Why genuine collaboration is the next level of human evolution!

Excuse the grand title of this post, and bear with me for the next 5 minutes….

Life is, of course, all a matter of perception.  We see things from our own point of view, and that is fine most of the time.  Its not so fine when you are trying to solve a problem, when you need to see things differently.  For me, one thing social enterprises are well equipped to do (ideally) is see things differently.  If you see a problem differently, you then can see a solution differently.  Its not about doing things differently for the sake of it, but to try to use your situation (being a socially oriented business) to see a problem from a unique angle, and try to find an effective solution.  And sometimes the best solutions already exist, but they are not being used in the most effective way, or they are being used in isolation.  You don’t have to change everything to change the world!

I have been trying to get to grips with the much-talked-about “drop out” problem in Norway.  One of the aims of my social enterprise work is to find ways of reducing the number of young people leading unsustainable and unproductive lives, but you need to understand the problem before you can look for ways to help.

And this is where different perceptions got me thinking… When I spoke to NAV they felt they already had systems in place to help young people get into work (I provided a free mini-project to one of their partners, so I know they have some solutions, but they may not always be the best solutions or the whole solution…).  When I spoke to principles in Oslo secondary schools (I telephoned most of them to ask about what problems they felt they had with drop outs), most of them also felt they had solutions in place, and that there was not really a big problem anymore.  I almost felt a bit of indignation that I was asking!  In fact, the impression was that the drop out rate was falling now.  But when I talk to people involved in social work, the story is very different, that the number of young people who have “dropped out” is increasing and becoming more permanent.  So the reality is messy and complex and depends on your perception.

We were all talking about drop outs, but different types of drop outs.  A child who finishes secondary school is not a drop out from the school’s perspective, but if he or she is then unable to get into work, they fit the drop out format for NAV.  If NAV then gets them into a job, but that job does not last or help them to actually build a career, then from a social work perspective, then they are still a drop out risk.  Its all a matter of perspective, and the only long-term solutions involve different groups seeing things from different perspectives – its requires communication, or in modern snazzy terms “joined up services”.

So what are the solutions?  I know that social enterprises like KREM Norge are filling some of these gaps by bringing, for example, different departments in kommunes together to see problems from different angles – breaking down the silos and barriers that exist in government departments all across the world (this is not a norwegian problem, but I think an inherent limitation to government, that most departments are not designed to work in areas outside their specific remit).

So here is a role for social enterprise – to be the ones that stand back and take a good look at a problem, and not just try to find a new solution (its not about the ego of being an “entrepreneur”) but to find where the solutions may already exist and help draw them together.  Governments should embrace social entrepreneurship as partners to solutions, not alternatives.  Its about system thinking really, governments talking to charities talking to social enterprises talking to “traditional” enterprises.  Many of the solutions are out there, but they don’t know what other bits exist that can really make the solution effective.

So we should look at the gaps, not just what we think the solution is.  We should concentrate on identifying the gaps, the bits where a project did not quite fulfil its potential, why it didn’t and who can help it to be better.  Its about letting go of your ego as much as anything, and connecting with others that can contribute with you.  So the challenge may be one of human nature – finding collaboration rather than building and protecting what you do, because most solutions do not lie within one person’s head!

So if social enterprise is going to change the world (be the tip of the iceberg that changes the ways capitalism trades money for real-value), then we need to make collaboration a central theme.  So in the spirit of collaboration, I welcome your comments, tell me if I am talking nonsense (I do from time to time!), tell me how collaboration needs to work, and how to we get social enterprises to really collaborate?

Know yourself better, know life gets better!

Earlier in the year I emailed a number of HR managers in Norwegian companies asking them what skills they desired from their “entry level” employees. In other words, what do they want from the young people that come into their companies to “start at the bottom”. The top answers?

• Ability to work in teams

• Ability to solve problems

• Motivation

• Willingness to learn new tasks (the key here is “tasks” – it is activity based)

In other words, all the soft skills, the “non-cognitive” skills that are hidden away in the school curriculum, and sometimes sacrificed in the name of exam results.

 

This all came back to me again on a recent project for IntoLife near Oslo with a team focusing on getting young “drop outs” into work. Our project used experiential learning and self-awareness to bring attention to team skills, problem-solving, leadership and motivation, and we used a technique that works well with all age groups :

- Ask for input on how people rate themselves as teamplayers, problem-solvers, leaders etc

- Provide an experience that allows these behaviours to be demonstrated

- Review and reflect on how actual behaviour compared to previously perceived behaviours and how we can transfer this to other situations

This is the effectiveness of experiential learning techniques – they highlight differences between the self-awareness we think we have, and the reality of the behaviours we show. There are no rules in all this, some people show themselves to be less effective in a certain behaviour than they thought, and some people find that they are actually pretty good at things they did not even realise were their strengths.

Two things I observed in the recent project were that we could quickly identify areas that needed some focus, and also quickly identify areas that were potential strengths. If you are trying to get into meaningful work (ie, work that suits your strengths and therefore will have a motivating influence on you), then you need to be aware where your strengths lie. Additionally if you are participating on a project to get you into work, then there is a good chance that your CV may not be a full and glorious thing. So through these projects you get the chance to show that you can be effective, given the right environment. Some of the young people on this project showed a genuine willingness to learn new skills (tick that box from the feedback HR managers gave me); other showed they really could function as a team (again, tick that box); others showed that they had the motivation to keep trying to find a solution to the existing problem (another tick for the HR managers). Of course some found that, in that environment, they did not work well in a team environment, but that only helps to open up another question – why not, and in what circumstances would they work well in a team environment? They are now on the road to more proactive self-awareness, and have something to work with.

When projects like this are run well, then it is justifiable for young people to state that they have shown these skills in relevant environments, so not only are they gaining valuable self-awareness, they are also gaining something to show potential employers – to show they have value in work.

So this seemed to be an effective project, and it is hoped that it will be repeated in the future, but the question remains as to why this is not a focus in normal education for young people? Classic education claims that these skills are inbuilt in the existing curriculum (eg that maths uses problem-solving, sport uses teamwork) but that only works if for example you are being taught maths from a problem-solving perspective (and in many cases, the classroom environment acts as a barrier to young people doing this). So schools should have the ability to focus on these areas, the “non-cognitive” areas, not just for the students who are struggling with “normal education” but for everyone. And schools should have the ability to take these learning experiences outside of the classroom.

A key element to this project was to take the group away from their normal environment – we used nature and some simple problem-solving tasks designed specifically to test certain skills. Not a throw-back to the old days of “raft building” for teamwork, but using the bits from the old days that were good, and applying them to more individual elements of behaviour and awareness. It is the change of environment that is important, as it removes deliberate situational behaviours.

The same is true for all of us – a bit of self-awareness can only be a good thing. For example, at work if you think you have the capability to be a good leader, you need to put yourself in situations where you find out if you really are. Normally you find out that leadership is a different thing to the leadership the media portrays, and is much closer to teamwork than leaders like to imagine. And if you find out you are not the leader you thought you were, no problem, you have something to work with and you are on a road towards this.

So for 2012, get to know yourself better by trying things out, you never know where it will lead you!

For more on teambuilding, leadership and problem-solving projects for charities, youth groups and businesses, please contact will@intolife.no (Oslo).

Extreme Teambuilding!

Here is something that may go against some of the flow when it comes to teamwork – people either seem to thing we all have a prefered team role and we need to focus on that, or at the other end, people think teambuilding involves nothing more sophisticated than a team session doing “a team-based activity” and a few beers afterwards.  Taking away corporate teambuilding theories and ideas, the basic principle to me is that a good team connects well, especially when it really matters.  The same goes for us as individuals – the ability to connect with people, all people, is invaluable.  And it got me thinking whether this “connectivity” was the key to a few problems in life and work.  Take “project management” for example, or to me more accurate, “how do you get the best out of people who are brought together for a limited period of time to deliver a significant piece of work – a project”?

Why focus on teambuilding for project effectiveness?

Projects are unique because people from diverse work backgrounds and experiences come together to work on projects for a limited time period, but are expected to perform to a high standard and communicate effectively from the start.  In addition to this, projects are normally bound by deadlines and delivery schedules that leave limited time for project teams to bond.  The ideas behind team roles as defined famously by Belbin are sometimes not applicable in project teams.  The normal approach is that the people most capable of delivering a specific part of the project are assigned that role, irrespective of how they fit in terms of team roles.  This is 100% understandable, given the fast-paced nature of business.  The challenge is to generate high performing teams within the conditions of a project environment.

Teambuilding with IntoLife

An approach proposed by IntoLife is to provide a framework for teambuilding within the short timeframe of a project, by focusing on 3 key elements “targeted” teamwork, collaborative problem-solving, and shared goal-orientation.

IntoLife uses “outdoor learning” and “wilderness survival” techniques in order to simulate project environments, and help develop teamwork where it really matters in a project team.  “The Outdoors” is recognised as a highly effective environment for learning, using experiential learning techniques (learning by doing) and facilitation.

The shorter sessions use mainly the local forests around Oslo, with “wilderness survival” as the experiential learning mechanism – to work effectively as a team to create warmth, shelter, and a level of comfort, while depending only on the team and nature as a resource.

A cup of tea will normally keep you warm of course, so I always have the kettle ready :

a nice cup of tea!

3 Key Elements to Project Teambuilding

This is a brief summary of why the 3 elements (targeted teamwork, collaborative problem-solving, and shared goal-orientation) are effective in project teambuilding.

“Targeted” Teamwork

focus on building relationships with people you work with closest in a project.

An effective team needs the people whose work is closely interdependent need to have strong bonds.

Collaborative Problem-Solving

In working life, things change quickly.

The ability to work together on short periods of focus is key.

Control variability and prevent changes from becoming problems.

Shared Goal-Orientation

Drexler & Sibbett’s model of shared orientation and goal clarification.

An effective team shares the same vision, but understands the individual elements of people’s contribution to that vision.

 

So IntoLife is trying to bring out these skills and levels of communication with teams when we are out in the woods with only ourselves and nature for company and resources.

And its fun, we make things like this :

armchair, kitchen, bedroom!

 

It is equally applicable to project teams of course as it is to youth work – helping young people to develop their teamwork, their problem-solving, build up resilience and self-belief.  Its all about connecting with others and solving problems, same deal for companies, young people, me, you, us!

So we solve problems, like how to make an egg sandwich when all you have is some flour, an egg and a campfire :

campfire bread and baked eggs!

So get connected! Being an individual and being part of a team is about connected with people when it matters, and if you can have fun and learn something new while you do it, then you’re winning!

 

To find out more about wilderness living, and how nature can help you develop personally or as a team, please contact Will at IntoLife (will@intolife.no).

www.intolife.no

“Learning doesn’t just belong in the classroom.”

Autumn woodland shelters and a campfire cooking treat!

Due to (a) recent monsoon-style rain in Oslo and (b) being away all summer, I’ve not spent so much time in the forests since June… so I needed to get back into the woods and make a few things.  Nothing fancy, just fresh air, using what is around me and spending a bit of time in nature.  Make some stuff, cook some stuff!

One kind of wilderness shelter you tend not to see as much in Scandinavia is the A-Frame shelter – over here the Lean-To is the most common, allowing for a fire in front, and only needing one wall (see posts from february/march this year about different types of shelters).  Part of the reason for this is also (I think) that much of Scandinavia is spruce forest, so building two A-Frame shelter walls can be pretty time consuming with only spruce boughs.  At this time of year though, the ferns are nearing the end of season, the moss is thick and plentiful, and the leaves are starting to fall – in the autumn you don’t have to rely on spruce for rain-proofing a wall.  So an A-Frame it was to be this weekend, with a little help (sort of) from Mustang the dog.

This is not a kennel!

Note for this shelter I used some cord for lashing the “A”, mainly to get back into practice with lashing and knots and all things ropey. The wall shell was made from dead spruce boughs and the wall filled in with moss, ferns and general leaf matter.  The outer layer, from about 20cm above the ground, was layered with downward pointing (and upside down) ferns, to act as a water run off for any rain.  The “A” (and subsequent walls) were set at 45degree angle.  Top tip – water is lazy, it takes the easiest route, so if you want to keep water out, give it an easy alternative and help it on its way.

Fern "tiles" for rain runoff

It takes 2-3 hours to make one of these on your own, so when you’re finished you’ll have an appetite!  What better for camping food than warming and filling fresh baked bread?  On a campfire? Well, kind of… everyone has heard of cooking a sausage on a stick, or a marshmallow on a stick.  It is part of camping culture.  How about campfire “bread sticks”?

Bread on a Stick

Same principle, great result, recipe as follows :

- before leaving home, make a firm bread dough, without the yeast.

- put the dough in a freezer bag and pop it in your rucksack when you leave.

- get your campfire started.

- find a straight stick 40-50cm long and finger wide.

- scrape and clean all bark from one end of the stick (about 15 cm long) and smooth this end to a column shape.  Sharpen the other end of the stick slightly.

- take small balls of the dough and role into a sausage, and wrap round the cleaned end of the stick, working your way down the clean area.  Gently roll the dough into a smooth sausage around the stick.

- when the fire is burning hot but smoke-free, hold the bread over the fire, turning occasionally, for 10 minutes until it is baked.

- allow the bread to cool for a few minutes, by sticking the sharp end of the stick in the ground so the bread cools naturally without getting dirty or you having carry on holding the stick.

- gently wiggle and slide the bread off the stick.

- then just fill the bread with a filling of your choice and enjoy.  I recommend drizzling in honey or blueberry jam!

- repeat until all the dough is finished or you’re full up.

Campfire cooking, yeehaa!

Honey-drizzled campfire bread

(word of warning, some shops sell manufactured sticks for this purpose… don’t be fooled, use the real sticks lying around in the forest.  Nature provides!)

To find out more about wilderness living, and how nature can help you develop personally or as a group, please contact Will at IntoLife (will@intolife.no).

www.intolife.no

“Learning doesn’t just belong in the classroom.”

Projects Get Personal!

I have recently been reading Fritjof Capra’s “Hidden Connections”, which takes a view of life as being a wholly connected, network of living systems.  This stretches from individual cell behaviour, to ecological systems, to social human systems – everything we do is inter-connected, in balance, and behavioural, at home, in the workplace, locally and globally.  When something happens to disturb the balance, a new balance is found.  Sometimes this is deliberate and positive, sometimes this is accidental and negative, it depends on your perspective.

This holistic view of the world and our place in it – as living systems intertwined with our environment rather than looking at it from a distance – is becoming more and more relevant in our every day lives, most obviously when we think of global warming for example.  But it goes further.  Take our working lives, a world of leaders, managers, teamwork and a constant drive to achieve high levels of performance.  I believe Capra’s view of  our lives as being living, behavioural systems is particularly relevant to this area of organisational psychology.  As Capra describes, organisations are structured, bureaucratic (non-living) entities, that are populated by communities of people that represent a social system and network within that structure.  Real achievement occurs at the human, behavioural level regardless of the rigid structural level above it.  The informal interactions between people are the mechanisms by which things actually get done, the rest is the control that organisations need in order to know what is going on down there.  There is a reason they are called “organisations”!  So to bring about real performance you need to be operating at the behavioural level, not the structural level.

A project manager can have all the methodology and reporting tools in the world, but without the project team interacting with each other on a human level, a project will only ever perform to a certain standard.  All projects encounter stress points where potential risks become actual problems and, from my experience as a project manager and businessman, the sooner these problems are solved, the better the overall outcome of the project.  Anyone can run a project where nothing unexpected goes wrong, but the ability of a team to foresee issues, understand each others role in resolving issues, and find a timely and effective resolution is what keeps a project on track.  Again, the control can occur at the structural, methodological level, but the success lives at the human & social system level.

And leaders exist at all levels, just like they do outside of the workplace.  The key in a model of leadership  is to judge success by the behaviour of a leader’s team, rather than the behaviour of the leader.  If a leader understands the personal and behavioural relationships within and between teams, then he or she can begin to understand what makes that group of people perform well together.  The key to people performing well together is a sense of community, of belonging and mutual understanding.  If the I.T manager understands the perspective of the Customer Relations manager at a personal level, then it is easier for them to empathise with each other.  When problems arise, they are much more likely to respond to resolving what is now seen as “our” problem, rather than “your” problem.  In behavioural terms, rewarding correct behaviours is always stronger than punishing incorrect behaviours, and one truly powerful thing that rewards people and makes people feel good about their work is a sense of belonging and shared identity.  Everyone wins – the organisation has projects that deliver effectively, the leader has a team that consistently performs well, and the team have a sense of togetherness and shared identity.  In my experience the human factor is, almost always, the difference between a successful project and one that is delivered late, blows its budget, or continually suffers from scope creep and “new releases”.

It is the networks, the social systems, the human interactions and behaviours that count, and this is where organisations should concentrate if they want  effective performance.   A methodology only tells you what just happened, the rest is down to us.

For more information about corporate training for project effectiveness, leadership and teamwork contact will@intolife.no (www.intolife.no)  I run experiential learning sessions in Scandinavia, based in Oslo, for businesses, youth groups and schools.

To be a “social enterprise” or not to be? That is the question. (with apologies to Shakespeare)

I wrote briefly earlier in the summer about my time in Ladakh, and the kind of non-profit work I had seen there.  Today’s blog is a more general reflection of the different levels, scales, and activities that, to me, all sit somewhere in the “social enterprise” space.  In reality, trying to specifically define something like social enterprise seems a bit pointless – it is enough to say that organisations are “socially enterprising” as long as they have a social goal that is more important than financial goals.  I don’t even think a social enterprise should be viewed in terms of not making profit.  As long as the social goals are driving the business, then profit is a good thing if it is re-invested into contributing to these social goals.  A social enterprise can, in my view, be a charity than relies mainly on fundraising but does involved some income generating activity.  It can also be a fully-fledged business that operates just like any other business, but has an clear and dominant social goal, such as specific community employment.  The same deal applies, as long as the social goal drives activity, rather than profit driving activity, then that seems fine to me.  Why set an exact definition, which only serves to exclude some businesses or charities from being called “social enterprises”, when what really matters are the social outcomes of their activity?

So here are a few examples I saw in Ladakh that I think nicely describe the different ways “an activity” can be a social enterprise.

I spent half my time there teaching at a village school that is partly funded by sponsorship from (mainly) USA.  This money contributes to the running costs, allowing the school to offer a significant number of free places to children from local families most in need of education and least able to pay for it.  The inconsistency of government schooling (and often complete lack of it) means there is a clear need for this kind of social action.  Local families that are more able to contribute are asked to pay a tuition fee, thereby making the school only partially reliant on sponsorship from abroad.  In addition, the school admits volunteer teachers (like me) who contribute in terms of a teaching role, and also become friends of the school and future ambassadors for helping to raise sponsorship money.

waiting for the school bus

Contrast this with, for example, ONergy whose mission is to supply solar lighting to 1 million Indians by 2016.  A totally different scale and a totally different business model.  They provide low-cost solar panel solutions to poor communities, through microfinance and other means.  This provides evening lighting for home-work, small scale home industry and so on and so on.  In the longer terms, access to electricity also reduces the need for hazardous or unhealthy fires using wood, kerosene or (honestly) yak-dung.  I came to know about ONergy because Ladakh is one of the sunniest regions in the Indian subcontinent, with much potential for solar power, especially for remote villages with no “grid access”.  ONergy is currently engaged in other regions in India, and Ladakh is on their radar, indeed small solar panels are starting to be seen on people’s roofs across the region.  The army already uses solar power extensively there.  So while ONergy is clearly very successful, they are driven by their primary social goal – to bring reliable and affordable lighting to the homes and schools of poor communities, communities without access to reliable lighting and power.

I spent the second half of my time in Ladakh “on tour” with a UK charity called Lotus Flower Trust, founded and run by my godfather, John Hunt.  A charity in name, I think Lotus Flower Trust shows nicely where the boundaries between charity and social enterprise are a little blurred.  LFT’s main goal is to change the lives of children in remote and impoverished communities in India, by providing educational facilities to help break the cycle of poverty.  The majority of the income for these building projects come from fundraising in the UK, but LFT also works with schools in the UK on projects to provide British students with their own life-changing experiences, raising the money for an Indian school project and then going on an expedition in that region, and helping on the actual building of the school.  And this is the interesting bit – in order to raise the considerable amounts of money, LFT is working with schools in the UK to provide their students with experiences that go over and above the normal school experience.  In return, as part of this relationship, the students are putting together fundraising events that ultimately lead to the schools and orphanages in India being built.  So we are not talking about business versus charity, but a merging of the two.  Every charity needs to earn an “income”, just like every business.  The more a charity innovates to earn this income, the less sense it makes for us to try to distinguish between charity, social enterprise, or “normal” business.

School built by Lotus Flower Trust

To take this a step further, surely social enterprise is all about the delivery of social goals, not the structure of an organisation.  Here is an example: one of the areas in Ladakh where Lotus Flower Trust has built several schools is called Chang Tang.  It is the other side of a 5300m high pass from “main” Ladakh, and on the way to the Tibetan border.  It is remote.  There is a village called Lower Thuruk, where the charity built a school some years ago. One of the buildings built as part of the school is also now being used by the village women (mothers, sisters, grandmothers) to weave traditional carpets that they sell at tourist spots some 50 miles away.  Any profit made from this venture is reinvested for the shared benefit of the village community.  It is a community project with obvious social benefits for the community (skills for the women, extra income for the village, skills for the next generation).  But the amount of profit made does matter in this case, and (in a way) there are shareholders (the village women), but the driving goal is to improve the lives of people in the village.  So where does this example leave a definition of social enterprise?

The carpet weaving women of Lower Thuruk

I believe all four of the above examples merit the term social enterprise.  And tellingly, none of the above make much noise about being a social enterprise.  They just get on with it; they do what they do because they believe in it, and if you call them a social enterprise, a charity, a collective, a non-profit or whatever you want, they’d just carry on doing it.  We can learn from that.  Drop the definitions, and up the action!

If you would like more information about Ladakh, volunteer roles, “social action” trekking or helping Lotus Flower Trust, please visit their website www.lotusflowertrust.org, or in Norway, contact Will Nicholson from IntoLife (www.intolife.no on email will@intolife.no).

High Altitude Post from Ladakh, India

Just a quick post from my first 2 weeks in Ladakh, and my thoughts are on how different the non-profit sector is across different parts of the world.

I am teaching at a school that was set up via fundraising by a very respected local buddhist monk, in the village of Stok, 3700m altitude.  It runs as a private school, but where local children are also sponsored by western fundraising projects, mainly in the US.  This way local families who can afford the tuition can pay for it, and local families who cannot are offered sponsored education.  It costs less than 10 Norwegian Kroner per day to sponsor a child’s education…  The volunteering that folks like me are lucky enough to do, helps the students of schools like Siddartha School to become more confident in spoken english, which is a key skill they need for secondary school and higher education.  I think there could be room for more volunteers doing this, so maybe something to think about as a network of english speaking volunteers from Europe!

Other projects that I want to mention include a charity run by my god-father back in Britain.  This funds the building of schools and orphanages across India, and with a great tradition in Ladakh – I am lucky enough to be able to see some of these projects first-hand later in the summer, so will report then on how this element of non-profit functions.

Lastly, and I find this so interesting, there are non-profit projects to provide the remote villages, schools etc with solar power (the sun shines for around 300 days per year here, even in the winter when it can be -30 degrees).  This seems to operate on an approximate micro-finance basis both for PV panels and smaller solar lamps, and allows people to have free energy off-grid for cooking, homework, and all the things we take completely for granted in the west.  It is still early days for these projects and there is apparently one catch at the moment – a lack of trained local people to repair these systems, which means sometimes they are under utilised, or people are reluctant to use them.  There’s a social enterprise opportunity in there somewhere,  I know it!

Thats all from India for now, the next few weeks will involve more teaching english, a stay at a self-sufficient school that is 100% solar powered, and a trek to Stok Kangri summit, at 6100m altitude!  Back to Oslo in late August….

IntoLife website is up!

As I am away in India for much of the summer, I have a basic website up for now…

www.intolife.no

email will@intolife.no

The proper version will be in place in September when I am back in Oslo, and gearing up for a pilot session on “work-skills & employability”.

Thats All Folks!

Different Measures of Success

How do we know something works?  How do we know it doesn’t?  How do we do it better next time?  Sometimes we can see straight away what works and what doesn’t, and the media is always full of stories and anecdotes of a great success or a total failure.  But what about the real detail behind this?  It is something we should be careful not to ignore.

In social enterprise I think the same can be true.  Its great to hear success stories about how something changed someone’s life, and its sad to hear about how a failing system left someone alone when they needed help.  But to have solutions in place that consistently work, we need to be able to measure things, and be accountable for money and time spent.

Here’s an example, there are tools for measuring people’s “employability”, along 6 different scales.  Each scale reflects a different element of employability (motivation, confidence, basic skills, etc) and can be used before a project, to measure pre-intervention “employability”, and can be used after to measure the success in increasing “employability”.  Its fairly simple stuff, but the real power of it is when you use the 6 scales to identify where the real problem areas are in “employability” for each individual.  You can then focus on the problem areas in the intervention stage, and measure your success along each scale after the program.

To take this a little further, you can then see which areas of the intervention program really work, which are not showing results and improve your solution, based on real outcomes.  Once you have a program that is reliably showing measurable results, then you have something that is genuinely scalable, ie it can be replicated elsewhere with, assuming high quality staff, an expectation of success.  And I think this is key – many social enterprises and charities do great things, and they are driven forwards by the dedication of the founder and staff.  However their approach can be difficult to scale if much of the work is often improvised and run on “gut feeling”.  ”Gut feeling” is an unreasonable expectation for other people to be able to replicate – its too personal.

So if you can prove good results, show why and how, then you have a system you can replicate, and your program can grow.  Stories are great, but measurement of outcomes is scalable.

A big week for social enterprise in Norway

It has been a big week or two… not least all things to do with Osama Bin Laden, royal weddings, and more.  We’re into May already and winter is long-gone; the events that define this year come and go.  The future keeps rolling in like the tides and the seasons.

Here in Oslo many people have been reading about “social enterprises” in national newspapers, attending workshops and conferences about this brave new world, and I personally feel that bit closer to realising my dream here of starting up a social enterprise in Norway.

There is much talk about what a social enterprise is and should be, so for what its worth here is my view on it.  It should be a business, in the sense that it operates with an accountability, professionalism, has defined markets and products or services.  This is only a blend of the sort of behaviours you would expect from any successful business,  or charity, give or take a few semantic differences.  Some people seem to think that it has 2 bottom-lines, a financial one and a social one, but I think this misses the point.  I believe it should have just one social bottom-line, that is tied to its social goals.  These social goals and innovative approaches to solving social problems should be the drive for business activities that allow or generate the social outcomes.  A good 1, 3, and 5 year plan would include the social projects and goals for that time period, how they will be achieved and when, and what business activities will be involved to generate this.  In this way the business activity is always tied to the social goals.  It keeps the social enterprise true to its mission, and I think is a key difference between a normal business with lots of different activities, some of which are social, some not social.  But the financial plan and revenue activities allow it to move towards financial sustainability.

The key to back this up in the long-term is to have a business entity that is different from a normal business entity, whereby the profits are to be reinvested into the mission of the social enterprise (as opposed to shareholders) and a separate tax is applied to social enterprise activities.  In Norway, we need something different to “AS”, I think.

This achieves 2 things. Firstly, it provides a genuine separation between cashflow or revenue, and profit.  In order to help social enterprises be focussed on their social goals (and how to sustainably deliver these), cashflow should be prioritised to deal with present social goals, whereas profit can be used to invest for social goals in years 2,3,4,5 etc.  It allows the social enterprise to plan its revenue generating activities for this year’s goals, and target additional revenue as profit to reinvest for growing these future goals.  It also allows a social enterprise to justify any applications for ongoing funding, in order to meet either current or future social goals.  This just business common sense, I know, but for those either converting from a charity mindset or a traditional business mindset, it offers a way of making financial planning more manageable but always driven by social goals.

The second thing it achieves (as a separate business entity) is to create an identity, a culture, and a tribe.  From my experience, when you are trying to do something different, it helps to feel you are part of a collection of like-minded souls with whom you share some beliefs.  It is important from a psychological perspective, and it can help the business-side of the social enterprise in the sense that a customer knows that they are dealing with a social enterprise.  Its kind of like the “Fairtrade factor” – as a customer you know you are buying from Fairtrade, and that matters to you.

To give an example briefly, my social goals are to help disadvantaged young people into meaningful work, and help our next generation to understand about the environment and sustainability for their futures.  I will do this using outdoor survival skills, ecology and sessions “living in nature” as the learning tool.  My medium-term business model is to use the same learning mechanisms to help normal businesses to put together effective project teams, to work together to deliver effective and on-time innovative projects.  (I’ve been a project manager for enough years to have some methods for solving problems in projects, before they actually become problems for the projects).  This business activity will allow me to offer the more directly social activities at a cost and value that is appropriate for both my customers, my business, and for me as an individual.  To do more social good in this business year, I can decide to try to do more corporate work (ie the cashflow), or use the corporate work as the mechanism for future growth of  social goals (ie the profit).  But the principle remains the same – the 1-5 year plan for the social goals drives the revenue generating activities of the social enterprise.

And on the topic of my project, I have 3 products I want to deliver : sessions and follow-ups for “out of work” youngsters; sessions on sustainability and environment for school-aged groups; and corporate sessions on effective project teamwork.  And the good news for me this week is that I have a provisional agreement for ideal facilities to use for much of these sessions.  Some of it can be done locally in Oslo, but some of it I want to do away from Oslo, and have the perfect location thanks to Joint Services Training Centre / Destination Setesdal in Evje, 4 hours from Oslo.  It is a very well run centre, run by Brian Desmond, an ex UK commando who has been involved in many great things, training British and Norwegian military in outdoor survival, working with young people, working with films about The Real Heroes of Telemark (please watch this documentary, especially if you are norwegian or british, it is humbling viewing).  I hope Brian will be a great person to be able to work with.

So I believe I have the products, I have the facilities to deliver, I have a business model… I need to find my customers.  From that perspective though, as a businessman, its not that different to being a “normal” businessman after all!