Whilst there is an ongoing debate regarding procurement, social enterprise business models, risks and benefits of social enterprise in health - a key issue is often missed - do the individuals at the helm of the enterprise have a mind and behaviour set that is suited to leading a successful venture. This is not surprising as it is often missed in mainstream business support.

Creating a social enterprise within the health sector is as much a personal challenge as it is a business challenge. Do you have the motivation, energy etc to see it through. How good are you at networking beyond the safe confines of current colleagues, how organised are you. Are you willing to promote yourself as well as your enterprise? The issues social entrepreneurs face parallel the issues faced by commercial entepreneurs.

Maybe as a starting point we should define what the personal qualities of a social entrepreneur are?

Any thoughts?

David
www.professordavid.co.uk
www.21stcenturyentrepreneurs.co.uk

In my experience (I work in local authority economic development) successful entrepreneurs in the private sector and the social enterprise sector share many characteristics. For social entrepreneurs the ability to work socially is the crucial extra ingredient. Solitary leadership heroes and heroines who can't develop and involve others will almost inevitably come to grief. On the other hand, a leadership team with good rapport and acuity to the feelings of stakeholders can actually thrive in the frameworks offered by social enterprise models.

Many 'conventional' businesses actually fail because the limitations of conventional legal structures mean that the wicked issues of a sharing vision and values, creating trust and resolving conflict aren't worked through in the good, growth years. When things get lean, the social capital doesn't exist to carry the business through.

How many GP practices split asunder in rancour because of the limits of the conventional partnership model?

I would agree John

I think there is a skill particular to social entrepreneurs that enables them to bridge the gap between taking on a leadership role and facilitating the involvement of colleagues. However, I am involved in a number of entrepreneurs networks - and my experience is that many commercial entrepreneurs are also very good at balancing this need to take decisions and 'be the leader', with a social awareness and capacity to build a community working together.

Best W's

David
www.professordavid.co.uk
www.21stcenturyentrepreneurs.co.uk

I have found (and some of the research literature seems to support this) that entrepreneurs tend to be very driven, very tolerance of risk, ambiguity and uncertainty, creativie, self-reliant and extremely adaptable. They also enjoy challenging/breaking rules and systems, are very intolerant of bearocracy and take lots of risks.

I think one of the real challenges about trying to turn NHS organisations into social enterprises is that entrepreneurs are unlikely to be found at senior management level in the NHS. People with a track record in challenging authority, breaking rules, taking risks, failing often and bypassing bureacracy do not generally get promoted very highly in public sector management systems.

I agree that senior NHS managers may not fit the description. What about seniot clinical people? Doctors - particularly GPs- are well known to resist being 'managed'. Herding cats is my experience.

Maybe there is hope for social entrepreneurship in health , if there is room for the lead clinical people to get involved. There needs to be serious money as well.

Sometimes serious money can cause real problems though Ruth. Since the Department of Health started throwing around large sums of money for social enterprise, there are plenty of people trying to pretend they are social enterprises simply to get the cash.

I remember when we are at the Department of Health, we were able to do really innovative work on e-learning with less than £15,000 (which ended up winning a national e-learning award). The NHSU had tens of millions and this actually stopped it being anywhere near as entreprenerial because big money often means lots of managers, lots of committees, project plan after project plan, etc. In fact we produced far more e-learning than the NHSU partly because they had so much money. You are more likely to get entrepreneurial activity where there is very little money as this encourages real creativity and innovation.

I totally agree with your point about senior clinicians and there are some really interesting examples of enterprises set up by clinical staff.

I agree David

If the the social enterprise model is to work in the NHS it needs to be driven by people who are passionate to make their project work. As with all successful entrepreneurs - if you want to make it happen you find the money to do so, but initially do things as cost effectively as possible. I am aware of a number of projects within academia where huge sums of money have been thrown at committees, and produced no results.

There needs to be a source of funds available, but those leading the social enterprise need to put together a business case to access them.

There are many models available in the corporate world.

Whilst I would also agree that there now appear to be many 'experts' in social enterprise because of the available funding, it would not be wise to equate all previous social enterprise with the NHS context. Patient care creates the need for a hybrid model taken from social enterprise, corporate enterprise and public sector management.

Going back to the personal qualities issue - social entrepreneurs within the NHS need comprehensive support to address a wide range of personal and organisational challenges.

Best W's

David

www.professordavid.co.uk
www.21stcenturyentrepreneurs.co.uk

Totally agree David.

Although there does need to be better support, I think the funding issue is a two-edged sword. Entrepreneurial activity is often most evident when there is hardly any funding available. Sometimes throwing lots of money at a problem can produce inertia and organisational paralysis (the NHSU is a good recent example).

I have spent a lot of time recently exploring the issues the NHS will face in developing social enterprises. I am convinced that whilst many people will accept the logic of the social enterprise model and its potential application within the health service - there is a massive personal development challenge to be addressed.

I run my own business and even though I have experience of running small departments, the challenges I face today are signifcantly different to the challenges I faced when I was the Director of the Barclays Centre for Entrepreneurship at the Univesrsity of Durham.

I have gone through a steep learning curve, and I guess those at the helm of social enterprises will be faced with the same rapid learning curve. 'The buck stops here' is a bit of a strap line and it really helps me.

Keep talking

David
www.professordavid.co.uk
www.21stcenturyentrepreneurs.co.uk

David J,
What are your ideas for personal development of potential social enterpreneurs? I am on a Health Accelerator course at Said business school, Oxford. This is 4 x 3days residential over a year, with the aim of enabling 12 senior individuals in this area. This course has run before. This year we have completed the first session.

Are there specifics which you have in mind?
Ruth