Late Arrival - Leading Social Enterprise: Arrival Education's blog page

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going to

2011-12-16T13:43:00.002Z

As weapproach the end of 2011 and peer into 2012, it gives me time to reflect notonly on this year, but the adventure as a whole, and celebrating by far and away the most rewarding andimportant thing I have ever done, namely creating Arrival Education.

We have beengetting Arrival Education investment ready this year, with support of UnLtd and Incutoc(an external investor ready business); during that process, we had to write a history ofthe results we have generated to-date as part of our investment ready documentation.

Writing that history, was one of the most inspiring things I have done. In the writing of it, I become presentto the results and journey we have been on to get here. Here is that abridged history of AE:

History

Started in 2004 by Daniel Snell, inresponse to the murder of a friend’s 17 year-old brother, Arrival Education began as a voluntary organisation, delivering after-school and Saturdayprogrammes to young people in a challenging urban Academy. In 2006 Daniel leftthe security of employment and with the support of Emily Shenton, spent anacademic year working with teachers and young people.

The experience clarified for Daniel andEmily that the prevalent thinking and approach to creating lasting behaviouralchange was not working. They spent the summer of 2007 engaging with leadingeducationalists and business leaders: the result was Success for Life. Danieland Emily then leveraged their corporate contacts to create the partnershipsthat would resource Success for Life.

Their vision was to develop youngpeople, from challenging communities, into young adults who could hold theirown with those from the top private schools.

In early 2008 Arrival Education was thefirst organisation chosen for the Young Foundation’s Learning Launchpad. The£25,000 grant was awarded in recognition of their innovative approach.

The first pilot Success for Lifeprogrammes ran in spring 2008. Since then 24 cohorts have started, from 14different schools. Arrival Education has also delivered over 700 highlyeffective volunteering interactions for staff, from 22 leading organisations.

In the summer of 2008, Arrival Educationwas commissioned by leading International law firm, Eversheds, to deliver aprogramme in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and London, which, in 2009 receivedThe Learning and Skills Council’s Excellence Award.

In 2009 Arrival Education also conceivedthe Green Talent Fellowship Programme – designed to introduce young people,from disadvantaged backgrounds, to the commercial opportunities of the emerginggreen sector. This was commissioned by Gordon Brown’s Talent and EnterpriseTaskforce and was delivered in partnership with The Eden Project, Rolls-Royce,Boots, Skanska and EDF Energy. The programme was launched nationally by PMGordon Brown in his annual party conference speech.

That same year, Arrival Education wascommissioned by Brislington College, Bristol, to run a pilot programme fordisengaged boys, called “I’m alright, you’re alright”.

In autumn 2009 Success for Life helpedInvestec win the prestigious Lord Mayor’s Dragon’s Award.

Throughout 2009/10 Arrival Educationfocussed on the content, delivery and impact of Stages 1, 2 and 3 of Successfor Life – refining Stage 1 and designing and delivering Stages 2 and 3 for thefirst time.

In 2010 Arrival Education wascommissioned by NESTA to deliver “Successful and Cool” to Year 8 students inLondon. NESTA and Pearson also funded a research programme delivered by ArrivalEducation, investigating why working class white kids are prone to disengagefrom school. In August, they celebrated an extremely successful GCSE resultsday with a special reception at Downing Street, hosted by Deputy Prime MinisterNick Clegg. This was accompanied by a high profile interview on BBC news. Inautumn 2010 they were finalists in the Dragon’s Awards for Community Partnersand Education, chosen ahead of many more established organisations.

More recently, in 2011, ArrivalEducation was commissioned to deliver its first Leadership DevelopmentProgrammes for Kerry Foods and Enterprise-Rent-A-Car - here. They also conceived anddelivered ‘The Entrepreneur’s Mindset’ programme in partnership with Investec –to teach young people how to think like Entrepreneurs. Arrival Education alsocontinued to deliver ‘Eversheds Unlocked’, including expansion into Cardiff inAugust 2011.

The London Riots galvanised the ArrivalEducation team + Oli Barrett to create and lead on the first significant youth-focussedresponse – ‘Not in Our Name’. Following a breakfast reception at Downing Streetwith the Prime Minister and an event held in Westminster, ‘Not in Our Name’garnered global press coverage, showing the world a more positive side toLondon’s young people. This was delivered at one of Arrival Education’s busiestprogramme delivery periods.

In September 2011 in recognition of itsreadiness to scale, Arrival Education was chosen as one of UnLtd’s Big VentureChallenge (“BVC”) Award Winners.

Hit your mark

2011-11-06T13:23:00.003Z

Like most, I often struggle to find the right balance betwixtbeing overly optimistic vs. being too pessimistic.

I think on the whole, I fall into the camp of being a glass half full.However, I fear, like most men I have the tendency to exaggerate a little.Perhaps, in an honest moment, by expand the truth (size, outcomes etc) by at least 15%!

There must be some optimum tipping point, where we becomemost productive.

Where we are not too ungrounded or foolish; a lightweight,where people immediately discount everything we say due to our pie-in-the-skyrush in mentality.

VS.

Being overwhelmed by a desire for perfection, caught in a suffocating– if well intentioned – desire to get everything right.

I think being a little overly optimistic produces better results; and the current evidence suggests as much.

Some risk is critical for success. You need a certain disregardof risk control, in order to achieve any level of success.

There are some things that start to eat into that disregardand focus the mind, which bring some tension into the equation. And can ultimately unravel success.

Experience and age
Commitments or burden by otheraccountabilities
Responsibilities for outcomes and others
The need to guarantee outcomes/success
When you have things to loose – money, reputation etc...

Where do other people stand on this?

Notes from a Social Enterprise

2011-10-31T09:14:00.001Z

Some highlights a month into our 3 year Big Venture Challenge UnLtd programme.

We had the launch event and boot camp at newly launched The Westminster Hub.An event that was both useful and practical.

We heard from Sinclair Beecham and Lara Morgan; both were inspiring in their candid appraisal of what it really takes to become successful. Both have seen hardships and great success and that journey and experience was evident in their insights. Great.

We had a chance to meet the25 winners/peers, as well as hear from some social enterprises that have managed to secure some significant investment, which is no mean feat in this challenging investment market.

We finished the day at The Guardian with a champagne reception.

We have been working with our UnLtd contact over the last month. This process is very useful as it reminds me of what we do (and what we should be doing) as well as get the operation streamlined for external investment.

Bookmarking a life...

2011-10-28T16:44:00.000+01:00

Things oftenmove so fast these days - in my life at least - that it’s hard to take stock of one’s progressand achievements, let alone what one has learned.

How dopeople mark the past? A past that increasingly occurs as dancing shadows to me.

What signs, orbread crumbs do we lay down in order to be able to look back, remember andmake sense of the events, thoughts and key experiences that shape who we are?

Otherwise,life is a series of days, nights, weeks, months, and years... endlessly slipping through our minds eye.

With some, its films or TV shows; with others, its songs and others its holidays, or cars?Or even girl or boyfriends (perhaps?): but for most of us, we store memory andhistory in the key social, political or personal events.

Where were you when?

Kennedy was shot, or Elvis or Dianadied

Twin towers

When granddad past away

What year you went to high school

Firstrecord (Tape, 8-track, CD, iTune)

Had your first kiss

Lostyour virginity

Yourfirst pay check and what you spent it on

This catalogueof ‘things’ that we thread our lives with that hold the past together... a thread wemay follow back, dropped bread crumbs that lead us back to the path, in order to remind ourselves of who we were once and what wethought, did or we were involved in.

For methough, it’s often books.

I look upon my bookshelf and I can makesense of the connections and the past. A jumble of interlockers, which suddenly snap into organised patterns that make sense, in my mind ... at least.

I try toread when I can, but it’s not always easy in this modern age. 'A helmut for apillow' is my current read.

Importantreads of my adolescence – Siddhartha, anything by Graham Greene, SlaughterHouse-Five, Catch-22, The Catcher on the Rye, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, WaspFactory, Iron John, Fear and Loathing (I laughed whilst I read the whole bookin one night), Anything by Kerouac or Camus, The ragged trouser philanthropist,Harper Lee’s - To Kill a Mocking Bird, The works of Nietzsche, Zen and the art ofmotorcycle maintenance.

What wereyours?

#the25

2011-09-27T11:29:00.001+01:00

To my dearreader (hello mum *wave*) firstly, a declaimer:

You may havelittle sympathy for me as I fly BA into Bologna for a business, wine and food entrepreneurs retreat.

And now...

The last 3month has been busy to the point of being dysfunctional, but/and it has alsobeen a highly productive purple patch.

I don’tthink I could work at this pace over an extended period, without it exacting atoll upon my health.

An overviewof the last 12 weeks:

We’ve conceptualised,designed and delivered a range of new programmes!

We also welcomeour new clients – EAPD Law and ERAC! Any newclient takes considerable effort; sign up and servicing is a demanding (and painfully slow) process.

Then thereis our central programme – success for life. It marches on but needs constantattention and effort. Like all change programmes, it is resource and timeintensive. Working with young peoplealways is. Anyone who tells you they can ‘transform’ anyone in a weekend iseither a charlatan or thief.

There are noquick fixes, if there were, someone would have delivered it already. But somepeople keep on drinking their own Kool-Aid.

It was avery busy summer schedule then the London riots happened. Choosing to respondto the circumstances with a cross sector positive youth led event called – not in our name - we got stuck in.

#Notinournamegenerated incredible amounts of media interest; culminating in a Downing Streetmeeting with the Prime Minster and going global with Associated Press. Here.

Although afantastic experience, it meant our team lost 2 weeks’ worth of work and focustime. It also meant for a week or so not having much sleep. You do what ittakes.

Investment

In thebackground whilst all this was happening over the summer we have beenattempting to get the organisation investment ready. This has been madepossible by using the services of an excellent CFO, as well as otherexperienced business professionals. This focus has led us to winning a place onthe BVC UnLtd SocEnt programme, hash-tagged on twitter as #the25.

Alongside 24other Social Enterprises (I look forward to getting to know overtime) represent the best (disclaimer) social enterprises in the UK; ready to be acceleratedand scaled; a timely victory, and an opportunity for encouragement, insight, in-putand for seeking external investment.

UnLtd’s programmeis designed to last 3 years and is seen by the sector as an opportunity toshare best practice, as well as a vehicle to demonstrate that the socialenterprise space is ready for investment and for successful growth, asgovernment increasingly steps away from the 3^rd sector and it startsto look after itself.

AE was againachieved the honour of being nominated for the Lord Mayor’s Dragon’s Award ascommunity partner. A real boon.

Somewhere in amongst all this, we moved offices and we also lost and gained some staff.

As we startour decent path toward a sunny and beautiful Italian destination, you probably thinkthis is the ranting of a prima donna, (after all, loads of people work 80 hourweeks). I guess I write this more for my own sake, to make sense of what hasbeen a period that has seen us move into a thriving period within the business.I pushed myself so hard that at one point my eye balls were literally bleeding. Nota good look.

Although thissummer was the hardest I’ve ever known, I sense I will look back upon it asthe summer that might be marked as the tipping point in our development and growth.If not, I may have aged unnecessarily.

The David and Goliath myth

2011-09-09T15:18:00.003+01:00

I recently had a very interesting conversation with a leading figure in the social enterprise space about how social enterprise’s struggle to work with the lead bid or primary contractor organisations known in the 3rd sector as Primes.

Read Jack Graham’s Guardian here on the subject.

As the eagle-eyed Guardian readers among us may have noticed, the government spending pie is shrinking, and social enterprises are getting a smaller slice than ever. For example, 16 out of 18 prime contractors of the Coalition's Work Programme are commercial organisations; voluntary organisations are relegated to less profitable sub-contracts....in an increasingly competitive environment, seems to slope towards large private sector firms such as A4E and Serco.

Ironically, "evidence-based" government procurement often creates more bureaucratic process than impact. Large contractors can afford systems to feed the beast of bureaucracy but many social entrepreneurs feel that they are working harder for the customer, funder or auditor than for the communities they were set up to serve. To stand a fair chance, social entrepreneurs need to innovate.

AE have been working closely with A4e over the last 9 months on a number of different fronts.

And I felt compelled to rebuff some of the commonly held notions that SocEnts and other commentators may have about sub contracting or partnership relationships with Primes.

I have found A4e to be nearly as entrepreneurial as we, keen to understand us and to be open from the outset. There has never been any subject that has been ‘off grounds’ and we have been able to shape much of the work and the structure of the deals, some of which we’ve been driving some they have.

I know A4e find it very frustrating when there is negative PR because they are genuinely attempting to make partnership relations work. They know they have to move toward and work with the dynamic and innovative suppliers because that is where the future lies. In fact, Andrew Dutton (Group CEO) has personally made it his mission the understand partner relations, particularly with SocEnts.

I think some of this has to do with the Work Programme (DWP) and in particular, a misunderstanding of how the finance structures and arrangements apply to the contracts / sub contractors.

When you speak to SocEnt's there’s a belief that they will get finance up front from the Prime, which isn’t how the WP funding model works.

Because payment comes only on results – is this fair? Discuss – They have to bare the risk and stump the cash themselves. There is less govt. money around and now they have to internally fund things themselves. Not easy.

I think there are some constraining factors that perhaps SocEnts are shying away from but need to be aired. I'll start the debate...

The Primes know they have to change and they are obliged to work with partner organisations anyways, but the days of big safe guaranteed money contracts are gone, which means the Primes have to think laterally which means scoping, piloting and selling v good concepts/programmes and fund them in new ways afterwards (perhaps overseas if they can), these packages need to be priced right and can actually be delivered on, once you move on from the scope and pilot stage and start to scale.

This requires new skill-sets that some SocEnt’s don’t currently have. Just like the fact that Triodos, Bridges and others struggle to find SocEnts to invest in is not that there aren’t any, there are loads it’s because they are NOT INVESTMENT READY!

That is something SocEnt’s will have to get their heads around if they are going to progress.

Join the RSA SocEnt group for events on this and other subjects. The next event is on the 12th October.

A4e and other Primes (I’m sure) want to work with good organisations that are genuinely bringing new thinking and quality delivery to the space, however, small organisations don’t have much resource and struggle to invest too much time in scoping, winning, piloting, administrating and managing contracts, where larger organisations have the luxury and resource to do so (within reason).

It’s hard for fledgling SocEnts to spend months chasing things that don’t end up materialising just because there’s a new internal edict that means the focus of the SocEnt is no longer that of the Prime they’ve been working with. Small organisations just don’t have the resource to suck and see, as most small business live on what they kill. It’s pretty hand to mouth for the first few years.

A suggestion for Primes might be:

Invest a lot of front up time in scouting and scoping really good delivery partners, that once endorsed can be invested in with a little more surety.

Then perhaps a 3 step relationship pathway which a Prime could front load, which they could claw back later: for instance, once an organisation has been qualified and chosen after rigorous examination

Small fund for scope
Larger fund for pilot
Standard (minus % or fee clawed back) on contract

We need to avoid the cliché of Primes as BIG BAD buys and SocEnts as good guys doing good but being wrung dry by the naughty large vampire institutions, who are only about the money. This is just NOT true and and will entrench unhelpful and inaccurate attitudes.

Being big tends to get negative press anyways but we all need to think a little better and more holistically in order to understand each other. A4e for instance are reaching out to their community partners in order to listen to their concerns, as well as feeding back to their commercial teams on how we can support this.

They are listening and trying like we all are. But don’t put Primes on a pedestal they are populated with humans like you and me.

It might be that I worked in corporate business before, but the bigger a business and there are 3,500 staff at A4e, the harder it is to get everything right, it doesn’t mean you're bad, it’s just bigger and slower.

Having looked at some of the detail of the work programme it looks like a difficult contract to run, actually it looks like a dog. I believe A4e are trying to do the best they can with a hospital pass. I don’t know who put it out there but there seems to be an expectation that the Primes would cover the risk and support financially. They aren’t and can’t. Besides businesses are full of individuals with their own internal challenges and issues – welcome to business and being human.

SocEnts have to take ownership and responsibility for the terms which they go into business.

A4e have been as up front with us right from the start. Perhaps it’s more about the nature of the questions socially focused delivers and organisations ask? Are they good questions?

Advice to SocEnts:

Be prepared to walk away from business – always.
You have more influence and importance in the relationship (if you are any good) than you might realise.
Check contracts get a good Lawyer involved (David Ramm is good)
Ask commercial questions – don’t stop asking until you are happy with the answers you get
Put lots of irons in lots of fires – if this is you’re only revenue you have then you deserve everything you get

When we become scared of our children

2011-08-15T13:47:00.004+01:00

There’s a Proverb that goes - it takes a whole village to raise a child - it seems to me to be very evident that we have not understood the proverb and have marginalised many of our children, to such an extent that their behaviour now occurs as dangerous to us.

The events which have unfolded over the last week in the London riots and beyond, are probably not a surprise to any of us who work in the communities affected.

That said, the moral outrage at the behaviour of the few is understandable and even justifiable. Wild boys make us uneasy, due to their fierce unpredictability and unreasonableness. What was the logic? Organised gang theft of factory made plastic goods whose real retail price is what? Pennies?

However, let us focus on the cause, rather than the effect, otherwise this is plasters for cancer.

We must act to resolve this.

A solution

To do that, we need to engage and listen to those children, if we are to genuinely understand why this happened. #notinourname was a start, but only a beginning. We need intelligent listening and understanding, as we move into solution mode is required next here.

Everyone is angry, scared and confused (the fabric of safety has been pulled at) and in response many seem to be looking to find people to blame, rather than take a collective responsibility.

But this is our village and these are our children.

Looking for easy targets to blame never works, responsibility and healing is something that we must take ownership of.

THESE ARE OUR CHILDREN AND THEY ARE MADE IN BRITAIN TOO

I'm wary of adults who are quick to cast their own from their homes and villages so quickly. If they are dysfunctional, we made them so. They are our boys.

In all the years I’ve spent working with young men, I’ve never met one which given the right time and relating wasn’t a good person; I’ve never been scared of one of them or had to cross the road.

Given the time to be so, all were intelligent, thoughtful, articulate and kind - to me at least. Once trust has been formed – which takes time and consistency – all things can be said and understood and great change is possible, we’ve proven that time and again in the work we’ve done at Arrival Education, if not with all, then with most.

Haven’t we all lost something here? Something important?

We've lost our children, we've misplaced them outdoors, and as a result, become a little infantile with our own needs, wants and responsibilities.

The world owes us nothing, but we owe our children everything.

The Government cannot fix this, us or our issues, only we can do that. And that is something we must do if this is not to repeat itself, when the boys are let out in a year from now or just replaced with other boys.

This is our village, this is our house and these are our children.

Discipline is important but secondary to love and understanding. No one ever changed from a stick to the head, that just entrenches existing attitudes, beliefs and feelings.

My message to those who care is don’t be scared of our children, of our wild boys, they just need to be shown the way.

We need to go out to meet them, listen to them, hear what they have to say, invite them into our houses, feed and water them, nourish them and place them on a path that creates success.

If we don’t do this, these wild boys turn into wild men, whose arms are bigger than yours and mine, whose minds are turned to darker matters. This is the nature of those cast aside and live with survival and little hope, outside the house and the village.

What we need to do is take these very same boys at the heart of these communities and have take responsibility for their lives and their own village and homes and yes this takes time and empowerment.

But if we cast our children from the house, don’t be surprised if they try to smash the windows and doors to get back in.

Interesting times and the law of re-correction

2011-08-07T13:25:00.004+01:00

In physics, it states that for every force, there is an equal and opposite force and this law can be applied to anything.

For the last couple of decades, we have enjoyed good living, in fact it turns out we were all living beyond our means, through a debt fuelled spending spree which has now come to an end. In other words 16 years of growth, may mean 16 years of economic decline, as we find the natural water line.

This debt fuelled existence felt like the norm, but in reality, we all just spent money we didn’t have, we rode the wave, we lived beyond our means, and you can only stretch that model so far, before it corrects itself and snaps back to its real position. Our houses weren’t what we thought they were, the real price is what it was worth 20 years ago, perhaps less; It turned out that we did have to pay back our loans and credit cards, and that a job wasn't guaranteed for life and that a university degree was perhaps worthless.

I remember as a child going to Greece and thinking how poor they were, you could have an amazing fresh lunch back then for £1! I had the same insight when I was first in Spain back in the late 70’s. Since then these nations and the people in them, have all lived lives that were entirely different from those back then.

But how? And who funded this growth? Where did the money and investment come from? Why was it released? Who thought it would be sustainable? Why didn’t people save or invest?

There are over 750,000 empty properties in Spain today and over 40% unemployment for the under 25’s!

Across many of the Western economies, social mobility has not only ground to a halt, it has gone into reverse and for the first time since world war 2, there is the real likelihood that we (you) will be poorer than our (your) parents.

UK’s empire has been in decline since 1904 (in part due to being over stretched in the Boer war and the USA’s new supremacy of metal bottomed gunships); so we, I think, have got a little more used to being in a declining state, but for the USA, this is all rather new! I wonder how they feel as they lose their dollar value. Losing the triple A is the beginning.

What does this mean on a personal, corporate/fiscal and state level?

Personal

It means the average person will have to make do with less, (it will really hurt the under class) that things we expected or thought were a right are not, that things we took for granted may be taken away regardless of how we feel about it.

That unless you can fund and finance certain things and experiences for yourself and your children they may get pushed out of your reach and therefore, you and your kin will fall behind in terms of social mobility and other socio-economic measurements.

This might include access to education, access to the web and information, food, quality accommodation, holidays, pensions, transport and healthcare.

Things we consider a right now, may no longer be considered as such, and are in fact, a luxury. Can and will you give them up?

Business

Building a business in zero growth environments may become the norm. This usually has two pressures – the product or service deteriorates as it tries to remain competitive (which we have seen in the things we buy in the high street – not as well made as the stuff we once bought) and salaries will be squeezed, we'll have to work for less in real terms, if profitability is to remain.

A business must remain profitable; otherwise, it goes out of business and people lose their jobs. But in finite constrained environments of the shrinking market, something has to give.

Can we state change the game on a global playing field? Will nations in these desperate times, do desperate things? Will they become protectionist for instance? Will they start making things at home again?

Many businesses I know are only hiring from within. So employment opportunities are strangled right now.

The evidence suggests if you are out of employment for more than 3 years, it’s nearly impossible to get back in. Recruiters will always try to entice someone in a job to move, than finding an unemployed person who is qualified or even better qualified than the person in employment.

There is a great deal of anxiety within business right now due to the market conditions. People’s behaviour gets strange when they’re scared. They make poor commercial and ethical decisions, as they wish to keep their jobs. Working hard for instance is now the norm, long hours too. Businesses expect 8 – 6 and if you are unwilling to work those hours as normal, best of luck kid!

Country

As we see a swing from west to east and we see the rise of new economies in China, India and Brazil we see the impact of that wealth/power swing. When there are finite resources globally, people need to understand that if they are getting richer, someone is getting poorer.

The truth is - it’s us, we are getting poorer!

We may have to do with less. We have paid for the new roads and factories in China, perhaps we weren’t aware of that, but none the less, that is what has happened.

Are we OK about that? Are Greece, Italy, Ireland and Spain OK about going back to their 70’s existence and lifestyle choices now they've tasted these new levels of wealth? Will the bright and able kids just leave? Where will they go? What does it mean? Will it create tensions and wars?

Where will these wars be fought out?

China is buying up much of Africa right now. Will the West allow that to continue? Will proxy wars be fought in Nigeria and other resource rich nations in the way the USA/Communist axis flexed their muscles in other nations yesteryear?

We are indeed in interesting times.

If you and your organisation can’t move at a global level, you may be in trouble. In the meantime, you best learn Chinese.

Permission to fail

2011-07-02T21:44:00.006+01:00

What an extraordinary last two weeks I’ve had.

Not perfect, not even good, actually, it’s been difficult. But as often is the case, we grow in the face of difficulties. I can’t remember a more insightful fortnight for my own personal development in a very long time. Who knew that difficulty equates to growth and not something to be avoided.

I’m a man made of my experiences and epoch. My parents and their parents, didn’t really talk too much about their weaknesses and failings; none of them were too comfortable talking about what didn’t work, there was a powerful under-current that we – my brothers and I - were to put our best self forward, in order to show the world how successful we were. We didn’t invest too much time in what didn’t work or failure.

When things didn’t work out, it wasn’t our fault, it was other people, or circumstance that were at fault, but never us. A physical wall was constructed to protect us from the outside world. This attitude presented me with some mixed blessings.

I suppose you could say we had a positive upbeat sunny disposition in our family. The other side of the coin is that we hid, controlled and protected what we weren’t or hadn’t figured out – both from ourselves and the outside world - but there was an even darker side effect, which is that we weren't allowed not to know and it became a weight that stopped the free enquiry of the learning mind.

My family, and in turn myself, invested in the pretence that we knew – about things, everything really - more than the process of learning. It became a suffocating constrictive mask, where vulnerability and ignorance were not allowed. We had to be successful, regardless; the irony was we were all destined to fail in such a domestic controlling culture of anxiety and fear.

Even now, my parents don’t allow for their own weakness and failure; neither do they allow me to be weak – I have to go out and succeed - it's a historic family belief and it profoundly stops growth and success. With us, it has to be good news or nothing; the conversation becomes awkward if questions of failure arise. This thinking stops the most important space... the space not to know, the space for questions.

In a profound shift, I’ve decided I am going to try to remain in the place of being ignorant and free myself of the cloak of pretence. I look forward to creating a mindset of enquiry, so I can investigate how things work unburdened from the pretence of knowing things. Newly cast as the person who doesn’t have the answers to everything.

I have spent my life pretending that I knew more than I did. Which seems ridiculous now that I write this, but this is how it’s been since as far back as I can remember.

From the first day I turned up at primary school, there was nothing anyone could teach me, not even my perfectly good teachers. I'm sure after a while they gave up, or thought me stupid or ignorant, where in fact, I was just acting out my family drama. A fear of not knowing. I was profoundly closed minded and my grades reflected that attitude. I think they let me go my own way because my parents owned their own business, perhaps they thought I would just inherit it.

I don’t blame my parents or my grandparents who had their own challenges to face, including the Second World War and all the tragedies that brought – heck, my granddad built a successful business rising from a family of miners.

I just want to free myself of ignorance and the clamp of pretence because of some unwritten responsibility that was silently passed to me that I never wanted or asked for, so I may have a learner mindset and have permission to fail.

Thank you Ben Cooper, you knew before I did.

Stuck in our own past based thinking

2011-06-29T09:36:00.006+01:00

I had a Facebook moment yesterday, when I realised that people (myself perhaps?) assess each other or think they know each other today/now, based on their assessment of each other from yesteryear.

As if we’re the same person we were 20, 15, 10, 5 years ago.

But we are all constantly changing aren’t we?

Am I the same young man they think they know today, who made all those social mistakes that a 15 year old makes? Am I the same person before them now, who is busy making different and new middle aged faux pas?

On what grounds and criteria are we being assessed? Can we influence or control that unconscious debate?

The human mind is structured in such a way as we're blinded by it's own ignorance and pattern forming nature.

It’s easier to make a past based assessment of someone and look for the evidence to be proved right, than listen to them a fresh with an open mind. It takes concentrated effort to hear and grasp that we and they are actually totally different and not the same person they once were - even if they were that person we imagined they were. But that takes immense effort to constantly allow people to be new, different from the person you imagine them to be.

It’s easier to imagine the people I went to school with, are the same people now. But they were 15 then and so was I. It’s ridiculous, but we all do it don’t we?

We conveniently judge people, based on past assessments and experiences, but what we forget is that we’re assessing and judging people from a yesteryear position with our yesteryear mind; a position that was just as youthful and ignorant as the person we were assessing and judging.

It’s as if we can’t take the imaginative leap that takes into account that we are all growing up and getting wiser. That this entire process is fluid and that as our relationship to everything changes so does everyone else’s?

Does anyone have any further reading or suggestions on this subject?

No reward without risk

2011-05-23T09:03:00.003+01:00

Entrepreneur Mindset – #2 Risk taking

The ability to take calculated and measured risks is critical to increasing success for an entrepreneur. But what does risk taking look like and how do you learn it?

It’s one of the hardest skills to master, and is probably, in all likelihood, formed in childhood. It’s the BIG one that stops most people from doing their own thing, following their own dreams.

If you’re the sort of person waiting for the right time, or are flicking through University courses on entrepreneurship, or keep telling yourself you need some more experience first or more money in the bank, chances are you aren’t or shouldn’t be an entrepreneur.

I don’t mean to put you off and certainly entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes but always remember the risks are as great as the potential rewards. In fact there are no rewards without risks.

I think there are 4 types of entrepreneur – you figure which one you might be.

The ungrounded fantasist that leaps without thought regardless of outcome
The practical and talented visionary who works out the angles
Driven and consumed by an idea that takes over everything
The ‘I couldn’t do anything else even if I wanted to’ entrepreneur, who couldn’t work for other people, even if they wanted to

It’s a trick question, because in reality, you’ll probably a mixture of all four! That got you huh?

Sure you can de-risk a business venture, (more on that in due course) but ultimately, you'll have to leap, no one can creep to success. Success takes everything, you’re going to have to go for it! Besides, old mother time waits for no one. There’s a difference between being ready and plain avoidance!

I started off imagining I would make millions – this time next year Rodney! But being an entrepreneur actually has very little to do with money – although important; it has everything to do with trying to make things work, trying to be exceptional - if not at everything, then - at least at one thing, dear God, please let me be exceptional at one thing! It’s about passion and love and people and the challenge of it all. Sure you don’t want to mess up and look a fool, but that’s secondary compared the the thrill of it! It’s addictive, a drug, your business, enterprise, organisation quietly slips under your skin, and before you know it, it’s your lover! You can’t live without it!

And just like a drug it has incredible highs and lows too, it’s a roller coaster, one minute you are up, the next you’re trying to hold on!

The upsides of being an entrepreneur are fantastic! The highs are incredibly high. The downsides can absolutely floor you. Sometimes those are obvious gut punches, most of the time they are more like a dawning realisation that you missed a trick. Without knowing, or realising, there’s an awakening feeling that something slipped through your fingers. The piece of business you invested time into that didn’t turn into fruition, or a relationship you thought was good, wasn’t, competition that snuck past you in the middle of the night.

How do the average entrepreneur learn to take risks?

A passionate entrepreneur will do anything to protect their baby, their lover, their drug and when push comes to shove, they’ll do anything not to fail and most things to try to succeed! Once you’re in the game, you won’t even think about it. You’ll just be aware you have to take greater and greater risks in order to grow and develop or in some cases survive.

Learn to be with new, with change (it's a constant any ways), engage with it, investigate what scares you, what stops you, develop your capacity to be with ambiguity, lack of comfort and not having all the answers. Learn to take risks and trust your instinct. It's in the arena of risk taking and failure that you will learn the most.

If you're interested in speaking to me or finding out about AE, as well as funding or joining the RSA. Please book yourself into the RSA SocEnt event at Investec on the 8th of June.

CLASSIFYING CLASS

2011-04-26T11:22:00.005+01:00

I have a professional interest in social mobility, and in particular, in understanding how to influence it. As a starting point, I believe it’s important to understand how to measure class.

To which, I wanted to continue the debate on current social classification in the UK, after reading Sam Leith’s article in the RSA Journal entitled ‘Class Dismissed’ .

My issue, as with Sam’s, is that the simple triptych classification model of upper, middle and lower, simply no longer applies well enough for understanding, marketing or policy making. Class has become fragmented with ever more complexly - a little like media and news channels, there are subgroups within subgroups – to a point where the historic crude rules of class have been diluted to such a significant point that they aren’t really useful any more.

There seems to be class distinction leakage, in terms of what defines a thing or a person in any one class. As a result there’s a constant and fluid battle ground over the ownership and position of class and its telltale signature values, opinions, objects and attitudes. For example, one might have ‘middle’ class attitudes in one area and ‘working’ class positions in another arena, such as, proudly supporting a football team - surely the denizen and preserve of the working class- juxtaposed against eating only the best prawn sandwiches (from M&S), which would suggest a different class distinction. In fact, the more you think about class rules, the more fluid and complex it becomes, which is why some people are so tribal about the class badge.

A class badge, worn with honour and at times even aggressive hostility, underpins the desire to belong to a tribe. Hence, ‘you’re a plastic football fan’ or ‘where do you source your buffalo mozzarella’ are not only communications to the wider world, but probably a need to help frame and understand who we are, by the community we’d like to be associated with.

It’s also interesting that someone now might not want to move from their ‘social badge’. Although, I think this class chip on the shoulder only applies to the working class? The middle class seem to feel apologetic for being middle class, where as upper and working classes seem to be able to wear their badge more readily, preferring to wear it with pride and why not?

The working class historically would have aspired to rise from their humble situation, to be working class might have meant a life of misery, toil and strife, something to get out of if at all possible. Where, now it’s ‘I’m Millwall and proud’. As if defining yourself as working class, as long as you have money (loads of money) is the aspiration of the working class. There maybe a classification below working class, which might be the 'not working class.'

Perhaps I’m wrong here, but I sense it’s only the middle and upper classes, which look back fondly with rose tinted glasses upon the lives of the ‘simple’ folk as charming idles; all rosie cheeked, hard working honest souls, in their leather hob nailed boots, corn stalk in mouth with their warm beer humour. Being poor is, and always will be, ugly. Due to my work, I witness the consequences of being poor every day - the violence, the debt, the loan sharks, the stupidity and ignorance – are terrifying in their vicelike grip.

My assertion is that money plays much more of a significant role to social mobility and class, than whether you went to a comprehensive, a grammar or to a fee paying school and it has been the access to money over the last few decades, which has given rise to a need for a new social classification model.

As wealth has spread through society (if not equally), bringing with it education, comfort and time to think, our attitudes and opinions have changed accordingly.

Money and what it affords are linked to class.

Class reveals itself in shibboleths for everyone to see. The ‘h’emphasis of adding of the ‘h’ in yesteryear, to the avocado bathroom suite, the trolley-dollies, the carpet and sofa savers were the objects that identified the new middle class in their suburban homes.

But now, it’s more confusing. There are so many subtle class indicators that defining someone’s class is quite difficult.

Although many of the labels have changed, social mobility for the poor, has never been harder. In the last decade we have seen unparalleled investment into social mobility but the proportion of poorer children reaching university has only risen by 3% and near 3 million children live in poverty and that number is increasing not declining.

It's obvious, that it's not access to money alone that makes social mobility possible, it’s also attitudes, peer groups and opinions. It’s very hard to have attitudes that don’t mirror and match those of your community and tribe. As it would point to their limitations, which might bring challenging feels and conflict to the fore.

There is a palpable fear of change and the name calling which comes with leaving old opinions and people behind that holds the working class in check. Is there any worse character assassination than calling someone nuevo riche? All upwardly looking, social climbing, pretentious, all airs and graces etc? Integrating all those new social ideas and behaviours is challenging and if you get it wrong there can be deep embarrassment. Integrating all those class messages successfully is hard work, for many it’s just easier to control what they know, rather than being left open to potential mockery.

However, wanting to upgrade up the social ladder would be the smartest thing to do. Aspiring to educate oneself is the greatest of all aspirations.

The only way to guarantee social mobility is in longitudinal pathway programmes. Without that approach, it's hard to qualify the impact.

Experience is real, words are not

2011-04-22T11:47:00.003+01:00

The importance of obtaining a part-time or seasonal job

I’ve been having conversations with some of our students recently, who are desperate to get a summer job. However, the retail market is pretty flat right now and without real signs of growth, there’s little hiring happening on the high street. Which has further heightened the need to be able to interpret what a potential employing manager in a shop - or wherever, for that matter - is looking for and how to communicate that knowledge/insight in such a way as they hire said keen young jobseeker.

What people seemingly fail to understand is the importance of that low skilled, part-time, minimum wage first work experience. Everyone will have to learn the nuts and bolts of work at some stage; the sooner you learn the basics and bank them, the more you can focus on the ever increasing complex and challenging work related skills and knowledge as the pay packet increases.

I was speaking to a banker friend the other day about this very subject, who (like me), had had the mandatory crappy first part time job. Should we be surprised to find a successful banker washing cars or washing dishes etc? Of course not, it makes perfect sense; he was learning key skills, which would shape his eventful success. I’m concerned when middle class (often academically successful) students don’t ground themselves in some paid work (it has to be paid, it’s not an honest trade otherwise), as it helps contextualise and focus academic pursuit. If you think you’re too good or smart to mop the floor kid, you’re in a world of trouble.

Here are just a few of the insights and skills that my first jobs taught me. Including:

Understanding that everything has a cost
The importance of being nice to people
The importance of stamina and managing your energies
Adding up quickly - in your head in those days – whilst under pressure
Presentation
Working with others
The cost of things
Realising that YOU shape the experience of work not others
Time keeping
Doing simple tasks through to completion
Taking pride in tasks and work
Being rewarded for good work
How good money felt – I could buy things! I could empower myself

We insist that the students who come through our programme obtain part-time paid work, otherwise, how would a future employer know they could work? Obtaining a successful work mindset and work ethic is an essential basic for life. I note with alarm, a number of university graduates, who think menial work is below them, in essence, they’re too good to work. Increasingly they find themselves unable to acquire their ‘dream’ job, due to the competitive nature of the austerity job market. What should focus their minds is how long they can go without any work or experience? There comes a tipping point where their CV will be so denude of real experience that they’re making themselves unemployable. Either way, reality bites.

Those first lowly jobs are the rungs on the ladder to future success, if you try to miss them out, you won’t climb far.

My first jobs included working behind a till, managing attractions for tourists, washing dishes, preparing foods, cooking, scrubbing, serving food, builder, being a bar man and being a roadie. You take what you can get and you learn as you go along and sure, you have fun where you can get it at that age, but more importantly, you build insights and experience that set you up for success in later life.

What jobs and insights did you obtain through work? I’d love it if you could share yours?

Entrepreneur Mindset #1 Persistence

2011-04-18T10:33:00.002+01:00

“I don’t listen to anyone, least of all me”

Whilst running around Hyde Park on a wonderful sunny spring afternoon with a friend, we almost stopped from laughing at how we should never listen to our own advice.

How many times does that little voice creep in, telling us to ‘quit, slow down, or take it easy’; thankfully, I learnt at a young-ish age that there is always more one can give, more capacity for growth, more things to learn. Running is a great metaphor for this; we hardly ever really push ourselves, that even when your lungs feel like they going to bust, if we keep pushing, we’ll find another burst of energy from somewhere.

One of the central pillars of our work is to teach the enterprise mindset; to empower young people with the knowledge that one can always find opportunities and with enough tenacity and perseverance, many things are possible.

One of the common denominators of a successful entrepreneur is persistence.

Persistence isn’t attributed to entrepreneurs alone but most successful entrepreneurs have it in abundance.

As a very successful business owner told me, ‘the only way to guarantee success is to never quit’. That may not be the smartest way to succeed, but it does pretty much guarantee success in the end. Additionally, a wise old friend of mine observed, that it wasn’t his talented colleagues and peers that succeeded, but the ones that never quit, some were talented, others less so, but it was the ones that had persistence, that were in the end, successful.

Only the other day, a wonderful new friend and I were talking about the 10,000 commitment to mastery, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell. We concurred how that long journey to mastery was essential, as success is experiential not knowledge based. If you try to short cut that process or think you can speed it up by reading about it, you’re missing the point. It’s about being able to be with and hold success that makes it possible. Success is reliant on time and practice, as well as dealing with constant failure, the only way you can maintain that painful growth process is by being anchored in long-term goals, value based thinking and in never quitting. People think success is linier, where in fact, it’s multi-dimensional and requires constant reflection, experimentation and others to grasp its complexity. I have little time for ‘get quick’ solutions that a propagated by some.

People – I used to – fantasise that success might be immediate and can be achieved without effort, as if luck or positive thinking will achieve riches. But it’s the process and the pathway that leads to true understanding and mastery. Don’t get me wrong, read good books, and have a positive attitude, but ground yourself in the reality that wealth creation is not an academic or bookish pastime, if it were academics and teachers would be rich, where in fact, they’re often the poorest in society. Material success is experiential and practical and you need loads of persistence and common sense to achieve any high level.

Many entrepreneurs didn’t achieve in school, perhaps that experience of failing or having to toughen up is part of their success formula or maybe it’s because school doesn’t really reflect success in material terms. Drive and common sense are much more relevant and are sound stepping stones, where those who are lucky and achieve success early in their careers are often cursed with the illusion that is was their skills that got them there. You can always tell those people who have achieved success the long way as opposed to the paper millionaires, as they know what it really took, and walked the path and could walk it again, where those that are gifted success don’t know, and are shamed in their ignorance and naivety and often feel the need to over compensate as a result.

As Beverly Sills brilliantly put it “there are no short cuts to any place with going”

The journey to success is more valuable than the end result. If you think otherwise, you will never truly be successful; you will only have the trappings of success. Sadly, most people don’t want to take that long journey to success, they want short cuts, want something for nothing or they just quit. Persistence is about learning who we really can be, who we are, that path gives our life and our character form and shape, it also teaches us the importance of capacity and growth. It’s where we learn not to quit and with enough time answers can always be found for life’s questions.

From here to there

2011-04-05T12:16:00.003+01:00

Notes from a social entrepreneur

I can’t remember being busier – ever; and yet, much of the work we’ve done has been on internal processes, which is counter to my natural skills and abilities. I feel like the only time I’m ‘really’ working is when I’m signing up businesses or doing some heavy lifting as it were – you know, man stuff? I guess to an external eye, it might look like we’re standing still. But – and my confidence is building here - we’ve done a lot of thinking about how we can produce results more efficiently, and how to communicate that process effectively; an act of simplification – can we do or say that in a simpler way? If it currently takes us 4 steps, can we get it down to 3 etc?

Who doesn’t need strokes?

Occasionally, you’ll receive some praise; this can keep you going for months, and being a business owner can be a very lonely place. We’ve invested 1000 of hours in this ‘thing’, so positive feedback is very important to us. Here is the Twitter remark that made my day, from someone whose opinion I value immensely.

2plus2makes5 @ArrivalEducate A phenomenal session. If there's anyone doing better or more important work for young people I certainly don't know about it

A change of direction

I’d like to use the blog - for the time being - to share some of our thoughts and ideas, which is more efficient use of my time than responding to all your fantastic tempting emails. However, do keep on sending them, especially if the subject matter isn’t covered in the blog posts.

It’s not what you say; it’s what the listener thinks of you...

One of the central ideas we developed quite early on, was the effectiveness of relationship centred learning. We backed this up with a research programme, looking at the reasons for none attendance. This could be boiled down to this one thought:

“Without an authentic and real relationship between the teacher and student, there is no learning.”

But how much resource and teacher training goes into learning the importance of developing authentic relationships? Ask yourself this question - which teachers have fond memories of and why? I warrant it’s the ones you had a good relationship with.

Resources tend to be invested in classroom planning and processes. But the kids won’t listen or respect the educator unless they feel listened to, understood and respected. The teacher can know their content, but if they’ve lost the classroom, it will impact the learning atmosphere and the grades, and perhaps most importantly it’ll take the pleasure out of the process for the educator.

Where do we take our cues?

I’m privileged to work with a number of senior professionals such as CEO’s, MD’s - a bit of a generalisation here - but the more senior they get, the more authentic and real they need to be. The larger and more successful the organisation, the harder it is to be dysfunctional, as they’ll be found out when over stretched, especially if the leader produces results through controlling tendencies. As one moves from the need for drive, vision and enthusiasm, to the need to support, lead others and grasp the business needs and processes, the skills needed change – read ‘Good to great’ by Jim Collins, as an exemplar.

Why not look at the best and understand the skills needed to flourish in the 21^st century?

We don’t want to teach kids to 'shut up, put their heads down and do as they’re told' do we? And have them copy this and spout that verbatim, which seems to be path to A*! What skills do we want to invest our children with? And why? Here are a few of the top of my head:

The importance of an enterprise mindset. There are fewer and fewer ‘jobs’ so people will need to set up their own businesses
Solution orientated in all matters, any fool can see the problem; now implementing the solution, that's the hard part
Being honest, with yourself and others
Understand that other people make us successful and we can’t win on our own
Don’t stop until we’ve figured stuff out. It’s not OK to walk away and say – I don’t understand this and I don't need to!

If we don’t appropriately skill our children, we’re just delaying the education process till later, which will have to be picked up by us via state funds or it will fall upon businesses to train young people.

This point is well made in Platform no. 10 by Fiona Melville, in her piece entitled what a difference 5 days make!

Standing up for StartUp Britain

2011-04-01T18:38:00.003+01:00

For those with a pulse and have access to the web, would have seen the furore that followed the launch of UK’s version of StartUp America, called StartUp Britain.

The online vitriol and noise, mostly on twitter, was extraordinary and completely disproportionate to the event.

I can’t say I’m a committed social media junkie, but even I was struck by the scale of the anger and upset. Some of the complaints may be justified - see here - but most weren't.

First thing first, it’s FREE! When you don’t pay for a service directly or via tax dollar, then you can’t expect the world. Would I use it? Sure, why not, more importantly, it serves the purpose it was made for; which is putting a bunch of resources in one place, and for those who actually run a business that is a pretty convenient service.

In particular, for those starting out, it’s great; there’s a whole bunch of material and resources for those thinking about starting a business. But more crucially it’s generated a lot of debate about an enterprise culture.

A little like Jamie Oliver’s 15, which pound-for-pound spend, would make it the all time worst social enterprise businesses ever, generated a tremendous amount of conversation, debate and focus. It was exceptionally useful and for the nation worth the investment, in my opinion.

For me, the upset wasn’t actually about the website, it was about something else entirely.

Right now, I think Cameron and the Conservative party could invent a 365 day holiday and it would draw flak from some people, who are – understandably – concerned and anxious about the cuts and their pending impact. The upset, I don’t believe, was actually meant for the StartUp website and I hope those involved didn’t take it too seriously.

For me, the interesting thing in this is not what people are talking about but what they’re not saying, what this points is something else and perhaps a little harder to deal with.

It’s said that 50% of people would like to start their own business, which is one of those anomalies that data occasionally spits out. For instance, and I think I’d by on safe ground here, if I were to say that 100% of people would like to be rich, the more interesting piece of data would be to understand how many people would be willing to do what it takes?

The thing about setting up a business, or in my case, a social enterprise business, it takes everything to make it work, and there is always the impending spectre that most businesses fail!

The verity of skills, insights and abilities needed to make a business work can be overwhelming, which is why most people pause before they leap. It’s easy to talk a good game, harder to deliver.

Here in the UK, sadly our mindset is one that readily undermines, snipes, criticises, bitches about, complains but does not actually do anything about it ourselves. It’s insipid, and it makes it very hard for others to step up and enter into the arena. For in the arena, there’s no safety net, you’re visible, eyes are on you and some even crow at those that stumble.

So people would rather throw stone from the stands.

The challenge - whether you believe the government should cut quickly or slowly - is that we need to stop being reliant upon state funded salaries.

In reality, the country is driven by small mumma-and-pappa businesses, usually a family affair with less than 10 staff. It’s not the ‘evil’ conglomerates, corporate businesses or banks that some people imagine drives UK PLC, it’s the small businesses! It’s unrealistic to expect small businesses to pay for all those govt. jobs and services, unfair and unrealistic.

So... anxiety abounds because as we try to get the nation off the teat. We are becoming present, aren’t we (?), to the fact that making our living without the security blanket of salaries, benefits, pensions and it’s scary.

So why do I think StartUP Britain is important? It’s because it gets this anxiety and debate into the public arena, so people can express their ideas, excitement and feelings, that’s why.

Lastly

I think the young men behind this service should be acknowledged, applauded. Do you honestly think you could have got the calibre of people, the PR and press behind this in such a short time? Really? I didn’t think so. Stop throwing stones then... Besides, in this instance, the old adage – there’s no such thing as bad press – is true here, #startUpBritain is everywhere.

Bring on the empty horses

2011-03-16T11:38:00.002Z

Last night - Tuesday 15 March, at the Coachmakers pub in Marylebone - was the latest instalment of the RSA Social Entrepreneurs spotlight event, which focused on attracting or becoming a board member (advisory or otherwise) of a social enterprise.

At the launch event last November, Social Enterprise Spotlight, a case study of 8 different social enterprises and their development over the next 12 months.

Three months in, the Spotlight participants - with the help of three experienced hands – investigated the benefits of advisory and board support. Those experience hands were:

Margaret Exley: who set the scene of corporate vs advisory plus the pro’s and con’s, what might be right for you, why you might choose a particular set up.

Isabel Bourne-Fournier: contributed her experience of board set up and recruiting members. Explaining how one might go about putting a board into place.

Rick Bacon: non-exec mentor of Arrival Education, laying out what involvement/role he undertakes in this position. Focusing on the ‘advisor’ role and the benefits

Some of the additional questions answered were: Is an advisory board for you? What are the alternatives? How can RSA Fellows help? What did people need or what could he contribute?

I’d like to pick up on a question that came from the floor for Rick; who has supported us over the last year or two in an advisory role. The credulity of the question was surprising – which to simplify was - what was in it for Rick? What was he really doing for, no really? Although I’m answering the question for him, I think I’m on firm ground here when I say that he really enjoys it. He gets tremendous value from helping us figure out this key social issue! He’s giving us what he can – knowledge, experience, wisdom and insight. That’s his gift to us, and his contributions count, he’s helping us change the lives of young people from challenging backgrounds! You’d have to be cynical and cold hearted not to want to support that!

He is already paid a fair salary working as a CEO, he’s not helping us for the money but because he wishes to make a difference and that makes him feel inspired and happy I would have thought.

In my mind at least, life is not what you do or what you buy, but how you experience it that defines it. Life is for the living and you can’t take anything with you so you might as well live it! Why not do that in work for “blessed are those paid to do what they enjoy, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!”

Voices that echo...

2010-12-06T16:30:00.005Z

The high notes

Two things worth communicating that happened in the last week

The RSA workshop for the Social Enterprise group and the final aspects of research for a programme in trust and relationships

I have had the immense pleasure of working with Karl James over the last 6 months plus on a research project with the working title ‘Attendance’, which is actually about none-attendance, particularly in the white working class community. The students were targeted as 'serial none attendees', not the sub 50% attendance (the hardcore none attendees, which might usually expect from Romany families) but the 50 – 90% none attendance.

It’s been such a highly instructive process, as we attempt to design a teacher training programme that helps engage teachers with the emotional fabric of relationships. That gives them the ability to build and sustain relationships with students.

If you were to boil down our research, it would tell you exactly this...

“Without an authentic and real relationship between a teacher and student, there is no learning”

We're going back into the school on Wednesday to present the student voices which communicate exactly that sentiment in their own words.

After that comes the design process...

RSA Social Enterprise

The other event was the Social Enterprise Spotlight lab event, where some of the social enterprises who are driving the SE space at the RSA came together to share their challenges and set out the next year in terms of tasks and targets. We met at Diana Bird’s office at Waterloo who is the founder of Wedge Card.

Discussed were:

Driving sales
Recruitment and building ‘professional ‘ capability
Building an effective advisory Board
Franchising
Creating and resourcing a regional/organisational structure beyond the founders
Building corporate partnerships

We created a timeline and started the scheduling process that would back fill the timeline/targets. It was a very dynamic session, with a lot experience and insight in the room as well as drive and commitment to succeed. A great start.

On, not in the business

2010-11-16T11:09:00.003Z

RSA SE WEEKLY POST

My week

This week has been a big one for lots of reasons; mostly, it’s about what it takes to expand and scale and I mean that in the broadest possible sense. I’m starting to feel a little like a hamster in a wheel!

Monday

We delivered the first day of ‘Cool and Successful’ at Investec, with Kingsford School. It took the whole day to eventually win over the trust and interest of the kids. Their focus came and went a little, but some of the ideas are complex, especially for 12 year olds and this was the first time perhaps they’d heard of some of them. The feedback was sound, without being spectacular.

Tuesday

We had the circle-time session at Northumberland Park School, where we chose 24 students, who had to persuade us, why they should be chosen for Success for life. 54 students in total. The calibre of potential was high, as was their desire to be picked. Four years from now, some of them will be looking very good.

Meeting: With Skanksa to talk about engagement, as well as introduction to a school - we shared war stories. This meeting was very interesting, as it came about from a tweet. Yes we knew each other, but from a tweet (about our working with Tottenham Hotspur), we met and business may well come of it.

Meeting with Man Group, which became a little bit of a meeting/ social meeting at the Shoreditch House membership club

Wednesday

Rewrites mostly of day 2 of Cool and Successful (it needed tightening up) and as all our content is written, for the purposes of scale, it was a necessary but time intensive activity.

Thursday

Meeting with potential new management starter! Not sure if it will work out, but this is both exciting and rather terrifying, as you work very hard to build something, then there comes a point where you need to go to the next level, and that takes resources and people to move the organisation forward. It’s a little like dating - exciting, but weird.

Friday

RSA SE meeting

Complete the Day 2 session of Cool and Successful at Investec with Kingsford. The session focused mostly on the success aspect of the programme. We got more traction with the day, I think they were ready for it and their focus was great all day. It’s the third time I’ve delivered the programme and it's improved - you just have to deliver stuff to get it better. It’s a great CSR mechanism to engage staff members in a fun and light fashion.

The feedback from the school was very good at the end. Good.

Saturday

I watched The Social Network. I got very fired up and went home and made some decisions on the business.

Sunday

About 4 hours of strategy and rewrites at The Electric House.

Success – after 14 years on-and-off of tae-kwon-do I received my black belt. A momentous moment in a personal journey! Another success would be some clarity on some of the business direction.
Challenge – dealing with too much and not enough time. How do I move the organisation so I’m working on the business not in it – any suggestions welcome please?
Pledge – working on stage 3 and social business exchange this week

I predict a riot

2010-11-15T14:40:00.008Z

Or fooled by randomness OR when you realise YOU are the Ass!

For those in the SE space you’ll know these are very challenging times and incredible times of change, as well as opportunities!

For instance...

I was at a inner-city school recently and got talking to some representatives of the Youth Council. As they saw it, there'll be a 40% + cut in jobs and funding and it'll be front loaded too. The PRU’s will be closing, (schools won't be allowed to expel or do 'managed moves') the youth clubs will be losing their funding and a number of really good youth engagement organisations may also be going to the wall. Hard times.

However, the greatest challenge is not the shrinkage of government central funding, but a cultural attitude that seems, unshakable.

When people can’t think in new ways

We're in the age of the ‘material fantasists’. We want stuff -for free and now - we aren't grounded in reality! We're under some desperate illusions that need unpicking, such as:

We have the right to everything we want
All you have to do is turn up
It'll happen NOW
Cause and effect don't exist
Things are constant
There are jobs for life
Opportunities are endless
That desire is enough - I loathe - with a passion - the sort of fantasist, ungrounded falsehood, which suggests that simply by ‘picturing’ or ‘imagining’ something, you can achieve it as if dreaming is somehow enough? There is ABSOLUTELY no evidence (read 59 seconds) that by imagining an outcome, you can achieve it. You can wish and want all you like but just because you desire something does not mean it will happen. There will be a lot of people who become present to that little illusion over the next decade as reality bites.

We’ve had it so easy and for so long, we're bought into the collective illusion. When everything is going up, we believe it’s us - we're the reason we are so successful! We were the clever ones, that house we bought! When things are going down, it can’t be us!

It’s the fooled by randomness syndrome.

What if house prices across the nation fell by 35% - what then? What if there were no new jobs – what then? What if it turned out that going to university meant nothing in the eyes of future employers – what then, other than £40K+ debt? What if the UK were to continue to slip down the world pecking order – what then? What if there were no such thing as a job for life – what then? What if it turned out that pensions for our generation where valueless – what then? What if you couldn't resource your own job, your employer would let you go? But you didn't know the first thing about how to do that! Or what that even means!

There’s a powerful moment coming up in our cultural epoch, which will force a change in attitude. The skills needed for success are not being taught, they hardly even being talked about. I'm not even sure they're talked about in business. The hottest, coolest most interesting kids don't want to work for someone else any more, they want to be Mark Zuckerberg!

Businesses will not subsidise the development of unemployable people - why should they? They’re there to make money not pay twice for a failing educational system or society.

What do we do with this lost age?

If there are to be no more handouts (the end of the dole?), and we are demanding these young adults to contribute to society/work BUT there aren’t the jobs, or the jobs there are they don't want and even if they did, IN REALITY they don’t have the ability/attitude for the role, WHAT are we expected to do with them?

As I said, difficult times – an increase in crime? Yes, probably. An increase is sadness/rage? Yes. A sense of illusion, frustration and upset/ confusion, with no idea how to act and produce results.

It feels like something from a JG Ballard book. These cuts may well create substantial change in attitudes, they may be forced, but perhaps people only act when forced?

A public act of discomfort, A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM! Forcing us all to become conscious to what is really so THE PARTY IS OVER, awakening us from some slumber, some Bottom like dream where we realise we thought that the pleasure island would last for ever, but as in Pinocchio we have turned into Donkey's.

Lost and found then lost again

2010-11-08T09:25:00.005Z

Weekly update for the RSA Social Enterprise Group

November 1^st – 7^th

Following on from last week’s theme of losing things due to tiredness I managed to misplace my favourite cap on Tuesday by midweek I was pretty exhausted - which is when I start to misplace stuff.

The highlights of the week was meeting potential new staff, which will help us move the organisation to the next level. The other was to see stage 3 students starting to step up and run some sessions. Awesome. Lastly, the launch of the RSA SE at Cass business school.

Monday

We were straight back into delivering with two stage 1 programmes, one at Investec the other at Pearson (Edexel) with Paddington and Highgatewood Schools respectively. I delivered the Paddington session, which was on day 4; we had to ramp up the coaching to make sure the students were taking on the programme's intentions. There was some wonderfully heated and passionate peer coaching moments. Feedback from the school has been favourable.

We’re also starting the work of planning an integrated portal or our businesses and students.

Tuesday

Had a meeting with SSAT, which was a super interesting snap-shot/health check of the current educational landscape; funding wise and what the near future will look like - I like our contact there, she's very switched on and calls things as she see's them. The market is moving very fast.

I took a stage 3 student to meet some of Addington High’s management team in the afternoon. We had a moment with the Principal in the reception, who I think wanted to eye balls us; rightly so. Because we’ve been doing this for a while, there’s a level of surety to us, which means we don’t have to over sell. We did get quite a grilling! Which is good, it means they care. We then went back to the office and a couple of hours fiddling with things.

Wednesday

Bob Crow strikes again so I cycle in; lovely morning for it, thank goodness! I started with a morning meeting with a leading US law firm.

Brainstorming session with the MD around the programme and the business, which was very useful!

Then over to the RSA SE launch event at CASS Business School. See blog here

Late night home in taxi cab. Growled at having to pay £32. Stopped off at the Electric for a quiet moment to myself and then catch the bus home. V tired, reflective.

Thursday

Met with a current client to discuss on rentals; most insightful! An upgrade next year I sense!

Meeting with potential hire, who I think would add a lot of value to the management team here. It was the 2^nd meeting we have a third in for next week to look at the practicalities.

Friday

An early start for a rewrite on a programme I’m delivering on Monday entitled ‘Cool and successful’. Hammered it for about 4 hours, into office for write up, re-read and make further amendments, get the support materials in line. Invite guests for day 5’s of the stage 1 programme. Off to TKD, home for 11!

Saturday

Delivered a day 4 session to Clapton Girls. Almost all the girls turned up! It was a brilliant session for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was some real engagement and ideas being shared. Secondly, we had stage 3 students coaching them. It added such a fantastic level of engagement. We also had some potential new staff that the stage 3 students were interviewing. Michal Cutting was the Power Hour speaker from Linklaters. A special nod to the man for giving up his Saturday lunchtime, he had them in his palm by the end. I sense a lot of young ladies now wish to be lawyers!

Home to cook dinner for the in laws. A rather delicious cottage pie if you must ask.

Sunday

Chillaxing, with walk through Hyde Park in the low winter sun, cawfee in hand, chatting about life. I finished the day with a late work out at Gym Box Westfield. Nice.

Success - stage 2 students are now ready to develop stage 1 & 2 students. Met some potentially great people to bring into the organisation. We had a couple of our students pitch a business - independent of us. The RSA Launch
Challenge - how to resource the quality of people coming in? Hey, how about I to stop loosing things?
Pledge – speak to 10 new people about what we do; set up 3 new meetings; rewrite day 2 of cool and day 5 of the foundation programme.

Walking into the woods

2010-11-04T10:23:00.003Z

RSA Social Enterprise launch event at CASS Business School

Q: How far can you walk into the the woods?

The answer of course is - half way, after that you are walking out of the woods! Last night we started a journey that will, we hope, accomplish on three objectives:

Have more people join the RSA
Have Fellows/Members join the Social Enterprise group
Support people to steel themselves and set up a social enterprise – with all the risks and benefits attached

We have Bob Crow to thank for making our lives difficult on the launch event. That said, I’m not sure how many more people could have fit it the lecture room. So our band of merry persons have offered themselves as case models to communicate what it's really like to run a social enterprise. So you, dear reader - whoever you are - are the fly on the wall into our lives.

A snap-shot of that life right now:

I’m tired, and I mean bone-tired and looking forward to a break – it’s booked. We are under resourced; therefore, I feel as though I never get to the bottom of any list that I create.

However, the worst effect of being tired is it impacts new creative thinking, which is the ability to come up with solutions to ongoing problems, which is essential to discovery of what it will take to go from where I’m at to where we need to go. Sometimes I forget which plates I’m spinning! Cue distant sounds of breaking crockery!

But even if I wanted it to all stop – which I most definitely don’t – I’ve walked too far into the woods to turn back... I’m sure that we’re now walking out of the woods!

We’re hiring talent to join us, which is exciting, challenging, and scary. It’s V painful when you hire the wrong person, as they usually resent working for you and produce poor results too. It’s a lose-lose scenario! As there's reputation risk - theirs and yours to manage when it doesn't work out!

We’re learning to give up control – it’s the chemistry of the things you can’t control that ultimately define a growing businesses success, not the things you can!

Thanks to Matthew Taylor, Malcolm Scovil and Sarah Tucker for last nights event and the enterprise as a whole!

Status Anxiety

2010-10-31T13:10:00.010Z

RSA Social Enterprise update

The Social Enterprise Spotlight site is now up. Please check it out!

Most weeks I pick up a theme to examine as a potentially rich vein of thought both for my own personal development as well as ideas for my programmes, this week’s theme is Anxiety. I’m reading Alain De Botton’s Status Anxiety, which looks at the cultural fabric of anxiety and how it draws us into a low level anxious/ stimulated state. Be it the Internet, our social relevancy, comparisons, materialism and advertising and its evil twin, desire and want.

I’m also delving into my own anxieties and where they sit in me and what might be their genesis.

Anxiety profoundly impacts our experience of life; it’s constantly stimulating and never restful. A little like caffeine, we crave it, but it does strange things to us. I sense most of us deny it. We endeavour to control it, I know I do. But that controlling mask, the machinery we employ to manage our anxiety isn’t sustainable. So I’m endeavouring to understand how I can be with my anxiety and then change it, then teach that process.

What makes us anxious?

Ageing
Not being as successful as others, particularly those I’m in competition with or compare myself against
Lack
Not being good enough
Lack of capacity
Too much
Other people

I sense that below the surface we're all rather anxious pretty much all the time, we just manage it with different controlling mechanisms – some healthier than others.

MY WEEK

Monday

Its half-term, which gave us the opportunity to do some additional credit programmes. We also had the interviews for stage 3, for which we had a discretionary briefing for on Monday.

I had a frustrating conversation which hinged around the charity v. Social Enterprise debate, I don’t mind discussing it, but what is hard is if people are fixed and don’t want to look at the pros and cons of each structure - what is more important the legal structure or the impact/sustainability? Especially when the person involved didn’t really even know what their charitable partners did exactly. Tiring.

It looks like we might be doing something with a Premier football club later in the year. That would be fun for the kids on the programme I sense. I prefer rugby myself and was rather excited to be introduced to Will Greenwood this week. Let’s see how that goes!

Tuesday

S4L delivered an evening session at YSC on 'Team - helping others succeed', we had a special guest from the HR department from the John Lewis group, whose feedback during and after the session was fantastic and spot on. She clearly gets what we’re trying to do.

I managed to have 4 students say they'd come to a follow day’s session in the last 15 minutes of the day as we were short of numbers, which I enjoyed creating. 2 of the 4 turned up! Not bad. 10 showed up for the session.

Wednesday

8 am start at the RSA Networking event at the Tate followed by a personal viewing of Gauguin’s exhibition. Followed by a meeting with Karl James who is an expert in a technique called Dialogue. We’re working on a teacher training project together which looks at attendance and engagement. After the meeting, I got back into administration and calling potential clients.

We had two sessions at Investec, one on future success the other on GCSE success; we got a lot of new staff engagement on those sessions.

Thursday

We had a day 3 for stage 1 at KLGates with Clapton Girls School. It’s their half term, but even still disappointed to see three girls didn’t show up, all with reasonable excuses. We had a young lady (from a different school) demand to come and watch, she hadn’t been chosen; she just found out where we were and made a case for herself. Wow! How could I not accept that kind of interest!

I caught the end of 'Interview success' at Investec, lovely to see happy faces!

Friday

Interview day. I met with 18 students (36 in total) all applying for stage 3! I didn’t finish till gone 7 and many of them have so many challenges they face. I wish I could do more for them.

Saturday

Boxing - my skipping rope turned up. Then off the to the Electric to thing about ideas and programme content.

Meanwhile across town, we had a session on the 'desire to learn, develop and improve' with Highgatewood, Globe Academy and some catch-up students. Delivered not by me, and I hear the session and the ideas in the programme went well. A feather in the cap for scalability, a thought, never far from my mind.

Sunday

Reading and thoughts on content. Had a great call with someone who is going to contribute to the organisation.

Success - 36 interviews in a day. A potentially great meeting set up. Social Business Exchange has started to take it's first steps - very exciting!
Challenge - How do I break the the loop so I can work on the business and not in it!
Pledge - Make 50 dials (which I didn't do last week!) and set up minimum of 3 new meetings

Launch of the RSA SE

2010-10-28T21:19:00.002+01:00

Here is my first piece for the RSA Social Entrepreneur blog - what do you think?

As we approach the launch of the RSA SE event (November 2^nd), I am becoming acutely aware of the fact that we’re putting all our laundry on public display. Far from having it all handled, I feel the very raw anxiety of not being able to control the thing we’ve created.

AE leads me and I follow, more than the other way around. We spend a great deal of time trying to grapple with the magnitude of what it is we’ve created and how to deliver on the vision. A vision that has high stakes, as the young people we work with have been promised things and have now real aspirations, hopes and ambitions. We have to deliver, this is no plan B in this regard.

I know we’ve been exceptionally fortuitous to this point and have made substantial progress, all things considered. Yet I know at any moment things could take a turn toward the rocks regardless of how our little duck feet paddle!

We’re ambitious and we know we produce - in some areas - fantastic results, but when one strives for something one doesn’t currently have, one often feels a sense of something to be achieved, something missing that isn’t here, a gap perhaps? That is unsettling, un-eastern and stressful.

I hope that the next 12 months will be a journey into personal discovery as much as one of professional success and I hope communicating that experience (success and failure) is something of value to you.

Wish and want

2010-10-25T11:14:00.002+01:00

RSA Social Enterprise update

As we move ever closer to the launch of the RSA Social Entrepreneurs network I’m starting to feel a tiny bit nervous about the whole thing. We’ve already sold out for goodness sake! 27,000 invites were sent out!

One of my commitments to the network is to communicate what it’s like running a social enterprise – the ups and downs - the reality of it in order to support others who want to grasp the nettle.

Why not join the RSA SE group here to find out more about the activities and support!

Weekly updates and insights

Monday

Started the week with a little bit of disappointment. A potential client decided they wanted to do everything internally for the next 18 months, in order to understand better what they have. Both the lead contact and I think that is a mistake, but it’s their business.

This week on reflection it seemed to be about letting go of attachments and investigating the idea of attachments to things and outcomes.

Tuesday

We delivered a stage 1 programme of Success4Life with Highgatewood School at Investec and my focus was on facilitators and the programme working through a nuggety process.

The programme really stepped up, the engagement was high and the feedback from the school was excellent. Good an up!

A central spoke in Success4Life is having all the students set up and run their own social purpose business. I’m making excellent progress in developing that and also put together an extraordinary network of leading business owners to work within that framework. We’re making real progress with that network. Another up!

Wednesday

We delivered a day 3 session of stage 1 at Linklaters with Paddington Academy. We had our first drop out. Such a shame! (a down) We make great progress with the group as a whole, I’m enjoying working with this group every much and the feedback from the school is they’re now starting to see change within the school. One or two of the students may well need more support than we can currently offer through this programme. Too busy to change the model right now. Goes on my list.

In the evening we had the honour of being nominated/ shortlisted for the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award and we went to the black tie event at Mansion House with the Mayor and other dignitaries and aldermen.

We didn’t win, I didn’t expect to win, it would have been nice, but for me the honour was in being invited and to be part of the experience. We are (comparatively speaking) the new kids on the block, so it was a great opportunity to have so much PR with the City present and the food was delicious! An up and a down!

I lost my favourite scarf on the way home. I only lose things when I get very tired! I was very attached to that particular scarf! A down!

Thursday

An 8.30 presentation at Northumberland Park to the new year 10’s for S4L. Early out!

I met with Richard Marett who founded WhizzEducation – which is a great maths product that has some excellent tools that assess the learner - in the different math subsets. This is very useful, as in anyone math class there is an average 4 year gap between the best and weakest student and a teacher has to engage with both productively. Clever.

Misplaced by swipe card! Tired. Seeing a pattern emerge. Down - £20 to replace!!!

I read that the LDA look like their having their entire budget cut! Anything that isn’t nailed is being clawed back! Ouch!

Friday

RSA Social Enterprise group 8.15 meeting.

Caught up with Lucian Tarnowski, founder of Bravenewtalent a fantastic recruitment tool for graduates and business owners, Lucian is such a thoughtful and kind young man too. I think he’ll do very well. Steve Moore joined us.

Saturday

Boxing. Rest. Caught up with friends. Someone took my skipping rope, I’d had it for 20 years! Disappointed.

Sunday

Sunday lunch after walk talked about strategy as well as briefing for stage 3 and then got down to re-writes - Stages 1 & 2 (about 4 hours worth)

Summarise

So I lost a bunch of things this week, including potential clients. You can wish and want many things and then there are the circumstances in which you find yourself. It’s tough and it’s gonna get tougher, as the budgets shrink, however, we all need to deliver more for less; salaries will have to come down, others will contribute more and for those that really add value the market space is very exciting. everything changes, and it’s so easy to get attached to things and existing ideas. But if you don’t change, you may find yourself unchanged!

Challenge - In America if you sign up a district, you get all the schools in the UK you have to meet each school independently; it’s a nightmare and slows things down endlessly. How to get more introductions to schools? Can anyone help?
Success - Shortlisted at the Mayor’s Dragon Awards, kick started a programme.
Pledge - 50 dials this week

Look – no hands!

2010-10-18T10:52:00.003+01:00

Another week on the roller-coaster

It felt like one a heck-of-a-week and as I write this in a cafe in Kensal Rise, it allows me to have some very useful Sunday reflection time.

Monday

Last week started with a meeting with the CEO of Business in the Community. I enjoy Stephen’s company very much, a kind and generous man who clearly can draw upon a lot of experience. I personally enjoy the company of older people as they have the benefit of life experience and we can all learn from that!

I then caught up with Darren Robson, who is doing great work with Penna, The Kids Company and the Association for Coaching

We finished the work day dashing over to Egham to meet up with Kerry Foods who we’ll start work with later in the year. I’m very proud of the guys there - they clearly want to make a difference and are committed to the process. Good people. Good company.

Tuesday

We were delivering at Linklaters with Highgatewood School.

I also caught up with the brilliant David Ramm of EAPD to talk law and networks.

Wednesday

Not a very productive day, one of miscommunication. I had scheduled some conversations on the phone that never happened in the end. Finished the day with an evening session on ‘expressing yourself’, which is the final session of stage 2 at Man Group. A cool session and the last time I imagine I’ll see some of those students.

Thursday

A fantastic meeting with an Investment bank, as I put together an AE network of business owners and entrepreneurs. - very excited about the way that might progress.

Caught up with Nick Martin, who I find very engaged and up for life. A good man!

I finished the day meeting a school to see if they wanted to work with us, I sensed it went well, I should hear back from them with a week or two! Good teachers who are committed to their boys.

Worked late into the night on rewrites for Saturday’s session on ‘the desire to learn develop and improve’ – tired!

Friday

We had Paddington Academy at Man Group – great session! I worked with a new facilitator, and I thought that worked well. He has bags of experience working with young adults. Some hilarious moments and already I can spot some potential super stars!

Tired but still managed to get myself to Tae-Kown-Do.

Saturday

I delivered a session with Northumberland Park alongside catch up students from Walworth and Oasis – the tubes were down so we started very late. It was a hard / difficult session for lots of reasons, including having to ask a couple of boys to leave. I’m very present to the fact I have to hold the tension between keeping them engaged verses what business actually want and they'll need.

I want to create an alternative programme that is for those that can’t stay on success for life, which is lighter, more fun and playful, with games and activity. However, a couple of students have really grabbed the experience it’s very exciting when students share about the fact they used to be on E’s and now they’re getting A’s!

Meanwhile, across town, Clapton Girls School were working with us. Imagine a Saturday session from 9 till 3.30 and they all (but one student) turned up! By themselves! Fantastic!

Sunday

Rewrites for Day 3 of stage 1 / foundation programme of success for life! Tired but I managed to hang out with one of my best mates for a good workout!

Back in the saddle

2010-10-08T17:28:00.007+01:00

...but with saddles sores

This week saw us go back to delivering stage one or the foundation programme – brilliant but tiring.

Over the summer we’ve done extensive re-writes in an attempt to tighten the script/content, which meant that we came back from the summer into the delivery phase feeling like we’re on top of the programme ready to scale up later this year. When we have a moment we'll give the support process and documents the old super plus plus treatment too. It's funny what you prioritise!

We had Clapton Girls School at Linklaters and Paddington Academy at CHPD and then we had a team session – stage 2 - at Investec.

It’s the first time the team have gone through the foundation programme, and psychically holding the space for the new facilitators, staff, teachers, content, business contacts and 20+ young adults is a lot of new and I find 'new' very tiring myself!

As a result of 3 sessions I’m crawling into the weekend, absolutely exhausted...

I went to the RSA lunch time lecture with Michael Geoghegan who is Group Chief Executive of HSBC Holdings plc.

To summarise – China, India, Brazil are actually where the global power base has swung additionally, Chile, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey are where the next countries of growth lie. This mirrors Martin Sorrell’s lecture recently.

We had a meeting with our accountants, which was interesting, as they thought we were doing very well - a number of their clients were struggling in this current climate. That was encouraging.

Activity

I had four client meetings; one was an existing which was a renewal meeting where we had a super talk and they’re totally behind the work. Which makes meetings a pleasure as it occurs as partnership not persuasion.

I also went to Sally Bibb’s book launch Do the Right Thing. It was good to support her!

Oh yea and we have been shortlisted for the Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award – Twice!

Not a bad week but I think I need another holiday already!

Success – A couple of great meetings that I sense will turn into new clients
Challenge – how to deliver a session, then have meetings afterwards and not feel as though you are exhausted!
Pledge – I’d like to sign up a couple of new schools over the next month for next term and I’d like to bring a couple of new businesses on board too

If you wish to come to the RSA Social Enterprise launch event please book your place at the Eventbrite

Nexus, atomic propositions and the illusion of self

2010-10-05T13:27:00.004+01:00

the tiger or the wood - it makes no difference

I’ve been kicking a few ideas around over the weekend, and I’m thinking about embedding them into the programme somewhere.

First was nexus; the bonds and connections we have within our minds, the nexus of thoughts as well as connections that we have with others and what has us stay within people’s orbits.

What are those connections built upon and what are the ties that bind?

Geographical or tribal?
Family and friends?
Beliefs, values or religion?
Ideological or political?
Love, lust or hate
Social necessity?
A mutual desire to help and be kind to others?
Anxiety or mutual interest?
historical and familiar

I was also reading Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Wittgenstein and how language can be a limiter to human thought and understanding and not the enabler we assume it is.

His assertion being that in a mad and often meaningless attempt to communicate our thoughts to others we lose the key ‘facts’ within the information transference and all other none facts are to be passed over leaving only the atomic propositions/facts. He attempts to bring science and truth to communication.

Here is his famous formula ,

And that anything that can’t be simplified or ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’ as its lack of clarity or its sheer magnitude cannot be communicated in words. His work points the the blind spots in our communication and thinking.

This follows on from an enquiry I’ve been doing on the pattern forming evolutionary nature of the brain. E.g. the brain’s evolutionary leap is to filter everything out except the key information that would cause – fight, flight or freeze.

We process 14 million bits of info per second and the capacity of the conscious mind is about 18 bits per second. So we only see the tiger moving in the wood, not the wood itself - a brilliant evolutionary jump but profoundly limiting, as language (a comparatively late human development) follows the same limiting construct. So when someone says something, our mind interprets it in pictures so what others say is a personal invented approximation and then screens everything else out – we all picture coffee or Jesus (a good looking Italian with a beard) differently – so we rarely think or understand anything new, as we fall back to what we understand and can grasp (or think we can grasp).

Thus communication or what we think is communication is delusionary and a continuation of the illusion of self.

Brilliant spelt out in John N Gray’s Straw Dogs – which everyone should read.

The genius is spotting future success in the seed

2010-10-04T11:18:00.003+01:00

RSA Social Enterprise

I was ruminating on the fact that a peer of mine accused me of being “hard on myself – but in a good way”. I have been evaluating / reflecting on the remark over the last fortnight or so. I’ve always known myself to be driven and competitive, and ... yes I suppose (grumpf) hard on myself, I just don’t think I like other people pointing out what I already know. ‘Being hard on myself’ suggests that I might not know that about myself, it kind of points to lack of self awareness and insight, darn it!

I run the gauntlet of trying to keep hold of the reasons why I want to be successful vs. just being dementedly driven for success and losing sight of the bigger picture, which (which I think) helps keep things in perspective! On a sort-of results vs. happiness scale!

This week gave a perfect example of that; we had a wonderful celebration event mid-week for the stage 2 students graduating - check out the pictures here. The night was so up-lifting and fantastic. However, I’ve now got myself to the point where I only see what could be improved or didn’t work, or missed opportunities. The benefit of this mindset is improvement, the downside is I’m never where I’m at, and I’m always somewhere else.

My week – ups and downs – RSA Social Enterprise programme

This week I had two meetings cancel or reschedule. One is the fourth time, I should just take the message right? But owners and SE’s should get used to moving meetings, it’s just part of life, things always take longer that you think and yes is never a yes until the money is in the bank. On a more productive note, I had a couple of meetings one was super interesting the other was one ... well, I probably could have done later, given the current time pressures. But as my old friend Khalil Ibrahimi said, you have to kiss a lot of frogs – e.g - one never knows. Still, another valuable lesson I’m fully yet to be learn, given the constraints of time and all that.

We had two circle-time sessions, one with Clapton Girls School and the other at Paddington. Both were brilliant and exciting, moving and insightful. We’ve made our suggested success for life student lists. The journey begins proper next week.

I had a bunch of very cool phone conversations which have progressed some new clients relationships.

The week’s highlight though without doubt was the graduation event at Investec (mentioned above), where we invited some of our clients as well as parents to witness the AE students.

Success – taking the students to the end of stage 2, having written, delivered and administrated two intensely thoughtful programmes which combined add up to near 100 hours of written content. I’ve forgotten how many times I’ve re-written the content in a desire for it to be excellent! That we could bring 45 + students with us whilst writing it, and that they could change so much! That is success! AND remarkably, we’ve somehow persuaded a bunch of other people to resource that experience too. Not bad!
Challenge – how can we move from a situation where constantly everything is last minute and stressful, to a process driven organisation AND without losing the buzz of the new!
Pledge – to think altogether bigger and better than I do right now!

Spinning Plates

2010-09-27T11:17:00.005+01:00

[RSA Social Enterprise update]

My father said to me that the older you get the more balls you have to juggle, you get better at juggling! My thoughts are with him in particular.

The week has been all about multi- tasking!

When you set up your Social Enterprise until you can afford to resource properly you have to do everything yourself! And if I have strengths, I certainly have weaknesses. These become more apparent the busier you get!

I remember reading that if you can do something today, you don’t have to do something tomorrow, this week, like many felt like two weeks into one!

I had three account meetings and a new business meeting at the City Hall, which was hilarious, as Boris came to say hello!

I delivered the second to last session (12 sessions over a year) of stage two to a small but brilliant group of success for life students in one of our client’s offices while Ed Miliband (now the Labour Party’s leader) was having a party up stairs. I asked the students to reflect on that whilst they were endeavouring to understand what it might take to ‘walk their own path’.

However, the highlight of the week though was a train-the-trainer session where we had 10 potential facilitators who went through the foundation/stage one content, whilst being evaluated by students who are currently on the S4L programme. It was super exciting! We moved through five days worth of programme and thinking from 10 am till 8 + without a break - everyone was fantastically focused. So much talent and the in-put from the students which on-the-whole was electrically insightful.

We also delivered our new audition process with one of our schools, where 60 hopefuls vied to be chosen for success for life - there are only 20 places per school per programme.

Lastly, I finally spoke to an old client who – due to the economic climate – had stopped working with us. We spoke about working with each other again. What I learnt from that is never stop asking and time can change everything!

Success - we finally delivered our train-the-trainer programme - it has taken me nearly a year to finally do it! this means I'm expanding the facilitation pool!
Challenge - I need to sign up more schools and quick as I just don't have time to keep calling individual schools, it's very time intensive!
Pledge - this week I'll source 5 leads for new schools or businesses!

Practicalities & progress

2010-09-22T11:19:00.006+01:00

The importance of business and social networks and an up-date on progress

Business networking

It feels as though my feet haven’t touched the ground since I came back from France and our Burgundy business trip with some very cool business owners, lawyers, bloggers and thought leaders.

Please have a look at the extraordinary talents Paul Clarke’s photo’s of the business trip here:

These trips are always more intense and tiring than your realise and I can’t say I found it restful, although immensely insightful and fun. I hadn’t quite prepared for how much subsequent interest it has generated. So many people have been trying to connect and share their thoughts with me as the intention of the group expands. I haven't been so excited about something in quite sometime.

Social enterprise

I’ve been chosen by the RSA as one of their nine Social Enterprises to be highlighted and followed over the next 12 months, culminating in a celebration event next winter!

One of our responsibilities is to blog about the experience regularly, as we look to share our experiences, insights, learning and even failings. There will be

three established social enterprises,
three midterm and
three start ups.

Every month we’ll be sharing our successes, challenges and a pledge (s) for the following month as we disseminate what it’s like in the current market to be a social enterprise. The launch of the RSA SE group will follow later in the year! I sense it will have a great deal of traction as Matthew Taylor is super supportive of the network. If you want to get involved or find out more go to the RSA website here:

Progress and practicalities

We’ve signed up all the schools we can work with this term, so my focus now shifts onto the spring term.

If you didn’t see our trip to Downing Street yet or the subsequent BBC news interview here it is: BBC and Downing Street/ Nick Clegg clip here

Business sign up continues to develop a pace; we made a very conscious decision to be a social purpose business and not a charity and in this current market that decision seems to be bearing fruit. As one of our clients said only yesterday, you're ‘solution focused’ not ‘problem focused’. If you're a social enterprise/charity and you are going to your paying clients to moan about the problems and challenges you face, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM!

Everyone, wishes to be successful and their ventures to succeed, but when as in a certain case recently a very high profile organisation set up a school event day and only 3 out of the 20 students turned up, you can be sure your contract won’t be renewed and neither should it be. Clients e.g people like you and I want it to work and they want your help. If you can help them you are gold dust, if you can’t YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

I get frustrated with the slowness of things and I can push too hard. I produce results, but don’t always take people with me. It’s always a balance...

Success - We signed up 3 new businesses and a new school this month!
Challenge - How to find the right talent to join the team? If you are interested and experienced drop us a line
Pledge - This next month I'll attempt to sign up a new business and start looking into open NEET programmes and how to fund those.

What is good?

2010-09-08T11:01:00.003+01:00

And a moments pause

Having just returned from my (relaxing) summer break, I was rudely met with a London underground strike and the ensuing travel chaos. A combination that was as much jolting as it was brutalising. Perhaps less is more? I need a holiday...

As I sat reading and sun bathing, I have to admit that I couldn’t remember being quite so tired in a very long time. I caught the obligatory cold, no doubt a combination of the airplane trip and the general state of my run-down-ness; I literally crawled into the break.

I was hoping to be inspired by what might be next in our adventure, but I’m not even sure if did too much reflecting. More a state of being comatose, where eating and sleeping and drying out my bones in the sun was as much as I could muster.

These are the books I took:

A.C Grayling’s – What is good

Mark Earl’s – Herd

Eric Walter Frederick Tomlin’s - The western philosophers, an introduction

All worth a read if you get a chance. I also managed to go over a paper I’m writing that summarises our approach. The working title is Esse, as in 'being'. I believe passionately that developing one’s being is at the heart of success and is central to our work. I’ve been kicking it around for a while; it is improving, but slowly...

It’s been the most extraordinary whirlwind this year, culminating to a drop to Downing Street. If you haven’t watched the interview with Huw Edwards here it is:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCl7WQyqm20

I’m back in London for a couple of days and then turn around for a business and friendship wine tasting trip to Burgundy...more on that later.

The Launch of The Big Society Network and the (potential) future of Conservative thinking

2010-07-18T10:31:00.007+01:00

This week saw a) the Downing Street launch of The Big Society Network

& b) a vision of progressive Conservatism at The Institute for Government

Downing Street

There were some familiar faces in the room that I managed to catch up with:

Stephen Howard (Business in the Community), Rishi Saha (Head of New Media CCHQ), Sir Paul judge, Emma Harrison (A4E, Board of the Eden Project) , Matthew Taylor (RSA), Geoff Mulgan (The Young Foundation), Karl James (Dialogue Project), Cliff Prior (UnLtd) and of course the ever present Steve Moore.

It was an opportunity for the launch of the BS Network, as well as set out some of its top line objectives courtesy of the Prime Minster and the CEO of The Big society Network Paul Twivy. here .

This is one of the Conservative’s central ideas (courtesy of Steve Hilton) and one the public seem to have latched. What BS means exactly is still unclear, although the PM brought a little more flesh on the bone as well as some more clarity of its direction.

I sense that the PM is trying to avoid the mistakes of the Blairite administration and endeavouring to steer clear of a centralist, top down approach to government. Which may be spooking the Tory old guard, who want a more old fashioned, traditional, paternal, 'growth and ideological' driven government; perhaps hankering for the ‘glory days’ of the Thatcherite years, they are searching for some perceived certainty; however, different times require different approaches, and what was possible in the 70’s and 80’s isn’t possible nor wanted now.

I was speaking to Matthew Taylor who challenges (amongst others) the BS movement (see his blog here) by asking whether or not it is simply a meaningless catch all term for anything the Government does or is avoiding to do.

The questions often asked of BS is - what does it mean? How does it work? What policies that will support it?

Matthew was questioning where it might stop, for instance in the age of austerity, when you make cuts, are they just ‘big society cuts’?

What will the phrase come to mean, or will it just represent anything to do with austerity?

His next challenge was that when the government make spending cuts to Prison, Health, Education budgets, it’s usually the innovation departments that get cut first, which means very little change or new will happen, and those 'innovations' are exactly the things we are looking toward to get us out of this mess.

The Institute for Government

Later ... BS was debated further at The Institute for Government, in a seminar entitled ‘The Future of Conservative Thinking’

The panel included Lord Bichard, Nicholas Boles, Philip Blond, James Forsyth and Jonty Olliff-Cooper.

It seems we are in a fascinating epoch of British ideological, economic and cultural well-being.

We are a nation in decline and we can’t follow the simple beliefs of yesteryear that growth is the answer, because it’s not.

The internal levers of growth for UK Plc have stalled; North Sea Oil is almost spent, the financial services have spluttered and coughed, the housing boom is over, and we no longer lead the way in advertising or the creative industries. To impact the issues further we have an extraordinary deficit, low levels of savings and the potential of a double dip recession, and to really turn the screw the global situation is pretty dire. In essence, the UK has to learn how to become successful in a declining market and as a declining player on the world stage.

Some of the ideas discussed at the seminar were:

What to do when there’s no money left? Especially with massive costs in the pipeline, such as unsustainable pensions, an aging population and the projected quadrupling of NHS costs as a result
There’s an increased break-down of social cohesion and community that is showing itself in acts of anti-social behaviour
How can they charge the behaviour of general public to engage and take responsibility and ownership for the community?
How can they target the early years agenda (which is being championed by IDS)
Creating more transparency and more local engagement and ownership
Given the lack of money and the current situation, can they afford to be an ideological party or rather one that needs to muck in and resolve the issues?
How do you reform when you have little or no money to implement reform? Does it even want sharp ideological values in a pragmatist age?
The importance of supply side economics
An acceptance that individual wealth isn’t a good way to create a sustainable and healthy society – a linear connection in society, rather than verticals, based on hierarchical wealth generation, where people are more preoccupied in measuring money than the meaning of relationships
A desire to steer away from the big levers of economic or state directed capitalism – sharing the wealth and championing the real driver of UK PLC which is SME’s
The importance of free association economics
This was discussed in the model of mass mutual’s (could you imagine such an idea under Thatcher?) and the importance of open trust networks as they try to find the levers of wealth balance.
The great hope being that civic society works as they try and rid suspicion, and bureaucracy. In essence, we need to value and find more meaning in connections and community and less in just purchase, wealth and growth, which will challenge many conscious and unconscious beliefs about our lives.

These are some very big ideas, that will take some selling and in particular with the media. However, these are extraordinary times. We are all going to have to make do with less, whilst more is demanded of us and somehow... find happiness and community in the process.

Making sense of a working week; the downs and the ups

2010-07-11T20:20:00.002+01:00

I was asked to describe what my typical week was like as a Social Entrepreneur – I wanted to thread my week with a week in news and politics, I’m not sure it works but anyways...here goes

They say a week is a long time in politics; it has felt like such an up and down week for me and (perhaps) for the nation too...

Last weekend the disturbing news of Raoul Moat the steroid fuelled, newly released prisoner, who shot his ex partner, killed her new boyfriend and then shot up a policeman. Was this to be another Derrick Bird?

Monday was the announcements of the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) cuts, which now looks as though anything that hasn’t already got the digger started on the lot it isn’t going to happen. I have a client and potential client in this space. I know BSF wasn’t a strong policy or well designed/ implemented, but personally speaking for my business, a down!

There are noises too from the US of a double-dip (but perhaps they have their own agenda here – after all who will buy their goods and services?). BP share value continues to drag pension funds down as the sobering news (which I sense is more about expectation management than reality) of a 40% departmental cut review sent a shiver down the collective national spine.

I was discussing with a client the regional issue of government employment, which tends favour the labour heartlands and that governmental involvement tends be focused on the less well off, (as there’s a lot of noise about how the poor will be the most hit by the cuts – which is an obvious statement) as the better off tend to pay taxes to support the less well off. He shared with me the new acronym SWINE, which is a development of PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain), which are dangerously over leveraged/ broke and could (potentially) get de-coupled from the Euro zone. SWINE stands for Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the North of England, this means that the SE will probably fair better over the next few years than SWINE, which have historically relied heavily upon government funding for jobs in the past. This favouring of the SE tends to be the case under a Conservative administration, and sadly, it could end up being another stereotyping of political tribalism although not intentioned.

However, there’s a broader political intent, which is to make UK Plc more competitive, as well as creating a dynamic workforce. Along with the central and as yet not publically discussed objective to expand the percentage of UK wealth creators, as opposed to those who rely upon the wealth creator’s taxes for their salaries and pensions of those employed by the state.

There is only a finite amount of money, and the UK can’t afford to keep on taking endlessly from the wealth generators, as it will hurt us all in the long term. It’s a rather brutal correction, but a necessary one I think. We need to have more people contribute and not to take from the central tax pot, otherwise, there will come a critical tipping point moment, where we will have no more money for state pensions, NHS, state education etc.

Tuesday, I managed to renew 2 schools (up) lost one (down – a kick in the teeth, given the amazing work we do with them). We obtained a new client and renewed an annual contract (up).

Wednesday I received an invite to Downing Street as part of the Big Society network. I delivered a lovely little session to 7 Success for Life students at Investec who are on stage 2 of the four year programme. They’re genuinely starting to look like the real deal – they think intelligently, thoughtfully, can comprehend complex opinions and put ideas together very well - (up).

Thursday was potential / client meetings, again on the whole, strong feedback and I hope a new client - (up).

Friday I was to-ing-and-fro-ing from a bank and finished the day with some of the older participants helping us shape the school selection process. Seriously smart ideas and I mean top class thinking already - (up).

Saturday we delivered two sessions on ‘big picture life values’ in stifling heat without air conditioning, amazing so many turned up on a Saturday!

And Raoul Moat shot himself.

Those of you, who take an interest in psychology, will know that the unconscious mind cannot separate reality from fantasy; therefore, I sense the strangely violent end of Raoul Moat seems very zeitgeist, as we try to grasp the enormity of the retraction of central spending as the model of employment / wealth creation to one of private enterprise. Some part us all is lived out in his drama, his hide and seek Wild West cowboy-esque standoff, I’m sure of it. A lot of money spent on the apprehension of one man; couldn’t they just have sent his mam up there with a frying pan? She’d have sorted him out no doubt. Then again, she had already disowned him.

To summarise my week - very strange and one of turbulent feelings and emotions, but also one of growth, if only personally and not professionally.

I the iconoclast

2010-06-25T22:20:00.002+01:00

Picasso used to write on some of his early works ‘I the king’.

Perhaps what drove him to write those words was a process of self discovery, or of daring; I don’t know, but it takes tremendous courage to ‘put it out there’. When someone defines you, it’s a different thing altogether.

I was recently accused of being an iconoclast by the brilliant Danny Kruger, who had an article featured in this month’s RSA journal entitled the sphere of belonging. Danny is a former special adviser to David Cameron and chief executive of Only Connect. Only Connect is a creative arts company working with prisoners and ex-offenders.

I wasn’t entirely sure what an ‘iconoclast’ was, so I looked it up...

Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motive.

If that is what an iconoclast is then, heck yes, actually hell fire and damnation yes, I’m an iconoclast, I am a destroyer, a rampager, a smasher, a smiter and vandal of all things icon like.

This is why I'm an Iconoclast

Tradition, history and the structures which grow up around them are appealing they help us give this a place, an order. however, what starts as a mission or vision in time, turn into more permanent like symbols and acts such as habit and ritual, practice, and in due course buildings for those beliefs and ritualised practices buildings like churches. But I think this is at the profound sacrifice of the original the genesis of the initial idea or desire for new.

It seems that once something becomes sacred, you can no longer challenge it. In time what started as miraculous becomes fixed, immovable, untouchable, and if not watched controlling, manipulative and destructive.

When we change, it’s usually because things have become fixed, and the status quo, no longer serves, therefore, change occurs.

People being people, they want to capture that initial magic, and quickly try to replicate or capture the magic; taking the initial vision and movement of change and turning it into a tradition. So what started as change, becomes scared, fearful of change, what was once new, becomes the norm, which in turn becomes the thing that controls and limits change, it suffocates it, that kills it, in a desire to save itself protects its own interests. What was once was the solution becomes the problem...and so a endless cycle is created of...

control, destruction and rebirth/invention.

People place so much meaning to things and beliefs. But that is actually only the desire to comprehend, to give their unconscious a form, or to control the unknown, new or change.

The older I become the more I realise beliefs are important. What I believe, is that truth doesn’t preside in books, buildings, religion, words BUT in people and the space between people.

Danny and I have a number of things and beliefs in common, the greatest belief we have in common is that it is the personal and emotional connections to one another that are the most important; more important than any material possessions.

Suffering comes about through separation and distance - healing through connection, and if you always and only connect to others, happiness flows endlessly.

Social Enterprises - what now?

2010-06-23T10:09:00.007+01:00

How can Social Enterprises respond to the austerity budget?

The headlines are sobering

Education spending in England could be cut by as much as 25% over the next four years, the Chancellor has said that universities and colleges are already grappling with £1.4bn worth of cuts over the next three years, which means teachers and lecturers also face a two-year pay freeze. The ATL teachers' union warned that "this level of funding reduction will inevitably include fairly savage staffing cuts".

Public sector union Unison said workers would be "shocked and angry" and were "the innocent victims of job cuts and pay freezes

"Freezing public sector pay when inflation is running at 5.1% and VAT is going up, will mean a real cut in living standards for millions of ordinary workers and their families - already struggling to pay rising bills," said Dave Prentis, Unison general secretary.

"Nurses, social workers, midwives, paramedics, police community support officers, housing and environmental officers who provide vital public services, are amongst those who will be hit hardest by the two-year pay freeze. And for local government workers this comes on top of this year's freeze."

To impact that further VAT will rise from 17.5% to 20% on 4 January 2011.

Make no mistake this is going to hurt as the current administration attempts to balance the books. I stated as long as a year ago we were looking at 25% cuts for the public sector, this has turned out to be accurate, over the next four years in may creep up to 35%! Business has been hurting the last three years, it's now the turn of the public sector.

In real terms, we’re all going to be worse off. These are desperate measures in desperate times. All I can say to those who are furious by this that is there was little choice as there is no money left.

What to do?

Many support services will be axed; many wonderful and important local and community providers will have no more funding. These are desperate times for many. My heart goes out to you.

If Cliff Prior is right and it’s the social enterprises, charities and businesses that rely upon Govt and local funding to operate, that will be hit hardest, they will now be casting their eye for new resources and funding.

The dilemma is in this period of austerity the need for help and support will rise as the cuts bite, just when the amount of money available will fall.Which will then place yet more strain on the limited resources there is, further diluting the services and the numbers of organisations and people within in them that are trying to make a difference. Like everyone, I’m furious too, but this is not a time of recrimination but of sensible action.

If social purpose businesses will flourish, and if community engagement will blossom by necessity in this currently climate then there will be movement in the following ways.

Organisations will endeavour to either work with organisations that have resources or have business models that resource themselves independently from central or regional funding. Or they offer their services and act as an auxiliary service provider for those that know how to resource it.

They can partner or join up with other social enterprises, organisations or charities to pool resources.

Or they use natural community energy, man power and resources as part of the cost model and use those people’s good will, knowledge and experience to best use. In essence, they work with the community and all the benefits involved.

Or a combination of all three!

What definitely should stop is yet more charities and organisations being set up, because someone wants their own their charity or socent, where there are already a bunch of existing organisations doing a great job, who to be honest right now could do with your support and help to do what they do better. There are apparently over 170,000 registered charities, we don’t need any more. Take over one and make it better.

That said, and I agree with Cliff here, we should allow everyone to take part, engage, re invent, learn, share, enthuse, however, there could be someone else, somewhere else, that does something you want to do, so learn and adopt, as it may save you a lot of time and effort.

We all need a reduction in red tape. Make it easier to engage and make the barriers for entry easy, so everyone who has the passion to make a difference can.

Everyone is going to have to work harder, smarter and more intelligently to do what they do. Best of luck!

In a time of austerity, we are all going to have to work together to make society work

2010-06-21T09:49:00.002+01:00

BIG SOCIETY

On a week where Osborne gives the first of his austerity budget announcements, let me try and set out how BIG SOCIETY can respond and what it will mean to those currently engaged in making a difference, as we try to claw back £770 billion worth of Labour national deficit.

How can we all respond to this challenge and what the Conservative Party is doing.

Firstly, it's worth making the point that we must all accept the magnitude of the problem before we can move into trying to collectively resolve it.

Cliff Prior of Unltd presenting to a group of investors and entrepreneurs at the Adam Street club set out his interpretation of the winners and losers of the budgetary cuts in the following way:

Social Purpose Businesses – these are organisations that source their monies outside of the traditional government funding pools, they often work with corporate and businesses or have a direct sell service or product; they are focused on impact and results
Social Enterprises – these are the organisations, charities etc, that rely upon funding and charity to do their work, and have for a long time sought local, regional and national funding to deliver their services. Finally,
Community Enterprises – these are the every day and everyone events and engagements – the groups, experiences, clubs, teams, trips that normal people throughout the country do every day. It’s you and me in action, mucking in and helping out.

Cliff believes the winners will be...

The community enterprises, which due to necessity of budget limitations will get more engagement, simply put he believes we are all going to have to muck in and make a difference! It will become increasingly the norm to do so as we will all have to contribute to making our communities work. Good people doing good things, who are not necessarily looking for funding, but just want to contribute.

The next winners will be the social purpose businesses, as they have diversified their resources/ monies from outside of government funding, and look to partners to deliver value. All thought this space will become more saturated, they're going to do well in the current market.

Cliff suggestions that the losers will be all the organisations, charities and businesses in the middle, which he calls Social Enterprises that are currently reliant upon funding to deliver their work. He asserts that anyone who is supported by any form of govt. funding is in some trouble; which doesn’t mean that there will be no money; it’s just that there will be much less.

This bears out my experience too, I’m hearing about a lot of charities and groups that are desperately scrabbling around for funding, as the tap has been turned off.

The govt. simply has no more money left after 13 years of irresponsible, inappropriate mismanagement and overspend, justified in ‘wealth distribution/share’. However, in the long run, ironically look who have been the beneficiaries.

Many organisations will close, many people will lose their jobs, and for some these times of change will feel very hard. It’s so deeply sad, when people have to adjust so radically; tragically they’ll have to enter into a very flat employment market.

Understandably, there will be a lot of resentment, upset, sadness and anger but it would be profoundly misplaced if it were left at the door step of the Conservative Party.

We can try and fix this boat, or we can all go down. It might seem brutal, but it is necessary. The Conservative Party is responding the the challenge in the following way:

They are going to champion ‘excellence’ where they find it, so that organisations that deliver high quality impactful work can be supported as best they can that support means that ideas and best practices will be shared.
They will streamline and clarify the levers of funding both locally and nationally. We all want to know where our money is being spent! This is tax money after all. Better resourcing to those organisations that deliver quality work, less for those that don’t as they try to trim beaurocracy, red tape and administration and rid us off all those unnecessary consultants in an attempt to save money. Again, sharing best practice and weed out unnecessary practices and organisations.
Their third approach will be to support a national agenda of ‘everyone’ contributing to their community and the issues within it, through campaigns and national media by shifting attitudes and barriers to local, collective engagement.

Everyone should be under no illusion; if they have been reliant upon local and central govt. funding the gravy train has come to an end. Brace yourselves, for what will be the most austere budget since the war. As a result, there will be substantial changes, so as quickly as you can look for solutions, work with others, spread your risk, engage with the community and make a real impact, as we need you.

But if you sit around getting angry because things were different once, the evolutionary process will overtake you, as we all must grasp the vast and serious nature of this task. Everyone now needs to get their hands to the pump; together we can make society work, together we must.

But let no one again be brave enough to say the days of boom and bust are over!

Words on the bus

2010-06-09T11:56:00.003+01:00

OUR BIG SOCIETY

I overheard/observed a fascinating conversation of Shakespearean magnitude on the bus today.

A young man, perhaps 17, was canoodling with a young woman, perhaps a year or so younger. I was thinking that the young seem so in love as they kiss with such abandon.

All of a sudden he gets agitated, anxiously pacing up-and-down the bus, straining on the leash to leap out the 73. His girlfriend starts crying out in the most lamentable way, undoubtedly bourn from experience ‘what’s wrong David, you're scaring me, what’s wrong?’

Eventually, he comes back to the seat and tells her ‘I saw this guy, he owes me.’ She sobs back. ‘Leave it, can’t you just leave it?’ Like some sort of duty bound statement of heroic intent. ‘I know him and I can’t let him walk around just like that, owing me, I can’t stand it’. *Sob* ‘Can’t you just drop it?’... I watched him jump off the bendy bus, and run back down the road with athletic gusto to hand out some sort of rough justice. The young women...holding his belongings...steps off the bus, waiting for her man...emitting a lamentable jaw grindingly sad...’David, can’t you drop it...can’t you just stop’ to no one and no one (but me) was listening...

It’s our society.

I was travelling from a school meeting, where they have no more money to engage with change programmes; it seems that our task is almost tragedian.

Normalisation

2010-05-24T14:10:00.003+01:00

Apologies, but this is one of those posts, where I work out the ideas as I write it. There have been a number of stimulating thoughts that have been on my mind this week, which combined, come together around acceptance, learnt behaviours and aspirations and it’s twin, resignation and how those ideas then interweave into a research programme I’m currently undertaking into why some kids don’t engage with their school and education.

Idea 1. A friend reminded me of Billy Bragg’s song ‘between the wars’ – how, we are only ever between wars, and that it’s only a matter of time, till we are in the next one.

Idea 2. What we tolerate and what we accept, and how, given time and circumstances, we can accept or tolerate a great deal – I was recalling Brecht’s Mother Courage. Additionally, I was listening to a radio four programme, where, in archive tapes, a reporter talked live, from London, whilst it was being pounded by the German Luftwaffe. Very vivid and people seemed to survive, even flourish under such terrifying circumstances. Lastly...

Idea 3. Robert Hinde’s research work with primates, which I came across in the Antonio Damasio’s book Looking for Spinoza, which endeavours to look at the science of the evolution of emotions and feelings and how they relate to the mind and learning.

Reflections on now

I still sense people haven’t prepared themselves for the painful shock of deep public spending cuts that are now going to be announced and start to bite imminently. A lot of people are going to have to take pay freezes, pay cuts or lose their pay altogether.

The good news is, that once we have dealt and accepted the shock of change or the new, comparatively quickly it will all become normal and we’ll live in a time of austerity, and think, ‘we’re we all mad, to spend what we didn’t have?’ Were we all mad, to mortgage ourselves to the hilt, and buy things and experiences we couldn’t afford? Putting it on the never-never.

The truth is we are always in a time of change. Change is the only constant there ever is and will be.

Did the successful and opulent Rome, ever imagine that the northern barbarians would ever be at their gates? Enquiring to the whereabouts of their daughters? Or did they imagine, like we do now, that it was always going to be like this?

The task for us all is to meet that task as it truly is, not as we hoped it might be.

But how do we prepare for change? How do we teach our youth, the necessary skills to be successful, to be prepared, when many of the jobs that will be around in ten years time, haven’t yet been invented?

Clearly, we need to learn how to learn, and we need to learn the transferable skills of tomorrow, the greatest of all those skills is emotional intelligence (I know it is such a catch all and potentially meaningless phrase). In the thousands of hours I’ve spent working with young people, there’s a universal truth, that until people have learnt to deal within their internal psyche (make sense of the stuff in their head), and are shown or know what it is to feel safe, respected, and cherished, to be listened to, and understood, they have no idea what that looks like, and as a result, live in a self created universe of survival.

All children need to be shown, to see and to sense what is needed, as the complexity of adulthood ramps up – it’s experiential by nature, and is never found in a book. In my experience, once they feel themselves in a secure and nourishing setting, they blossom very quickly and respond to support. However, when they sense themselves unsafe, not listened to, that their opinions and ideas are considered unimportant, when they are told to shut up, go here, go there, and are told to learn stuff, and have no context or understanding why they are learning what they are learning and move on to the new learning before they really understand the last learning, then, they’ll disengage to protect their psyche as it’s just too much.

Alongside the traditional model of state education, we need to create educational modules, that externals like AE can deliver with the support and development of the school and it’s teachers, we really do need to listen and understand what is needed, not keep on doing what isn’t working.

As part of my day job, I often hear such difficult, sad, tragic and occasionally horrific stories, and how, even with these experiences, circumstances and relationships, they still think of themselves as normal. We all think of our lives as normal, we may want other people’s lives (or their money or life styles), but ‘our’ lives are normal NOT theirs. Reality (whatever that means) is an individual experience, but it is also learnt. An interesting line of thought might be who teaches us this ‘reality’? And what does it look like? We’re educating young people all the time, but what is it we are educating them? If in one hand, you say learn this from the book, and at the same time, you are shouting at them. The emotively/psychic heavy learning, will always take precedence over symbols in a book.

The evolution of learning and how emotions are always important

Robert Hinde’s work that caught my eye is how primate mothers teach their offspring the dangers of snakes by play acting being terrified when they first see a snake, and they do it knowingly, so that the emotional impact locks in their infants minds (and bodies), and they copy their mother, thus learning the play acting and the learnt process that snakes are dangerous, so they don’t need to learnt that little lesson first hand.

The reality of things

2010-05-17T09:59:00.002+01:00

I was intrigued to read that feedback from this year’s Shine 2010 event for Social Enterprise seemed to be summed up by Jack Graham (?), Learning Launchpad(The Young Foundation’s Social Enterprise arm) as:

“SHINE, the third annual unconference for social entrepreneurs: hundreds of social entrepreneurs, investors and supporters brought together by events producers germination and partners including UnLtd and School for Social Entrepreneurs.

It was disappointing to hear supposed leaders in the field arguing for greater detachment between social enterprise and the private sector ...With huge public sector cuts looming, I don’t know where else, other than corporate clients, start-up social enterprises should be looking to secure revenues from. Indeed many of our own investees (Space Unlimited,Working Rite and Project 390 to name but three) secure revenues by producing value for private sector clients and charging for it!

Social enterprise is defined in myriad ways – from the proportion of your revenues that are earned, to what you do with your profits to whether or not you adopt a market-based strategy. In my view, social enterprise is about finding a smart way to address both a market opportunity and a social issue (and, if you’re incredibly smart, an environmental one too). If we’re not prepared to get into bed with the private sector, I don’t understand how social enterprise can move forward. Have I missed something?

Maybe next SHINE, we can gather together individuals who are truly committed to social entrepreneurial approaches rather than those who assume that anyone tackling a social issue is, by his or her nature alone, looking to set up a social enterprise.”

This is truly a disappointing state of affairs, as people and organisations, which wish to rely upon handouts, state or local funding or even corporate funding that is gifted, will find themselves in trouble.

Why do people seem unable to deal with things as they really are? There simply is no money left, that isn’t some Tory trick to funnel money back into the hands of the rich. Your mission (if you wish to take it), dear social entrepreneur, is to make a difference AND make money and that is task for all the salmon! Swim or drown, it’s up to you.

A contracting market is a market of opportunities

As the large institutions, charities and funding bodies (what’s happening to Edge for instance?) dry up, it opens up the game to the more mobile, creative, new, driven and flexible smaller fish/ organisations. E.G the Social Enterprises, who can deliver excellent work, due to the fact they have lesser over heads, hungrier for business, and at a better price due to the fact they’re not burdened by bureaucracy and overheads.

You can, if you like, wish and want, fantasise it’s your turn on the money go round. It isn’t. You have going to have to find money and produce results where you can. That is the challenge of any social enterprise.

Reading between the lines, it seems many of the guests at SHINE 2010, still have a charity mindset, and not a commercial one. If you’re a charity, go be a charity and try and raise your funds from donations or corporate benevolence, and make your peace with that. If you wish to be a social enterprise, figure out (AND FAST) how you are going to make a genuine difference, and make money in the process. But you sure as hell can’t have it both ways. The fluffy days free from the constraints of self resourcing and results are over, thank the lord. What wasteful times have we been living in?

If you don’t believe me, read where the wind is blowing in comments in today’s news, as the balance sheet is brought under control and the cut backs begin. Do you really believe, this administration is going to gift you hand outs dear #socents? If you are not part of the solution – things being as they are – you are part of the problem!

“Ministers have already been shocked at a number of public expenditure “landmines” left behind by their Labour counterparts as what they consider to be a “scorched earth” policy by the outgoing government.

Reading between the lines, the government is endeavouring to get their own house in order, before they go after everything else, and those cuts will start impacting you and me. They’re also letting you know what lies in the pipeline. Including no more easy work for the boys, as the consultancy market is getting flat-lined. If you are a consultancy living off government work, it’s time to think about taking your business elsewhere – right about now.

Vince Cable, the new Business Secretary, told the Sunday Times: "I fear that a lot of bad news about the public finances has been hidden and stored up for the new government. The skeletons are starting to fall out of the cupboard." And David Willetts, the Business Secretary, added that Labour had left behind "not so much an in-tray as a minefield". Writing in the News of the World, Mr Osborne said: “What a mess they’ve left behind”. Mr Cameron said that he was also determined to cut the previous government’s £1.5 billion for management consultants.

Easy money is gone. Now you have to work for it. Would you want it any other way?

Riding the witches broomstick

2010-05-16T15:16:00.003+01:00

Notes form the class room # 14

I delivered a new session / programme yesterday in South Norwood Harris Academy, through NESTA’s iDiscover programme.

A session, I enjoyed delivering a great deal and I think the participants did too. It received 100% feedback, they were focused all day, and we even got a new student (stray) half way through the day, whom had heard about the programme and bunked off whatever he was supposed to be doing to be in my class.

I was struck by the student’s intelligence, thoughtfulness, caring and appreciation of some hugely complex ideas. The programme was about being cool and doing cool things, and has them appreciate / grasp what it is they believe about cool and the unconscious decisions they make in an attempt to be cool. And that being cool and doing cool things (being successful) are very different things. The next session, will be at an investment bank, as they try to grasp, what it might take to turn their cool dreams into cool realities.

The conversation, on-the-whole, flowed effortlessly between us, as we shared our thoughts and ideas on a wide ranging series of cool subjects.

These kids are 13, and might be considered challenging (by some) to me, this feels like where tomorrow’s talent will come from. They are very real / authentic, and speak their opinions with passion and furthermore, are brave enough to engage and listen, when some of the ideas were very new, or challenged what they currently believed.

Holding and being with new

I tend to script my work for reasons of scale, but this one was more open, created in blocks and as a result, was free flowing; we created the dialogue and outcomes in some sections almost together inside the conversation.

I love that aspect of what I do, that in that conversation, completely new ideas and beliefs can be created, you don’t always know where it’s going, but if you keep your mind open and your feet to the fire, you can learn things BRAND NEW, every moment so you, the participant, what you think about each other, and what you collectively think about the subject at hand are separated and understood. It’s a very transformative process.

There’s such a desire to control learning, but learning is an individual and unique experience. Forcing outcomes, and results that fit everyone, is in my opinion, ultimately not a sensible way to produce high levels of success.

Success for life

Success for life, will prove, we hope (fingers crossed) that there is an alternative educational process available. In September, when we have the graduation of the first crop proper of stage 2 students, the grade improvements will be singularly phenomenal; we are seeing something in the order of 3 entire average grade improvements. We rarely touch on academics. If another organisation is matching that, and can prove it, I’d like to understand who they are?

Big Society = Social Enterprise

2010-05-12T20:38:00.003+01:00

Social enterprise (socent) is the main jigsaw piece to the Big Society agenda

The corner stone ideology to the new administration is Big Society – see previous post here

But how will that work in practice?
Who will be the players?
How will it be resourced?

Over the next five years social enterprises will become increasingly more important to the Conservative party’s ambitious local ownership policy, and that also needs to be balanced against the fact that they need desperately to balance their books.

The cupboard is bare, there is little or no monies left in the public purse; whoever was in power would have had to face that dilemma, therefore, substantial cuts in public spending are about to start to bite. Which means any strategy solution has to demonstrate it can produce targeted results with little or no government support. Service providers need to source funding and resource elsewhere. Which is where social enterprises come in.

What is a social enterprise? They're businesses and organisations that make a difference and make money, E.G, they’re sustainable. Where as organisations that are solely reliant on funding, charity or handouts are going to come under enormous pressure, if they haven’t already.

The social enterprises that succeed over the next five years will be those that can:

a. Find resource/funding/clients and or know how to sell their service/product and

b. Can deliver value, in a way that the client (health, education, social services etc) can understand

Those that can’t, will quickly be found out or won’t get off the starting block.

Everyone will have to work for their money, and money will be scarce, additionally, they will need to prove results. There won’t be the big slugs of cash that was seen sloshing around over the last 13 years, where people could afford to be wasteful, sloppy, uncreative, or deliver little value. It will also squeeze out consultancy businesses, forcing them to reinvent themselves as social enterprise solutions.

New markets will spring up:

Businesses/services that will make money from social enterprises, offering connections, how to sell social enterprise services, how to resource, how to become a social enterprise/entrepreneur etc...

The trend has already started, as we see big business is piling into the entrepreneur and social enterprise space. Where are the best uni students going now? Their idols don’t work for banks any more, their role models are the Soho start-up cool set. Start up is cool, suits are not...but if entrepreneurs are cool, social enterprises us uber cool!

But all that glitters is not gold.

It is already competitive, and is about to go white hot, which means you will have to differentiate yourself well. And you better be good at what you do and you better be able to sell what you do!

The tension here is that it will also take a year or two to figure it out – what the market is, where/how to resource your social enterprise, what your product is etc...and there will be no time to do that.

Who are the players?

Clearly the names below are not by any means everyone or necessarily even the main players, but they have the march. Below are the Telegraph Social Enterprises that supported the Big Society agenda:

Tony Burton Civic Voice
Titus Alexander Novas Scarman Group
Paul Twivy Social Entrepreneur
Neil Jameson Citizens UK
Stephen Kearney, Julia Olsen, Nick Gardham Action to RE:generate Community Trust
Adele Blakeborough CAN Breakthrough
Sarah Hodgkinson Getting on Board
Andrew Dick Envision
Ben Lee Social Entrepreneur
Cliff Prior Unltd
Julia Ogilvy Project Scotland
Steve Wyler Development Trusts Association
Tris Dyson Spice
Emma-Jane Cross Beat Bullying
Giles Gibbons Good Business
Alex Watson Social Entrepreneur
Alison Rodwell Social Entrepreneur
Jas Bains Social Entrepreneur
Julian Dobson New Start Magazine
Daniel Snell and Emily Shenton Arrival Education
Gail Greengross Social Entrepreneur
David Barker Whitebox Digital
Katie Ivens Real Action
Malcolm Scovil Leap Anywhere
Rob Owen St Giles Trust
Jackie Hill-Wilson G-ten at Ten Lifestyle Management
Sylvia Brown ACRE
Duncan Cheatle The Supper Club and ThanksTo.com
Simon Jay Lift Community Trust
Stephen Dawson Impetus Trust
Steve Moore More Media
Tim West Social Enterprise Wire
Peter Gardner Last.fm and LeapAnywhere.com
Tracy Blackwell Pension Corporation
Yinka Makinda Social Entrepreneur
Rob Lamond Forster for Change
Marjorie Thompson Conservative Cooperative Movement
Beverley Clark and Sue Bamford Say Yes UK
Marcus Booth Travers Smith
Jo Rice Spear
Nerys Anthony Turning Point

When change isn’t change

2010-05-10T09:38:00.004+01:00

There is a process of change. That goes something like this

You have an unconscious / conscious belief or attitude
You have an insight, idea, experience that has you reassess the original belief
That reassessment gives you a new belief

That process is endless (in theory) and is in reality what change is.

One of my favourite quotes is by R. Buckminster Fuller and goes:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

What I believe is essential in human development is the thought that when an idea or an insight becomes prescriptive, it becomes the problem, not the solution. As soon as you say, this is it, you know it can’t be it, as change is constant, in fact, change is personal development and growth. When people try to corral the truth, an idea, an ideology you know they have already missed the point.

So if people write books and scripture around what someone possibly said, or may have said or thought, or their interpretation of that and then they construct buildings to hold that ‘truth’ in, and then defend it with a religious ferocity, you know they are not really about change, they are about protecting, controlling, managing and solidifying some notion of an invented ‘truth’.

The conversation about ideas, change and development is the arena in which change and development is possible. Once you start saying, well this is up for discussion, but that isn’t, then you are on the slippery slope of controlling the uncontrollable – change.

That process might look a little like this:

In spite of your fears and concerns of the new (change), you step into the new (idea, experience etc), observe and understand the feedback that other people give you, engage with the other (the new) and then enter into the process of understanding of how you engage (or not) and react as your main focus of that process.

It is also worth remembering that avoidance of any sort is a kind of psychic defence against change.

Now, it gets complicated for two main reasons:

Cognitive dissonance - which is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding twocontradictory ideas, simultaneously. EG you can have two (or more) positions on the same subject, such as you might both love and hate your spouse. We don’t, on the whole like cognitive dissonance, as it means we can’t have simplistic opinions about things – she is nice, she is not nice. It also points to a much more scary side of the mind too, which is that things are always changing, infinite, and infinitely complex. The other reason is

Unconscious beliefs and attitudes based on the control/avoidance of fear. This is where your unconscious mind/psyche dictates what you are open to or believe to be ‘true’. Therefore, your attitude toward new things and ideas is already limited, for fear of the new, which is one of our greatest fears.

Human divergence

I’ve have watched with much alarm, how during the general election, people have been quick to herd other people into camps and label each other. I’ve seen an all too easy objectification of each other. Such as simplistic notions like - Tories, are money grabbing, privately schooled, blue blooders, that want to somehow siphon all the poor people’s money into their own greedy pockets, and just as ludicrous, that - labour are some antiquated, outmoded flat cappers, urban Trotskyites and students that want to keep the docks open, want ‘paying for nowt’, and are no good trouble makers.

Both are clichés, both are pointless, both avoid the complexity of humans and beliefs, but understanding the other fellow’s point of view is hard work, and if you can corral groups around the notion of belonging through ideology, it then starts to look like a convenient box, one of the best ways to do that, is by creating an enemy in definition of 'what you are not'.

Change can come from creating an understanding of two separately held attitudes or ideas and the space in between. This is a dialogue. Not a position.

Rosebuds in the classroom

2010-05-08T14:10:00.003+01:00

Notes from the classroom series # 13

We are now three - 50 minute - sessions in, and at last, we are finally seeing the first, sensitive blossoms of change and behaviour. Delicate things, fragile buds of communications.

Two key moments that suggest we're at last finding traction:

We did some physical stuff for 15 minutes, and then we gave people the option to leave, a) only one participant left, then, at the end of the 50 minutes, I held the door open, and said everyone is free to go, and b) no one left.

We are talking about a session that is after school, with serial none-attendees and not one of them ran out the room! They all stayed to continue the conversation.

Victory! Even if small.

We have two more sessions left as we continue to endeavour listen, understand, and have them be heard. As they try to articulate in a group setting, what it is that they feel about their school and how they relate to that experience.

A thank you note

This project is supported by NESTA and Pearson and I want to thank them for their enlightened approach. Their desire to want to understand why young people are not engaging with their education is clearly obvious. Thank you to the school for their enlightened approach also. And also to Karl. He is not only an extraordinary man, but, a man of craft, of skill and of wanting to understand.

BIG SOCIETY not BIG GOVERNMENT

2010-05-05T15:44:00.005+01:00

In response to The Telegraph article today (05.05.2010)

What we all want is a successful society – a society that works. Whatever your political leaning, you’d have to be a pretty mean person not to care for your fellow man.

The question is how do you produce a society that works?

For the sake if this argument, I believe there are two processes:

Facilitate opportunities and resources to an individual from a central pot (tax), and/or
Support an individual to learn how to be self sufficient

In simple terms - do you hand out fish, or do you teach a person how to fish?

I truly believe, that we do everyone a disservice when we chose a) and just 'give on demand'. What we do is we infantilize them. If we don’t allow them to learn the reality of things, or teach them to learn experientially through that process in the reality of life - the necessity of being able to support themselves – we have in essence, ruined them. And being unable to help themselves, they fall upon others (the state) to support them.

No one has the right to anything for free, and we live in a time of expectations and rights. If you don’t prepare people for the shock of that realisation (that they need to be self sufficient and contribute to society), then they will need looking after. Which is exactly what we're doing in this country already in a wholesale fashion.

None of the young people I work with at www.arrivaleducation.com want hand-outs, they don’t want advice, and they don’t wish to be treated as people ‘in need’. What they want, what they demand, is respect and to be shown how to become successful on their own terms.

This process is personal and it’s profound. That relationship between myself and these young people is built on trust, experience, time and mutual benefit. In other words, we’re in this together. That is the true nature of social enterprise. It’s sustainable.

What neither the young adults nor I want, is central government, ‘big government’ telling me how I should do it. Let the market conditions look after that. Either, I’ll figure out how to be good at what I do, and figure out how to resource it or I won’t and then I should fold.

What will anyone in Downing Street or elsewhere, be able to tell me about what I do? I’m the expert, not them. Leave us alone to figure it out, so we can make society work, so we understand what it takes, let the real conditions of the market, separate those that add value from those that don’t.

That is at the heart of BIG SOCIETY and that is why it’s so important; it’s a common sense and sensible approach to societies real needs made authentic by market conditions. The Conservative Party want to let people figure this out for themselves; it might appear cruel, but in reality, it is just the opposite. As you must face things as they really are or what you get is political correctness, dumbing down and a society that can’t look after itself, and needs to be propped up. Which isn't sustainable.

Hasn’t 13 years given us a lot of debt and no way to pay it, with a crop of young people who struggle to understand what value looks like or a hard work ethic? Where schools are encouraged chase nonsensical de-valued grades and avoid work reality/ readiness, purpose, values, and ability?

Whitehall holds the power and the purse strings, and creates ludicrous policies and rules, for things they understand nothing about, trying to create ‘catch all’ legislation, when on the ground common sense is wanted and needed.

Please put an end to meddling central BIG government, and - let us, the people - decide what we need to do. That way, we are both empowered, learn and take ownership of our lives and our own communities.

Discord and disenchantment

2010-04-30T13:17:00.001+01:00

Some very interesting insights/ perspective on engaging with profoundly disengaged youth from someone of great experience...

Regarding the youthful discord and fractured communications...

In my understanding, it is an inherent part of ‘socialization and individuation’ to oppose obscure and ‘diss’ the opposition, i.e. anyone with superior advantages or authority. I think in part, it’s a natural enough check-out of the authenticity and integrity of the perceived surrogate parent or powerbroker. I think this also carries a pseudo tribal/ gang dynamic that reflect the control dramas of the teacher / facilitator’s / powerbrokers etc of the world these young people inhabit.

So much might appear in the defence mode when in essence it's protecting against exclusion and separation issues.

To progress successfully, I believe the mentor/ guide not only has to engage authentically with themselves in that space but represent the dynamic the young people are inhabiting as a valid but transitional place that has in it limitations that can be understood and distinct advantages in progressing beyond.

A kind of two way reach toward mutual engagement.

I think it would be hopeless to bring an idealized future into play too soon as it would just up-the-anti.

Therefore, it's a little like the pied-piper playing a very beautiful tune that they can recognize and value and lead them into deeper and more resonant truths that they can follow.

Otherwise, it's just more of the same - out of reach stuff - in which that are obliged to construct a false sense of self to follow and consequently they remain split and bury their truths in denial.

I hope these ruminations are of some help to stimulate thoughts.

Very much so...

Being with ridicule and ethnocentrism

2010-04-26T10:01:00.002+01:00

I’ve just started a new programme, engaging with the notion of school and its purpose.

Clearly, I can’t mention the school or the participants involved. However, I wanted to share some thoughts that have been stimulated through the process of delivering the programme.

The first thing that I found utterly fascinating is the conversation that exists between you and the participants, that isn’t spoken or if it is, is verbalized in strange ways. And in the communities I work in, it’s very fragmented, discordant, lacking in trust, broken, fearful, angry.

This is even more interesting if the audience is particularly this way inclined, and do all they can to unseat you in the process of checking you out, or holding to a belief of themselves.

You start the group session - working one-on-one is much easier, as groups have individual and collective existing realities and beliefs, attitudes and opinions that are mostly unconscious and assumed, we all suffer from ethnocentrism (which means believing your norm is the right and central norm), and not being able to see the world from the other fellows perspective, which is a process that one starts to engage with in healthy adolescence around the 12 + mark – with some apprehension that they don’t even want to be there, which is often the case in the first instance.

What does it take, to steer the ship through those initial engagements, forays and interactions so, you create an engaged, authentic and open relationship, built on understanding and trust. It’s the hardest ground to master for a facilitator and the most important.

I’d love to hear what other practitioners think?

And the techniques they use, as you pass through the dysfunction and overwhelm of the static white noise, of new, the ‘checking you out’, sensing who you are, into a relationship where listening, understanding and change can take place?

Working class and the class system - an erroneous term?

2010-04-20T15:20:00.005+01:00

I’m currently delivering a programme to inner-city kids on what 'cool' is, which encompasses cool and the separate notion of doing cool things, which is to say becoming successful. Being cool, is an underclass/impoverished construct, a defence against the world. I was searching to understand what the meaning/term/label ‘working class’ is currently.

No one (has yet) pin-pointed accurately or well enough the term (for me) that fully catches or encompasses the current definition and it's nuances. Is it time to relook at the notion or term - working class?

For instance:

How does social mobility impact being working class or not?
Is it a belief, an attitude, a state of being?
Is it based on an educational limitations? EG if you have a degree you can't be working class
Does fiscal success define your class?
Or where you live or grow up? Bow bells and all that...
Is it about the ability to think and produce results that defines your place in society?
Is it how you think about yourself or how others think about you that defines who you are?
Or is it a historical construct when no one had social mobility, and when you were born poor, you stayed poor?

Does it even matter?

People seem to use the term as a mechanism to define themselves (what they are or what they are not), or their place in society. As an invented and inaccurately collectively agreed term, served its purpose?

I sense, in discussions with others, it may be an excuse to avoid accountability for one’s life and the results one creates. I believe, it’s become a convenient catch-all term, to somehow help people make sense of their lives, their heritage, their anxieties, and the fluid nature of life and reality.

'Hey up i'rm workin' class' - and all that muck and brass, flat caps and whippets are out of mode and meaningless, as many attempt a Loaded lad style 'mockney' and are profoundly middle class!

Declaring themselves working class, they drive a Porche, support THFC and eat Sushi, pay over £25 to have their 'hair styling' and own cashmere jumpers! That on top of the fact they had some fee paying education, and went to university.

I believe, we need to re-evaluate the whole notion, it’s become an increasingly defunct term, and serves no one, but the lazy.

In the future, will we care where people come from? What their heritage is or was? The type or style of language people use? What they look like? The clothes they wear?

No. I think, what we’ll care more about is how people think, how they behave, how they engage with people and ideas. What results they generate, how they can grasp and run with ideas and opportunities, less defined than they are now. It’ll be people's way of being, the way they hold themselves and their belief in themselves, as well as the ability to work productively with others in fluid groups, that will become important.

The true great divide

Fear, is the great demon of the under classes (the under educated, impoverished and the poor), and like the devil, they struggle to shake it free. Fear stops trust and belief in oneself and in others, it distances you from ideas, such as - possibility, hope, expectations and new.

The first thing you notice in communities of hardship, is the hardening of the eyes, the furrowing of the brow, the tightening of the shoulders the very shrinking of the self; as the cruel and destructive personalities, clash into one another. Hardening themselves to their expectations, their future and their reality. Confirming, as that process always does, that they are as they believed themselves to be - worthless.

Social Enterprise - Notes from the front line

2010-04-18T15:52:00.002+01:00

What are the things that produce the 20/80 results?

I was sent a piece of research (from the US), where the researchers asked both teachers and students - from the same school - a series of questions about their experience of and relationship to their school (where they worked/attended), their teachers/students and their education/job.

What was incredible was the divergence in response. This got me thinking about perception and reality, especially ahead of a new programme I’m piloting entitled ‘School – What’s the point’, which endeavours to understand why we have the issue of none attendance in school.

Here is one of the questions asked, and the response:

Teachers were asked ‘do students respect you’ they responded with a whopping 92% to the affirmative, whereas, when students were asked if they ‘respected teachers’, only a derisory 45% said they did.

This may be a little like asking the recipient if they are ‘good looking’, or if they have ‘a bonnie baby’, I’m sure you always get a weighted response. Who, after all, would admit to their or their child’s plainness?

This thinking is filtering through a broader concept I’m working on, which is why we limit new from our lives. We decide, as a psychic protection to limit ‘experience’ and perception into our minds, and therefore, can deal with life and its overwhelming newness. Not only do we filter out anything that doesn’t fit what we are looking for, but we only look for what it is we unconsciously we search to see.

The human mind is terrified of the unknown, of anything new, or anything that might shed light upon the unconscious mind, limited as it is. So we limit and control ‘truth’ and reality; we stay in the ‘circle of light’, for at the edge of the darkness, lives all manner of terrifying demons in the unconscious mind.

Imagine then, on being asked if you were respected by your adoring students, to find out that in fact, less than half and in some cases, perhaps none respected you. Having invested everything into being a ‘good’ teacher, how could you bare that terrifying reality?

How quickly, we protect and fortify realities/life. I do it, you do it. We all do it.

We’re in the process of understanding what we do and how we do it, and what bits make the difference and which bits don’t ahead of a large expansion. For instance, we have a very high 90%+ positive feedback from the participants that complete our programmes, but what of those that don’t? They’re hardly going to give us high scores - whether it is their own fear that stops them, or the fact we aren’t very good at what we do - is yet to be fully understood.

Hell, there’s a part of me, that doesn’t want to even look. Perhaps, I’m just not that good?

It’s worth investing some time to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are, ask people, and clients, and especially ask those people who don’t like you or rate your work. It’s easy to collapse the message and the messenger.

I remember on my first sales training session, the trainer said, always polish your shoes, everyone will look at your shoes, and unconsciously they’ll make decisions on you based on your shoes. What? – Really? Sometimes, it’s not what we think is the thing that makes the difference.

Fine qualities

2010-04-13T11:47:00.002+01:00

I was asked to define the five qualities I admire most in other people. Here are mine, what are yours?

5 qualities I admire most in others...and you

1. To quote Napoleon – Caution and Courage – I’m a massive fan of people who can weigh up what things mean (decision + none decision) and still have the fortitude of character to ‘go for it’. So notions of bravery, fearlessness I warm to greatly, especially when against all odds.

2. Intelligence I adore, people who are intelligent, thoughtful, think from the other persons perspective, that doesn’t mean academic, I find academic’s (as a generalisation) often the most closed minded of people and they use their intelligence to avoid engaging in reality. For after intelligence the second highest quality I admire in others, is those that produce results.

3. Perseverance – people who can battle through the challenges of life and succeed, have a different place in my heart, from those that are awarded ‘benefits’ from the outset, those privileged by birth and luck

4. Open mindedness, is an incredibly brave quality, most people think they are, when in fact, they are not. They make their mind up about everything, a long time before they get there, and as a result, never really experience reality or life, just a thin and managed version of it

5. Ambition, is a double edged sword, and one has to be careful, that you are its master and not the other way around, as people who are ambitious, often cut corners, and in doing so cut toes, fingers and noses of others

Reciprocity

2010-04-07T11:12:00.002+01:00

Hallelujah – goes the song (I particularly like the Jeff Buckley version of Leonard Cohen’s mournful classic) which brings on such emotions, as it strikes a pure and powerful eternal note of sadness and glory.

Forgiveness of others, is often easy to say, harder to do. Adversely, we all know how easy it is to offend and to take offense.

Most offenses I believe are the unconscious at work (lashing out unconsciously when stimulated/over whelmed), some are known and deliberate. I find opinion and frankness can often hide hurt and retribution or being right.

Furthermore, just because you are pleasant and kind, does not mean that everyone else has to be. You can mean well and give great offense, or you can be casual or indifferent and create great offense. You can do what you do in your own home, and in others cause great offense.

Truly, one of the greatest human flaws of human relations is the desire we have to place meaning to everything. And understanding so little as we do, we look to make sense of the world through what we already know.

This is the cause of much misunderstanding and upset in the following ways:

We interpret everything we know through the filter of what we already know, which is both a controlling construct as well as a survival device. Given that the present is unique and new in every way, none of us are dumb struck by the magnificent newness of everything. We have almost always already decided about every experience, limiting the range of the experience and our understanding of it before it happens. Casting us into the certain purgatory that no matter what you do, we are very rarely truly surprised by the extraordinariness of life.
Because we limit what we can comprehend, we search only for the patterns we already know. In essence, we see only what we want to see and only find the things we want to see.

It’s very hard to actually understand anything profoundly new, we tend to add by degrees, if at all. Slowly adding and amending rather than engaging with the blindingly new. So what we come to call ‘what we know’ is actually a hodgepodge of bolted on appendages of half or misunderstood information.

With that in mind, it’s hardly surprising then that occasionally we cause offense, where none is intended.

It’s much harder to forgive and understand the other fellow’s perspective. That takes effort, and questions and listening. No. Instead it’s easier to think ill, and blame others for their not understanding our own point of view. Preferring, as we do, to see things from our limited and stunted perspective – they were a bad boss, they didn’t understand me; my perspective and as a result, I never truly gave myself to the job or the task. I withheld the best of me. (Sound familiar?)

When it comes to work and clients, it’s much more successful to square yourself to facts. You have very little interest, time, energy etc to understand the other person and as a result its best to fall back and to bite your tongue and give the impression of being understanding and accepting. I mean, do you really want to have a frank conversation about the issue at hand? And is your own house in order?

Besides, the sense of release and forgiveness when you stop holding on to thunderous vengeful and blaming thoughts is palpable. Most people don’t want the truth, they sure as hell don’t want your truth. Other’s truths are a living hell. Forgive as much as you can, I leave you with these wise thoughts:

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Apologies and hello

2010-02-19T12:12:00.001Z

It’s been a very long time since I posted a blog. Two reasons - Firstly, we’ve been so busy; I latterly haven’t had a moment to scribble any thoughts down. Secondly, I’m not sure if my writing is that good really (I’m not looking for sympathy). And given no one wrote to me demanding I MUST write more, it strikes me as though I’m not that sorely missed.

I’ve been endeavouring to try and deliver less facilitation work. Which I get a great deal from, but is, immensely time consuming. It’s time consuming, as you have to deliver the work, which means you can’t do anything else, as the participant need 100% of you. It’s demanding as I’m developing and getting to know a raft of new facilitators, some of whom need my support and others just a little advice now and again. I also go through a re writing schedule* every time a deliver a programme, session or experience.

*All our material is scripted due to the desire to scale the organization and to make sure it isn’t about me and my abilities to deliver change + development work.

This last 3 - 4 months has been about bedding down the programmes and the business, which calls on a bunch of skills that aren’t natural to me. Such as planning, organization, discipline, structure, clarity of message, understand what we have (are) and what we have (are) not. Focusing on what we do and endeavouring to stop chasing opportunities (a particular weakness of mine).

It’s been a genuine pleasure watching the current crop of stage 2 students develop into positive and powerful young adults. It’s becoming increasingly clear; we’ve created something special. That, by the time the AE participants graduate from the 4 yr programme their apparent quality will stand for something special, something extraordinary. I’m not a million miles from hiring some of these talented young adults myself.

One area that I think they’d excel in telling others about us – sharing our world. On that note, I just got a call from the UK’s largest bank, due to the fact that one of our participants took it upon himself to tell his work experience contact about us. I got a call from him on my mobile saying they want to work with us. Now that is cause and effect at play.

The school and business feedback, is in most cases – excellent, and in some cases just good or even occasionally not for everyone. So still improvements to be made I admit. If you get a chance, come and spend time in one of our sessions. It will enliven and enhance your life.

the individual and the state

2009-12-30T16:32:00.007Z

In response to Matthew Taylor's blog comment on positivity

Matthew,

Right... I grasped the broader point you were making, which might be summed up like this – the individual vs. the state (or politic) as a focus for positive human change, or perhaps both.

Haven’t we been kicking this around since the birth of philosophy?

Is this not what Plato’s Republic is trying to address - That ‘intelligent’ beings, pull the levers and the public are made better/more positive by it.

Clearly clever people making the right 'collective' decisions for the benefit of the many is also essential, but it is the individual that must do the personal development. Complex ideas are made simple by simple minds, so that they can understand the complex.

RE Hegel: who followed on from Kant and was as you know was a massive influence on Marx, can be simplified by saying that he focused his philosophy upon ‘the unreality of separateness’, which is an illusion, nothing he believed was ultimately / completely real except ‘the whole’.

We have a divergence and perhaps a cross roads in society like never before. And (I believe) must watch very closely what plays out, that separation is - the individual vs. the state or community.

We are being told that we must be the masters of our own destiny, and that if we fail, then that is in some way our fault. A powerfully flawed suggestion in my opinion. Especially as if you don’t have the right information to hand or aren't taught what to do with it – how can you realistically act successfully?

We were told that there is no society (community) only the individual, which pits man against man. If there is no community, or ‘being with’ others, in reality there can be no state. Why should I care for some invented notion of Britishness (that feels like quite an inflammatory thing to write) if it’s all about me and my personal success? His loss, my gain, as I drive into my gated community.

We are all hooked into notions of success (collapsed with positivity and wealth) and we are to admire wealth and success regardless of how it is achieved. I heard someone who worked with a very famous music mogul say of his character - he was in essence a materialistic, ruthless, driven brute and made no bones about the fact that he was very, very rich. AND that was somehow OK. 'Say what you like about him – he’s successful' – isn’t that what you are trying to do – you’re just not very good at it.

We end up despising ourselves for not being 'successful' and will sell our gran for success. Why? Why do we so desperately 'want'... at the cost of community or the state, or others?

Is the state dead or is community?

But all happiness as Hegel would suggest is in the whole. It is the desire to be in connection with others that creates happiness, it is the separation that creates unhappiness. Therefore, it is this sanitized version of happiness of ‘positivity’ which is the Prozac, the oil upon our dysfunctional selves that has us survive this ‘insane’ society we have built for ourselves, where the rich get richer and the prisons get fuller, there are more wars, more medication, more mental health issues, and what do we do?...line up to take advantage of the boxing day sales to buy designer clutch bags at half price, like demented fools, we justify the savings (from £1000 to £500 or whatever), when the product was undoubtedly made in China for pennies. Madness. But hey look at me, I have to show you I’m important, otherwise, I’d be like the others, and they are Helots, the serfs.

Dark Matter - this year, next year

2009-12-21T17:00:00.008Z

It seems perfectly appropriate that I finish my working year at 1 Alfred Place amongst some of the leading entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in the UK - put together by the extraordinary Oli Barrett.

He was asked the floor what we felt were our key observations for the coming year. Mine was that we would see individual success, but society would continue to struggle, with up to a 25% cut in state expenditure – this would be felt most keenly ‘up north’ where there is greater government employment.

Physics tells us that for every force, there is an equal and opposite force. So is it unreasonable to say that after 10 great years of expansion, might there not be 10 years for contraction?

For the individual there has never been a better time, for the entrepreneur or those comfortable with responding to change/opportunities, the market is incredibly open and buoyant, but for the static, entrenched juggernaut – corporate or governmental - these are going to be very challenging times.

Making money and making a difference

We are entering a new time. We are entering a time where it is cool and desirable to want to make a difference and be paid well for it. In the past - in past based thinking - people would make a lot of money and then ‘give’ to charity. However, the charity model has been proven as ineffectual. Our best people have not ended up working in the charity sector, some of our nicest people have but not our best – they went to into financial and legal services or policy or elsewhere.

Being an entrepreneur became a sexy thing to do, now being a social entrepreneur is where the best graduates go – look at Rajeeb Day. He could have gone anywhere; he chose to build his own business instead. The truth is with only 1 in 5 university graduates finding employment currently; they have very little choice but make their own way anyhow.

2009-12-21

To sum up this year, it has been nothing short of amazing. We have seen Arrival Education grow in so many ways – in confidence, in revenue, in reach, in deliverables, in reputation.

There are no short cuts to any place worth going

There’s a balance between not making mistakes and learning from others (peoples mistakes), and then there is the fact that if you try to take short cuts or not go through the experience yourself you don’t really own the experience or understand it.

I’ve delivered a lot of programmes with year, and each one taught me something new about myself, my limitations and the gap between where I am at and where I want to go. (Students who read this will recognise that concept)

We’re working with some amazing organizations and some amazing people. Thank you.

There’s a lot of change on the horizon, politically, economically. We best learn to embrace that otherwise, natural selection will take its course, and contraction is sometimes painful.

My greatest challenge for 2010 is attracting and keeping the right talent, and until the AE participants are ready I’ll need to work with others. Others it is and 'others' are both a blessing and a curse.

Dark Matter

I'm currently writing a programme on how the unknown keeps us trapped, the gravitational force, hidden from view that shapes our universe. The beliefs and attitudes that have us all held within the fabric of our world our community.

I'm very excited about working with Flow to develop the content of our programmes in order to take our work to the general public.

A thank you note, but it is I that should be doing the thanking

2009-11-29T12:37:00.008Z

A special moment occurred this week in the hallowed walls of the RSA, on John Adam Street.

There comes a point when you do something repeatedly and often, all of a sudden in a flash of realisation, that process makes you aware of something. That something may have always been there, but you didn’t see it.

For me it was a little like when I’d learn the lines for a play, which for ages, would feel like I was trying to get something right - to understand the words and understand the intention of the words, and the vision of the director; then you just ‘know’ them to a point, where you don’t have to think, and then something magical happens, you just play, you just enjoy and ‘occur’, it becomes 'le jeu' – play.

That's what occurred form me at the RSA this week, the programme finally became something I really trusted, something that always works. There's been many rewrites, many late nights, many moments of doubt and soul searching. And every time, I look upon a new set of young people I work with and ask - can we do it this time too?

What a small audience at the RSA was privileged to see was witnessing a moment when young adults, bravely took the first steps into trust, believing in themselves, + others, opening up to life as an 'amazing opportunity' of positive experiences, a optimistic future and not somewhere you just survive.

Their lives, without exception have changed forever.

A generous, kind message from a brave young man on the programme:

“Thank you so much for helping me find out who I really am. I have learnt a lot form the programme. Todays session in particular, showed me what I’ve been hiding behind. I can relate to you because of your family, and I look up to you for that and I think your an amazing person, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I hope I can be half as successful as you. Thank you again.”

The truth is, by understanding himself now as well as he does, he will be much more successful than I. For he now has something I didn’t have until much later in life. Self love + the courage to believe in myself and others.

Corleone

2009-11-22T20:41:00.007Z

Basking in the hot Sicilan sun in the summer of 2006 in Corleone, I looked down over the dry valley below (the picture is the panarama from where I stood), in search of meaning and inspiration.

I'd travelled to the hillside town of Corleone, Sicily due to my love of The Godfather, which had a huge impact on my imagination. To get into the spirit, I took a tired tatty copy of Mario Puzo’s mafia classic.

I’d gone to write the Arrival Education business plan. It seems an age now. However, every step is a learning one I guess.

The writing of the business plan was both a useful experience and an utter waste of time - I’ve never used it, however, the headline vision remains the same and we move toward it slowly, surely - I could have saved myself some time though and put it on the back of an envelope and focused on the fantastic food and wine.

Steady as she goes...

2009-11-15T14:50:00.007Z

The targets remain there to be achieved... we’re ticking them off slowly, which in one sense is great and in another frustrating. I want everything to happen NOW! Life isn't like that of course but i want the best for the participants.

We’re half way through this terms delivery and already I've been witness to so many wonderful moments. The tears and the laughter of insight and recognition that genuinely supports long term change.

Pimlico Academy have now completed their first foundation programme, where we have built a wonderful relationship with the school and the school liaison manager. We’d also like to welcome Northumberland Park School to Success for Life; I greatly look forward to working with them.

I’m very excited about the potential development of a number of students we’re currently working with. I had one of our first students set out their three greatest weaknesses to a CEO of an investment bank the other day, you could see how palpably impressed he was.

Not so far from now, AE graduates will be delivering the programmes – who better?

The feedback from businesses remains very good:

“I was very impressed with the students yesterday both in relation to their presentation skills and their self awareness. Given that these were kids who used to cause trouble in class and not listen to anyone, it says a lot about the program run by Arrival to see the progress that had been made.”

“Very impressed with the students – they have a raw talent and energy which is a credit to themselves and the programme. The students’ stories are a real eye opener and made a huge impact on me.”

We have now started to deliver work at YSC and Man Group Plc, which is wonderful – such great institutions to work with.

With Christmas beckoning the goose is far from getting fat as we also need to move offices from Westbourne Studios to the City or near to it for our client’s sake, when we find time to squeeze that in who only knows.