policy. In the 2010s, new policy ideas, like new pop tunes are rare. There will never be another Beveridge just like there will never be another Beatles. The big set-pieces have been done. These days, policy can only underpin what's good out there - and give it a wider framework. This is what we seem, along the way, to have forgotten.
Now Blair sensed this and looked around for answers. He went to the Thinktanks, academia and experts. He found plenty of political stuff but very little, in his own words, of practical value. I was stunned by this. London is stuffed with the cleverest, most competitive and politically savvy people around. I have always assumed that, although a lot of what is produced by them is useless shit, there was always enough red meat for policy-makers to feast on.
Not so, it seems. I found Blair's comments strangely comforting. Didn't he have Matthew Taylor sitting downstairs? Geoff Mulgan down the corridor? Tony Giddens up the M11 in Cambridge? Although I have now overcome my complexes about Very Clever Metropolitan People, I kind of believed that these guys and women tended to deliver. Turns out they didn't and the poor PM of the time was left riffing through the Number 10 library for ideas. Quite a thought.
Perhaps one reason I took a small satisfaction in Blair's confession was that my own approach has always been a funny mix of dong stuff, writing about it, networking it and improving it. Speaking Up was a bit like that - try things, fail a bit, adapt and so on - or 'iterate' to use the vogue term. I was never one for sitting in a quiet room trying to come up with the answers. My hunch was that this wasn't the way social progress happened. Progress isn't mathematics, it is a much messier business.
Stepping Out is kind of the same. While there are plenty of people bashing out clever-sounding ideas about public sector reform, conjuring frameworks and pathways, you can be sure that most of them haven't set foot in a surgery or ward for a long time - except, possibly, for botox. This isn't the stuff out of which change is made. You end up, as Blair said, with a lot of fairly superficial, political short-term stuff that never really gets to the heart of things. Just expensively conceived crowd-pleasers such as all the crap 'tools' being brought out around the Big Society - itself a biddable idea, stuck in with many of the wrong kind of people working on it.
But this blog is not a simple 'Out there in the Real World' piece. Far from it. What I am trying to say is that we gain most useful knowledge about making change, and even grand-theories, from the mucky business of doing it, then theorizing it, then doing it again. However, somewhere on the road in our intellectual tradition we seem to have lost that fascination with getting stuck in. The thing we remember people like Michael Young for. These days, that is for the Boring Folk (possibly like me!) to do once the Clever Ones have done their work. Bland implementation versus Grand Policy.
"Oh but what about NESTA, Carnegie, RSA, Young, other 'Do-Tanks'?" I hear some of you shout. Well, yes, these lot are more engaged and doing some fascinating work that we can learn from. This is 2010 not 1998, when Blair was feeling adrift. Thank Goodness for them indeed.
But I am pretty confident that in 50 years time, the stuff that is seen as the key to change won't be the outputs of 'Do-Tanks' but other stuff, quite outside this world. Things that have grown, in the first instance, out of experience of people close to the issues and for whom getting the policy right is far from the first concern, when pushed. Change starts with action not policy. In the 2010s, new policy ideas, like new pop tunes are rare. There will never be another Beveridge just like there will never be another Beatles. The big set-pieces have been done. These days, policy can only underpin what's good out there - and give it a wider framework. This is what we seem, along the way, to have forgotten.
Friday, December 3, 2010
My Fantasy Stash of Sardines
There can't have been many people in England tonight out running in subzero listening to the Style Council. Not even two maybe! This cold weather has a funny effect on me. It sets off that wiring in me that makes blokes my age turn off lights, eat leftovers and make weird fantasy-plans for an underground pantry stashed full of tins of sardines, beans and water - just in case the worst happens - and we run out of food.
Yes, middle age sort of creeps up on you. Things which were mild tendencies are now becoming more extreme. My frugality now causes me slight embarrassment, as I take the leftover fruit from the awayday or shake every last drop from the nozzle. My desire for my own time and space now manifests itself in fairly adept attempts to avoid anything other than the most desired social gathering. I often monetize the value of what I would exchange to avoid things I cannot stand. Most weddings. Concerts. Clubs. Most lectures. Anything after 10pm.
It also makes me much more choosy about who I spend time with. There was a time when I would tolerate most people socially. Try to get on with them. Now, outside the professional setting, I only bother with people I actually like. Even at work, I strongly err to work with people who share my outlook and are interesting to be around. Never again will I sit in toxic relationships for years, as I did a couple of times while a CEO.
It's the old truism I guess that as time goes on, you realise its finity - and take the appropriate steps. Wisdom perhaps. But the grouchiness, the frugality, the hoarding, the 15 year old banger you won't replace, even if it makes you look poor? The
se are the less attractive and fathomable elements of the early-middle years. My wife find it all slightly ridiculous. But she's 35.
Too young to understand!
Yes, middle age sort of creeps up on you. Things which were mild tendencies are now becoming more extreme. My frugality now causes me slight embarrassment, as I take the leftover fruit from the awayday or shake every last drop from the nozzle. My desire for my own time and space now manifests itself in fairly adept attempts to avoid anything other than the most desired social gathering. I often monetize the value of what I would exchange to avoid things I cannot stand. Most weddings. Concerts. Clubs. Most lectures. Anything after 10pm.
It also makes me much more choosy about who I spend time with. There was a time when I would tolerate most people socially. Try to get on with them. Now, outside the professional setting, I only bother with people I actually like. Even at work, I strongly err to work with people who share my outlook and are interesting to be around. Never again will I sit in toxic relationships for years, as I did a couple of times while a CEO.
It's the old truism I guess that as time goes on, you realise its finity - and take the appropriate steps. Wisdom perhaps. But the grouchiness, the frugality, the hoarding, the 15 year old banger you won't replace, even if it makes you look poor? The
se are the less attractive and fathomable elements of the early-middle years. My wife find it all slightly ridiculous. But she's 35.
Too young to understand!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
To Grow or Not?
Bit of a week. The new business is taking off - relief. Worries of feeding my children on spam fritters after Christmas now abating. I'm in that funny stage now in the early life of a business where you're deeply involved in fulfilment - but just getting to the stage where it's getting a bit too much to do this well while also doing biz-dev work and the full range of necessaries - such as invoicing customers!
It's at this point I can see why people stay one-man-bands: you can earn well, control the work, really live your values. The step to involve others, be these associates or employees - is a major one. The only way to make it work, I am finding, is to identify people with very similar values to my own. So far, this has been ok. My network is a deep well and every time the bucket has been plunged, someone wonderful has been in it as it comes up, normally a freelancer (I have no staff as yet). But my well is finite and, at some stage, there's a scary decision to make - do I bore a new hole in unknown territory - with all the risks of a dry hole - or dodgy water - or stay at a size of business that is me plus my extended family of fellow-feelers?
I met Todd Hannula recently of Camberwell, a great business up in Leeds. They redevelop old or disused space into community use. I spent 15 minutes talking to Todd but, in just 900 seconds, he kind of convinced me seriously consider building a business which isn't necessarily the biggest, most investable or scaleable but which is, in its own way, a Small Giant. This term comes from a book of that name and refers to businesses which measure their success on the quality of relationships with customers, the extent to which the business corresponds to the owners' values and the quality and innovation of products and services. Not with growth metrics or market share.
Todd's story was one from which he had gone from an ambition to grow a big business - and got very quickly to a million turnover - but found fairly quickly that this was causing limitations and forcing him and his co-owners to feel less happy than they did about the work of the company. So he changed focus - and Camberwell is now aspiring to be a Small Giant: respected, loved, influential, a happy place, socially responsible, balanced.
After speaking with Todd, I reflected on my own approach - and how I am possibly representative of a slightly earlier stage of thinking about business. With Speaking Up (now VoiceAbility) I was all about impact through scale. My logic was that I would increase our impact by the vector of our growth. One one level I was right. But on another, it wasn't so straightforward. Impact didn't grow in proportion with spend. We struggled, after a while, to innovate as easily. More and more had to be spent on creating conditions in which employees thrived. It happened less and less naturally as the organisation grew bigger. More variation appeared in our services. Things still felt good - but not quite the same.
Don't get me wrong - I regret nothing and am proud of what I did at Speaking Up. But I think what was achieved reflected a mindset that is now being challenged - by people like Todd and the Small Giants of the book of that name. Ideas of value are being expressed which suggest that long-term success comes through slower growth and less of a focus on profit, more on people, culture and values. The near-collapse of certain titans of growth and profit centred capitalism certainly makes one question these models.
Like all people, I am a product of my environment and my mentors. I was given immense support by people who taught me how to successfully grow my organisation. I have drunk their milk and thrived on it. Looking at other ways to succeed has, though, been exciting - and challenging as I consider what to do with new company, Stepping Out.
The choice as I see it is whether to grow it substantially, take on people and finance, ride the tiger of public sector outsourcing and possibly sell the business in a few years - something I know I could do - or to try a different model. Probably smaller, probably employing a tiny number of people and largely working through a growing network of excellent people. Building a reputation for strong values and keeping the focus on delighting customers rather than growing revenues.
Put like this, it seems a no-brainer. However, there is still that visceral part of me that is attracted to the growth model. Which wins will remain to be seen.
It's at this point I can see why people stay one-man-bands: you can earn well, control the work, really live your values. The step to involve others, be these associates or employees - is a major one. The only way to make it work, I am finding, is to identify people with very similar values to my own. So far, this has been ok. My network is a deep well and every time the bucket has been plunged, someone wonderful has been in it as it comes up, normally a freelancer (I have no staff as yet). But my well is finite and, at some stage, there's a scary decision to make - do I bore a new hole in unknown territory - with all the risks of a dry hole - or dodgy water - or stay at a size of business that is me plus my extended family of fellow-feelers?
I met Todd Hannula recently of Camberwell, a great business up in Leeds. They redevelop old or disused space into community use. I spent 15 minutes talking to Todd but, in just 900 seconds, he kind of convinced me seriously consider building a business which isn't necessarily the biggest, most investable or scaleable but which is, in its own way, a Small Giant. This term comes from a book of that name and refers to businesses which measure their success on the quality of relationships with customers, the extent to which the business corresponds to the owners' values and the quality and innovation of products and services. Not with growth metrics or market share.
Todd's story was one from which he had gone from an ambition to grow a big business - and got very quickly to a million turnover - but found fairly quickly that this was causing limitations and forcing him and his co-owners to feel less happy than they did about the work of the company. So he changed focus - and Camberwell is now aspiring to be a Small Giant: respected, loved, influential, a happy place, socially responsible, balanced.
After speaking with Todd, I reflected on my own approach - and how I am possibly representative of a slightly earlier stage of thinking about business. With Speaking Up (now VoiceAbility) I was all about impact through scale. My logic was that I would increase our impact by the vector of our growth. One one level I was right. But on another, it wasn't so straightforward. Impact didn't grow in proportion with spend. We struggled, after a while, to innovate as easily. More and more had to be spent on creating conditions in which employees thrived. It happened less and less naturally as the organisation grew bigger. More variation appeared in our services. Things still felt good - but not quite the same.
Don't get me wrong - I regret nothing and am proud of what I did at Speaking Up. But I think what was achieved reflected a mindset that is now being challenged - by people like Todd and the Small Giants of the book of that name. Ideas of value are being expressed which suggest that long-term success comes through slower growth and less of a focus on profit, more on people, culture and values. The near-collapse of certain titans of growth and profit centred capitalism certainly makes one question these models.
Like all people, I am a product of my environment and my mentors. I was given immense support by people who taught me how to successfully grow my organisation. I have drunk their milk and thrived on it. Looking at other ways to succeed has, though, been exciting - and challenging as I consider what to do with new company, Stepping Out.
The choice as I see it is whether to grow it substantially, take on people and finance, ride the tiger of public sector outsourcing and possibly sell the business in a few years - something I know I could do - or to try a different model. Probably smaller, probably employing a tiny number of people and largely working through a growing network of excellent people. Building a reputation for strong values and keeping the focus on delighting customers rather than growing revenues.
Put like this, it seems a no-brainer. However, there is still that visceral part of me that is attracted to the growth model. Which wins will remain to be seen.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Bionic Powers
One of the most startling things about setting up a new business is the new awareness you develop around both costs and risks. It’s as though a bionic implant has been put in to alert you to where you might be paying too much – or where the risks of doing something are too high. An sensor goes off when something isn’t right.
Of course, there’s no implant, it’s the entrepreneur’s survival instinct kicking in. This is perhaps one of the biggest differences between entrepreneurial and established businesses. In the former, the person making the decisions has ‘skin in the game’. Financially. Emotionally. Reputationally.
In an established business, and I include mature social businesses here, the decision maker is normally one step removed from the consequences. She might hear the sensor going off, but instead ignores it. Or, more likely, leave it for someone else to worry about.
I have not attempted to hide the fact that my new business is 100% mine. There are a number of reasons for this. I do not want to be someone else’s plaything. I don’t want to deal with all the bullshit that comes with getting grants. But most of all, I didn’t want to insulate myself from that bionic sensor that you acquire when you have skin in the game. So when I needed money, I borrowed it.
Of course, not all entrepreneurs have skin in the game. Some, including some social entrepreneurs, will seek OPM (Other People’s Money) in the early stages. Often this is because they have nothing or can’t borrow.
However, my guess is that more of the OPM people fail, give up, get ripped off or don’t recognize risk as accurately as those who, from the start, use their own resources. Their bionic sensor is that bit duller than those with something of their own on the line.
This isn’t me having a go at anybody in particular. Success comes in many packages. Stelios, for example, used his Dad’s money at first. And social entrepreneurs are heroes of our society, whoever’s money they use. They are taking risks - period.
No, my point in writing this is to say that you are a better business person if you have skin in the game. A big financial commitment, in particular, switches on the bionic instinct that the salariat don’t use. My worry, if I have one, is that social entrepreneurs, because they are often using OPM, can lack this vital wiring for survival.
Wanna be a successful social entrepreneur? Go to the bank and take out a loan.
Of course, there’s no implant, it’s the entrepreneur’s survival instinct kicking in. This is perhaps one of the biggest differences between entrepreneurial and established businesses. In the former, the person making the decisions has ‘skin in the game’. Financially. Emotionally. Reputationally.
In an established business, and I include mature social businesses here, the decision maker is normally one step removed from the consequences. She might hear the sensor going off, but instead ignores it. Or, more likely, leave it for someone else to worry about.
I have not attempted to hide the fact that my new business is 100% mine. There are a number of reasons for this. I do not want to be someone else’s plaything. I don’t want to deal with all the bullshit that comes with getting grants. But most of all, I didn’t want to insulate myself from that bionic sensor that you acquire when you have skin in the game. So when I needed money, I borrowed it.
Of course, not all entrepreneurs have skin in the game. Some, including some social entrepreneurs, will seek OPM (Other People’s Money) in the early stages. Often this is because they have nothing or can’t borrow.
However, my guess is that more of the OPM people fail, give up, get ripped off or don’t recognize risk as accurately as those who, from the start, use their own resources. Their bionic sensor is that bit duller than those with something of their own on the line.
This isn’t me having a go at anybody in particular. Success comes in many packages. Stelios, for example, used his Dad’s money at first. And social entrepreneurs are heroes of our society, whoever’s money they use. They are taking risks - period.
No, my point in writing this is to say that you are a better business person if you have skin in the game. A big financial commitment, in particular, switches on the bionic instinct that the salariat don’t use. My worry, if I have one, is that social entrepreneurs, because they are often using OPM, can lack this vital wiring for survival.
Wanna be a successful social entrepreneur? Go to the bank and take out a loan.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
An Open Letter to the Brothers
Dear Brothers (and Sisters, of course),
Social Enterprise. You clearly don't like it. You have tried very hard, up and down the land, to turn your members against it on the grounds that it is the same as privatisaiton. This isn't the case. Indeed given the chance to be part of an emerging social business or join, say, Serco, I suspect the differences would be very clear to see.
What puzzles me is why you're so against a way of doing things which is so close to the dreams of many of your founders back in the 19th century. The aspiration back them was for workers to have some control and ownership of the means of production, to have a voice and a say in the running of businesses. Compared to privatisation, social enterprise offers this in far greater amounts than either nationalisation or privatisation. There's little not to like from the trade-union worldview.
However I have overlooked something rather big haven't I? Yes, I have forgotten what you have, over time, morphed into from your better beginnings - as defenders of preferential terms and conditions for your members, regardless of how unsustainable these are and how much they cost the ordinary taxpayer. In fact, it's got to the point where you would rather have fewer jobs - an more unemployment - than jobs for all but lower wages and possibly shorter time for those in work (which is how the private sector got through its recession from 2008-10).
I used to be in a union. I was a shop-steward, believe it or not, as a 25 year old. I quit one day when I realised that the union didn't care about the service, just about the producer of the service. That didn't sit well with me because it was clear that the business had to change - and the workforce with it.
This isn't an argument against trade unionism (though I know it sounds like this). Unions are the hallmark of all successful societies. It is an argument against a particular type of trade unionism that is confrontational and ends up placing more power in the hands of managers than should be the place. Look at Germany where the unions sit on boards. That's what we need. Sharing, diversity and responsibility. A place at the table. A shared interest in the running of businesses. For me this is what social enterprise is about.
But instead all we hear is how it should all stay in the state. Poor.
Social Enterprise. You clearly don't like it. You have tried very hard, up and down the land, to turn your members against it on the grounds that it is the same as privatisaiton. This isn't the case. Indeed given the chance to be part of an emerging social business or join, say, Serco, I suspect the differences would be very clear to see.
What puzzles me is why you're so against a way of doing things which is so close to the dreams of many of your founders back in the 19th century. The aspiration back them was for workers to have some control and ownership of the means of production, to have a voice and a say in the running of businesses. Compared to privatisation, social enterprise offers this in far greater amounts than either nationalisation or privatisation. There's little not to like from the trade-union worldview.
However I have overlooked something rather big haven't I? Yes, I have forgotten what you have, over time, morphed into from your better beginnings - as defenders of preferential terms and conditions for your members, regardless of how unsustainable these are and how much they cost the ordinary taxpayer. In fact, it's got to the point where you would rather have fewer jobs - an more unemployment - than jobs for all but lower wages and possibly shorter time for those in work (which is how the private sector got through its recession from 2008-10).
I used to be in a union. I was a shop-steward, believe it or not, as a 25 year old. I quit one day when I realised that the union didn't care about the service, just about the producer of the service. That didn't sit well with me because it was clear that the business had to change - and the workforce with it.
This isn't an argument against trade unionism (though I know it sounds like this). Unions are the hallmark of all successful societies. It is an argument against a particular type of trade unionism that is confrontational and ends up placing more power in the hands of managers than should be the place. Look at Germany where the unions sit on boards. That's what we need. Sharing, diversity and responsibility. A place at the table. A shared interest in the running of businesses. For me this is what social enterprise is about.
But instead all we hear is how it should all stay in the state. Poor.
From my piece in yesterday's Guardian
Last week, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the government would encourage different forms of organisations for public sector staff taking over services, and more details are expected soon on the government's plans for new mutuals. By Christmas, we are likely to have seen the announcement of about 30 social enterprises from the public sector "pathfinder" programme, on top of the 30 or so organisations formed by NHS staff.
So this is a timely moment to examine the mutuals and social enterprises stepping out from the public sector.
Successful spinouts from the public sector tend to be led by outstanding individuals. It takes people who are willing to do two jobs at once (business as usual; plus, leading the divestment) and can see future benefits in terms of better, more flexible services, an engaged workforce and user community. They can recognise the hidden social and commercial value of a great business locked inside a large, cumbersome public body.
Mostly, spinouts involve quite big chunks of public business, many with a potential turnover of £20m or more. With some courageous exceptions, this is not a world of small teams of social workers making a go of it on their own. Within the current health and social care economy, the costs and risks stack up more comfortably if ventures are of a reasonable scale.
In addition, the spinouts are all relatively specialised. In areas such as mental health services, domiciliary services and community health services, specialism gives these new ventures a clarity of focus that, in time, will allow them to compete and expand into new places.
But how will these new social businesses fare in the world outside the public sector? That will depend particularly on how quickly they adjust to proper competition. While protected initially, these ventures will, within three years, be playing on a level field with other sectors.
My worry is that the public sector "deal" they step out with, including Tupe regulations on transferring staff and higher pensions costs, will remain unchallenged and these businesses, freighted with public sector culture and costs, will crash faced with cheaper competition in three years' time.
Another factor will be access to commercial capital and knowhow. This is lacking in most of the senior teams coming out of the public sector. They are, on the whole, passionate about clients, brilliant on operations, superb on practice/clinical governance issues, but lacking in capacity to understand the emerging shape of the market and to build investment cases around these. Filling this gap will be a major requirement.
Then there is the extent to which these new businesses can properly exploit the freedoms offered by no longer being part of a "big machine". There is hidden value to be extracted by being a smaller, leaner organisation. It means fewer meetings, leaner operations, improved absence and performance management, less bureaucracy, effective financial control and a healthier culture. The list could go on. But all these benefits depend on how quickly the managements of these ventures make the vital mental shift required from the skills required to succeed in the public sector to those necessary to win in business.
In developing these organisations, we must be grown up about reward. The people leading these businesses need to know that the personal and professional risk they are taking will be rewarded in time. So let's have open discussion on this.
There should be earlier help to establish the viability of particular social enterprise ideas. Rather than starting with a "right to request" we need to begin with the more hard-nosed question of what does and doesn't make commercial and operational sense.
For those seeking to step out of the public sector there has probably been no better time – but we must learn from those already out here and make it clear that survival will not be easy.
.
So this is a timely moment to examine the mutuals and social enterprises stepping out from the public sector.
Successful spinouts from the public sector tend to be led by outstanding individuals. It takes people who are willing to do two jobs at once (business as usual; plus, leading the divestment) and can see future benefits in terms of better, more flexible services, an engaged workforce and user community. They can recognise the hidden social and commercial value of a great business locked inside a large, cumbersome public body.
Mostly, spinouts involve quite big chunks of public business, many with a potential turnover of £20m or more. With some courageous exceptions, this is not a world of small teams of social workers making a go of it on their own. Within the current health and social care economy, the costs and risks stack up more comfortably if ventures are of a reasonable scale.
In addition, the spinouts are all relatively specialised. In areas such as mental health services, domiciliary services and community health services, specialism gives these new ventures a clarity of focus that, in time, will allow them to compete and expand into new places.
But how will these new social businesses fare in the world outside the public sector? That will depend particularly on how quickly they adjust to proper competition. While protected initially, these ventures will, within three years, be playing on a level field with other sectors.
My worry is that the public sector "deal" they step out with, including Tupe regulations on transferring staff and higher pensions costs, will remain unchallenged and these businesses, freighted with public sector culture and costs, will crash faced with cheaper competition in three years' time.
Another factor will be access to commercial capital and knowhow. This is lacking in most of the senior teams coming out of the public sector. They are, on the whole, passionate about clients, brilliant on operations, superb on practice/clinical governance issues, but lacking in capacity to understand the emerging shape of the market and to build investment cases around these. Filling this gap will be a major requirement.
Then there is the extent to which these new businesses can properly exploit the freedoms offered by no longer being part of a "big machine". There is hidden value to be extracted by being a smaller, leaner organisation. It means fewer meetings, leaner operations, improved absence and performance management, less bureaucracy, effective financial control and a healthier culture. The list could go on. But all these benefits depend on how quickly the managements of these ventures make the vital mental shift required from the skills required to succeed in the public sector to those necessary to win in business.
In developing these organisations, we must be grown up about reward. The people leading these businesses need to know that the personal and professional risk they are taking will be rewarded in time. So let's have open discussion on this.
There should be earlier help to establish the viability of particular social enterprise ideas. Rather than starting with a "right to request" we need to begin with the more hard-nosed question of what does and doesn't make commercial and operational sense.
For those seeking to step out of the public sector there has probably been no better time – but we must learn from those already out here and make it clear that survival will not be easy.
.
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