Starting a new project? Starting a social business? Trying to get the enterprise element bootstrapped in your social enterprise?
When you are starting energy and enthusiasm are great to get you going. Your drive and commitment to your project will carry you a long way.
Then may come the sleepless nights as you worry about that bid, that meeting or that service delivery that might fail. Does that sound familiar?
Relax, other people feel just like that too. That crisp, curt, been there done that corporate presentation – just an embedded position to mask fear. The doomsayer, ‘wouldn’t do that now’ voice in the crowd – offering you ten reasons why not to do something, just a carapace to protect against hesitancy.
Over the years as our work has developed so has a natural philosophy of project development. They are approaches to our work. We call them SMP elementals…
1. Will what we do benefit others more than ourselves? (the general…)
2. Will there be an aggregate direct benefit to more people than on our project team? (the specific…)
3. In the doing, can we freely share some knowledge we already have? (the pro-bono…)
4. We need to invoice to continue the work, but will that paper totem represent our philosophy – did they get it whilst we were in motion? (the business…)
5. Does it feel right? (the personal…)
For me the last elemental is the most important. Early in my life journey I spent much time pursuing goals that always left me conflicted with our elementals. Even today we come across suspicion, clashing philosophies and indifference in reaction to social business ideas.
It is important to recognise this and to still keep going, in order to make your project live.
A recent deprecation of working in our sector overheard recently ‘…the liberal, perhaps Guardian reading, charity do-gooder voice you can hear…’ shows that there are still those out there who don’t get the concept of social entrepreneurship.
If, on reflection, you can vision a business model or a delivery system for your idea that uses business skills and ethical distribution strategies but which still means having fun and being effective, but which ‘feels right’, then your social enterprise concept is perfect by the lights of our SMP elementals.
This reflection, by Tim Smith – a partner at SMP, was spurred by viewing If I would have known just one thing. This eBook was created by Shane Mac and contains a series of thirty articles by business entrepreneurs about what they would have liked to have known on their life journey. Read more…
If you are just starting to get your project off the ground then Mac’s book is a great primer for framing your own resolution and developing clear thinking about your goals and your ability to deliver.