Maslow's doughnut

A lot of people have probably heard of 'Maslow's hierarchy' - it's based on the idea that as human beings, we have different 'levels' of need, and until we can satisfy one, we can't progress to the other (i.e. if we're homeless, it's hard to commit to a course of learning or securing a job).

In recent years, there's also been the emergence of 'donut economics' - the idea that because we live in a closed ecosystem (aka a planet revolving around the sun, and all we've got is what's already on it), we need to try and balance how we consume with how we live, and the donut creates a visual representation of this:

But I've been thinking recently about where these 2 models might/can/should overlap with each other - Maslow designed his model on the assumption that we should all be encouraging ourselves and each other us to be striving to reach the top of the pyramid, and that there would always be enough resources available for everyone to do this in ways that they determined were right for them. But maybe we need to be slightly more nuanced in this 'race to the top'? - not everything that's good for us is good for everyone else.

Could encouraging ourselves to work out what our 'personal doughnut' should be, and then thinking about where we are/want to be (in Maslows' hierarchy) allow us to more sustainably (and so better) achieve and set our personal ambitions, through recognising and understanding how our ambitions and choices affect others, and theirs, us?

(To work out your personal doughnut = https://doughnuteconomics.org/tools-and-stories/118)

Could this 'Maslow doughnut' be a better model for how we think about our personal development in the 21st century?

blending running a business with being a carer

Earlier this year, I found myself back in the Atomicon-verse (for those that don't know, it involves oversized pink pineapples, lots of freelancers getting giddy, and a strict 'no selling' rule). 

Most people involved in it seem to focus on the main day speakers, and the chance to hang out with people they normally only get to share a zoom screen with. But I've always found that the most encouraging, powerful, and useful part of it for me are the 'roundtables': hour-long on-line spaces in the weeks running up to it, hosted by people coming to the event, to share, reflect, and explore a range of self-chosen topics.

Last year, I was fortunate to be invited to lead one of these round tables, on the topic of being an unpaid carer and small business owner (see the write up from that here) - and this year, the ever upbeat Liz & Mike Cole were holding a space on how to approach 'blending' these 2 identities.

It saw a small group of us convene on screen at the appointed time, to initially offer mutual encouragement through each sharing a (very) small part of our story in how we'd come to gain our caring roles, after we'd already established and were running a business; and some of our struggles in reconciling often competing demands on us this leads to.

This also highlighted just how diverse caring roles can be:

- being a parent to young children

- being a foster carer

- being single parent, following the loss of a spouse

- having neurodivergent children (both young - of school age, and older - in their 20s)

- nursing a spouse through significant illness

- having elderly parents who struggle to live independently 

But we didn't focus on how we supported ourselves in these roles (as happened in last years' round table); our conversations instead explored how we can be more open about having a caring role, with our clients. 

This is because all of us identified to some extent with the concern that as freelancers and small businesses, clients buy us in to fix their problems - if they learn we also have caring responsibilities, which may mean we have to delay or defer working on their project, then they're more likely to pass us over for the commission. 

Several options and ideas emerged through these reflections together, and I've summarised them below, in hopes that they may be of encouragement and support to other unpaid carers in similar circumstances to us:

1) mapping the skills we've developed as unpaid carers, against the offers we can present to clients, to highlight how these responsibilities can offer us additional 'superpowers' in what we can offer them in turn;

2) highlighting the value and impact we've delivered to other clients whilst also having caring responsibilities, to challenge prejudice and bias on their part (however unconscious it might otherwise be);

3) pro-actively offer clarifications about our working practices to manage expectations, as part of our terms and conditions, as a means of 'positive disclosure';

4) referencing external research to validate the assertions we're making about all of the above with regards to our ability to deliver proposed projects.*

This isn't the first time that I've invested time in considering and exploring how to be more open with the world and clients about what it means for me to be an unpaid carer, and how this affects my working life - I had the opportunity to raise the question at an 'expert hot seat' session last year. However, in that instance, I felt rather disappointed with the response from the 'global experts' (who didn't have experience of caring roles themselves). Their suggestion was simply "Tell the client at some point, but don't make it a 'first date conversation' topic. If the client doesn't understand and isn't supportive, then you probably wouldn't want to work with them anyway". But that somehow misses the point of recognising that about 80% of the self-employed are already in poverty (before we add in the impact of being an unpaid carer, and the financial penalty we pay because of this), so we can't always have the luxury of being picky and choosy over the types of clients we work with...

Perhaps this divergence in experience can be attributed to the adage that those with the affected experience are best placed to know how to best respond to it? But as last years' round table on this topic highlighted, we seem to have precious little opportunity to currently do so, so I've very appreciate of Mike and Liz to have hosted the space, for us, and for everyone who was part of it on the day.

* There's not much of such research out there at the moment, but following last years' round-table on the subject, ipse and other national sector bodies have subsequently gotten interested in this topic (given that it's been identified there are about 500,000 of us!), so there should be more evidences hopefully emerging soon...  

darkness and light

Most people who know me (professionally) tend to associate me with stories about wacky props in zoom calls; encouraging people to play with Lego in workshops; and awarding prizes for whoever on a conference panel I'm chairing, delivers their presentation in the shortest time (or risk being chased off stage by me with my water pistols...). 

What some may not know about me is that part of the reason I try and bring such frivolity and apparent disregard for the accepted ways in which things are usually done by injecting more fun into proceedings, is that I also work in some very dark places: for example - researching trends and influences on the reasons why and how people choose to end their life by suicide to inform national policy; supporting refuges and services rescuing survivors of domestic abuse on how they can scale the number of women and children they're able to work with; coaching founders of start-ups who've just received a terminal diagnosis on how they think about their legacy; and consulting with Boards as to how their organisation should respond to their chief executive (or similar) unexpectedly dying in their sleep or in an accident.

Despite what may appear to be my default/usual positive and encouraging attitude that the world and (most) clients see, I'm always aware that however hard we might wish otherwise, there will always be suffering around us (albeit usually hidden just beneath the surface).

It's there for all of us to see if we choose to recognise it - or we can choose to ignore it; we can hope someone else deals with it; and we can hope beyond hope that we might never have to face those issues in or own lives.

Personally, I choose to recognise it - and in doing so, to try and break the taboos that surround it which means it remains hidden, and acknowledge it as part of the messiness of life. A choice that many people with lived experience of issues challenges seem to also share, based on the origin stories of so many social entrepreneurs, and founders of charities. 

However, if we do decide to accept these harder things that all around us, and try and figure out what our role might be in lessening the pain they cause, we need to be careful that we don't end up becoming overwhelmed ourselves (research shows that social entrepreneurs are the group of people who are the highest risk of burnout). For me, part of trying to figure out that balance involves encouraging apparent silliness whenever and wherever I can: because there's enough darkness out there already. We all need to try and bring what light we can for the benefit of all of us.

being all things to all people - the realities of being self employed and an unpaid carer

This post was written at the start of carers week 2023 - and is based on conversations amongst freelancers and owners of small businesses at events hosted by Freelance Heroes and Atomicon23.

It is not intended to offer definitive, medical, or legal counsel or guidance - but reflect emergent themes and issues that may be of encouragement and support to others; and possibly also highlight future wider policy development needs. 

My name is Adrian, and I'm an unpaid carer for my adult step-child, as well as being a freelance business consultant.

In my head that makes me sound like I'm at an alcoholics anonymous meeting, but maybe it's not too dissimilar: people often struggle to feel comfortable in knowing how to best behave in the company of an alcoholic, and similarly with someone who's an unpaid carer (unless you're living it day to day, it can be hard to fully appreciate the realities of the identities and roles that you hold and manage as such).

But unlike my counterparts who are in salaried, direct employment, there are no legal recognitions for me as an unpaid carer in my (paid) work; and no data on how many other people like me there are - in preparing to host the roundtable discussions that this blog is based on, the Office of National Statistics, the Labour Force Survey, and ipse all revealed that there is no data about how many people who are self-employed/business owners are also unpaid carers. 

A rough-cut extrapolation of data I could find about unpaid carers in general, and different models of employment, might seem to suggest that roughly 10% of the self-employed are also unpaid carers (that's about half a million people!), and of those, less than 1 in 10 have access to any support for themselves in these roles - and as freelancers, we're more likely to be in poverty if we're an unpaid carer than if we were salaried.

Starting to initially explore these issues with groups of fellow freelancers, small business owners, and sole traders who are also unpaid carers like me, saw the following emerge and being shared:

 

Busting accepted wisdom about origin stories

It can be easy to assume that people who are unpaid carers chose to become self-employed to offer themselves more flexibility around their unpaid caring role - but what came out of the discussions, is that this wasn't always the case.

Often, people took on the mantle of an unpaid carer role after having been self-employed for many years, and as a result subsequently found they needed support with redeveloping how they worked in order to be able to maintain their earnings to continue to support themselves and their families (but this isn't offered/available to them).

Seeing it coming

In one of the roundtables, a person shared how they had joined the conversation to learn from others' experiences because they had recently recognised that in future years, they will need to be more actively involved in supporting the care of their parents. 

They were trying to be pro-active in managing the impact that becoming an unpaid carer would have on themselves, their family, and their business by better understanding the likely realities they will experience when they do. As a result, they hoped to be able to best plan to mitigate the impacts of this - and this roundtable had offered them the first opportunity to be able to do this in any meaningful way.

The need for a better handbook

Through sharing their experiences, people agreed that there was much about being an unpaid carer that they wish they had know sooner, but which no-one had told them (for example - the benefits of being able to be formally recognised and registered as a carer for a family member). 

While there is knowledge out there, it can be hard to navigate and identify ("you don't know what you need to know, so don't know what questions to ask").  People are frequently relying on friends and family for informal (emotional) support for themselves, but as encouraging as these people might be, they rarely know of practical and pre-existing systems and processes that unpaid carers can apply to, but often aren't told about.

The limiting of business growth and potential

A common recurring practicality about being an unpaid carer that was shared, was how it meant that the businesses we had created all had to be limited in terms of their potential to grow in order to honour our caring responsibilities - and with that, our ability to innovate and develop new services and offers in the marketplace.

Whilst this is obviously a personal decision that all unpaid carers find ways to eventually reconcile, this speaks to the impact of the need for unpaid care to our wider economy.

The cost to our personal futures

As well as the financial impact that being an unpaid carer creates through loss of earnings (which is not mitigated through carers allowance were it is able to be awarded), there was also concern about how little support there is for us to be able to access for ourselves in this role - one person shared how becoming an unpaid carer had led to them being diagnosed with mental ill health, and being subsequently needing to be prescribed anti-depressants.

The emotional stresses that unpaid care places on us therefore also affects the future we might have otherwise experienced for ourselves, through it is affecting our well-being today. 

The need for supportive clients

A tension was briefly explored around our relationships with our clients as small business owners - specifically, how far we're open with them about our identify and priorities as an unpaid carer, and how this tension can be managed in how we work with them. As freelancers, our clients come to us to solve problems quickly, responsively, and without adding to their own existing complexity, so revealing we may need to drop them at no notice because of a caring need, may understandably 'spook' them a little...

People shared how their clients were generally sympathetic and flexible in work agreed - but not every business that commissions us will be able to be such; which loops us back to the limiting on our business' potential that being an unpaid carer can entail.

Taking back control

Being self-employed often means we face a barrage of external stressors because of the ever-changing circumstances we all experience that are instigated by others (clients, government, etc) - and being an unpaid carer only exacerbates these through the additional unknowns of how the child, parent, or sibling we care for may respond on any given day to any given event, how reviews of their care or support plans may trigger new complications, and so on.

The roundtables therefore also tried to look at how we're approaching supporting ourselves, and in doing so, gain a little more control over our own lives:

- counselling support from the FSB was mentioned as one of their member benefits, that one person had made use of;

- one person shared how they had chosen to deliberately limit the earnings of their business to reduce the stress on having to work with multiple clients on different deadlines which would otherwise be constantly competing with the needs of their child, that they are the unpaid carer for;

- taking out a private health care plan to be able to arrange GP appointments, any procedures, etc at times that suited them, rather than playing the lottery of NHS scheduling and waiting lists, was shared by someone else;

- registering as a limited company, rather than remaining a sole trader, was shared as a way one person had approached reducing the stress they were feeling about the risks in their business alongside being an unpaid carer.

But these roundtables weren't all 'doom and gloom' as might start to be otherwise interpreted based on the above:

- there was also news about 'Cornerstone', a new emergent peer community for freelancers who are also unpaid carers being created;  

- gratitude was expressed for people having the opportunity to (briefly) share time with their peers, and be edified from hearing that what they were experiencing wasn't unique to them; 

- and people also valued how being an unpaid carer creates space for us to reflect on our own personal identities as human beings.

If you're an unpaid carer you may find the below sites of help (as well as links in the various parts of the blog above):

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/looking-after-people/carers-help-and-support/

https://www.gov.uk/browse/benefits/help-for-carers

https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/

I'm also happy to offer to speak with any fellow small business owners, sole traders, and freelancers to swap stories that may be of mutual benefit - as well as with any sector or national bodies to further explore potential policy and initiatives that may address some of the themes and issues these roundtables identified:

- the impact to the economy of 500,000 businesses not being able to achieve their potential;

- the need for business disruption to be avoided when small business owners transition into unpaid care roles;

- how freelancers can be better supported to access support/avoid poverty when becoming unpaid carers.

UPDATE 3rd AUG 2023:

Published after these round tables, and blog was written up, JRF have undertaken some further research into this, and found that as unpaid carers who are also freelance/self-employed/small business owners, we pay a #CaringPenalty (suffer lost earnings) of nearly £10,000 every year!

- any wonder so many of us are finding ourselves being pushed into poverty?

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/caring-penalty

I'm always trying to be a better conman

One of the recurring pieces of feedback I get from many of the people and organisations I've worked with, is how they've enjoyed how the ways in which I've enabled them to create the changes they've struggled to achieve, but always aspired to.

And got me thinking about what the 'secret sauce' is that I always try and use, and bring to every project and contract I'm involved with.

I've realised it's all about my being a con-man:

Con(findence) - modelling behaviours and actions myself, to inspire and encourage others in turn; so that they might be able to reach further than they thought they could, or felt brave enough to.

Con(nections) - we all rely on other people to varying degrees for everything that we want to achieve and enjoy in this life. I'm always happy to share contacts in my network with others to try and create some serendipity whenever and wherever possible. I also recognise that I'm mortal, so at some point, people will need to know who else they might be all to call on in the future... 

Con(viction) - life is hard and unfair. We need to keep finding ways to motivate ourselves, which is why I try and only get involved in work that I think is meaningful in some way, and creates benefit for others. Part of how I work is wanting to find ways to get excited about the things I find myself involved in.

So there it is - I'm a conman, and that's probably a good thing for the people who ask me to share some of their journeys and adventures with them.      

erased from history (by facebook)

You won't be able to find me on Facebook any more.

And more than that - you won't be able to find any trace that I was ever there since I first registered my account on the platform about 20 years ago... no sign of any photos I posted, comments I made on your posts, nor membership of any groups.

And it's not because I've decided I hate you all and don't want to hang out with you anymore - but because I found myself being targeted by hackers who, it seems, when they couldn't get through my passwords and 2-factor authentication do-hickey, managed to find a back door way to link my personal Facebook profile to what must have been a very illegal Instagram account.

And I know this because when I recently tried to log into Facebook , it told me that my account has been disabled - and reading around this topic, it seems that whatever the hackers were doing on the Instagram account was bad enough for it to qualify as an immediate and automatic disabling (deleting) of both that account, and under the rules of the Metaverse, any accounts linked to it (which included mine, thanks to the hackers), with no right to be able to submit a request to review the decision.

Now - I know what most of you reading this will be thinking at this point:

"how awful for you (I'm glad it wasn't me that happened to!)"

"that's really unfair that you can't appeal this - surely there must be something you can do?"

Well - like I said, I read around this level of disabling and them's the rules that we signed up to when we created our accounts, and agreed to keep them going when Facebook went Meta.

Life isn't always fair - and no-one owes me anything (a personal mantra that helps me with navigating and pressing on in this world).

I'm fortunate to have grown up in a pre-Facebook world, so as upsetting as this might seem, I feel I'm able to bear it better than those that have come after me into this internet age would. Somehow I navigated this life before Facebook was born, so there's a chance I'll (hopefully) be able to again.

Whilst I do have the option to 'regenerate' myself on Facebook by recreating a new profile and account from scratch, I'm not immediately rushing to do so.

I'm using this unexpected plot twist to allow myself some time away from that playground - to have space to reflect and experience what it's like not to be on Facebook, so that if/when I return, I'll be clearer about how I manage my relationship with it (and hopefully it will have strenthgthed it's security and rights of appeal by then, too...)  

I'm an onion.

Last year, as part of my ongoing CPD, I asked people what they thought a statue of me should hold in its hand (see https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2022/07/molotov-cocktails-jelly-babies-onions.html for the full story...)

And whilst some of the suggestions people made caught me by surprise (such as a Molotov cocktail!), a couple of people suggested an onion.

And one of them added an explanatory note as to why they thought an onion best symbolised me: 

- It has many layers

- It has a heart

- It has a tough skin 

- It is an essential part of the majority of recipes 

- It represents good food and people coming together

- It is versatile 

- If you give it care and attention it becomes sweet and mild (although I'd like to think I'm sweet and mild to begin with?)

- It is a vegetable that is important to all sectors of society

And so I think I'm quite pleased if people see me as an onion.

But what vegetable do people see you as?

Faith in facilitation

Amongst other things, I sometimes support clients and groups in the guise of a facilitator – which has led to my hosting a monthly meetup call of similar people to share stories and encouragements, and also having been part of the internationally acclaimed IAF England and Wales hybrid conference earlier this year.

But more recently, it led to a group of facilitators coming together to risk of being heretical and incurring divine retributions by openly talking about Faith – how our approaches to working with clients who are rooted in it may differ from those that don’t; if we profess a personal faith as facilitators, how this impacts on our work; and generally trying to avoid being blasphemous…https://www.meetup.com/iaf-facilitators-and-friends/events/289026521/

 

Don’t mention God?

A quick round of ‘hello, how do you do?’s identified that most people in this conversation professed a Christian faith of some type – although many are actively seeking ways to ‘deconstruct’ this in crossing traditional boundaries of denominations and traditions, to explore how their faith remains relevant and pertinent to the issues we face today as individuals and society.

This realisation that we were then having a conversation in something of an ‘echo chamber’ in not having a wider diversity of beliefs and non-beliefs gave us pause to wonder if this had happened because we’d self-selected ourselves on the basis of the session being explicitly around this theme? And in turn, that led to our realisation that in being part of a wider body of facilitators, we don’t actually know how far faith is or isn’t a part of our shared cultural identity within this community of practice – and that we never ask each other about this: perhaps because it’s a legally protected characteristic, and so we fear accidentally falling foul of the law?

  

Faith vs. Secular

In further establishing that we’d all had experiences of facilitating groups of people who shared an identity rooted in faith, and well as those that didn’t, we mulled over what different this makes (if any?) through a sharing of some of our experiences and stories together (all of which were safely anonymised and sanitised):

• Faith groups will have values that are more visible and influencing on their decision making and how they reflect – such groups can therefore sometimes expect that their facilitator “sings from same hymn sheet” in having enough commonality with those values to offer them an assurance over how the facilitation process will be managed and delivered. But this risks facilitation losing its neutrality (part of the defining nature of the process). 
• People draw on faith for personal security, and informing their identity in ways that go beyond and further than a person would view their personal relationships with their (paid) jobs – and as facilitation should push people into spaces that they may not always be comfortable in, there needs to more time spent in careful planning to ensure sufficient psychological safety has been created for the group. 
• The ‘maturity’ or extent to which a faith community has engaged with wider cultural norms and practices in society around them were felt to be a key factor in how facilitation processes could be best designed with them – for example, if people feel their theology is being threatened, they can quickly withdraw and disengage from a process. But if they have already been part of conversation and debate that has allowed them to critically reflect on their beliefs, creeds, and dogmas, then they will be more able to constructively engage with a more open facilitation process.

Godly Gaffes

In following the adage “to err is human, to forgive Divine”, we also sought to explore what learning we might draw out from where we’d worked with faith groups and things hadn’t concluded with them in the way we had anticipated at the outset…

• Having a starting point in a process of trying to create the perfect (church) community was felt to be an ‘own goal’ with hindsight: in this story it was only as the agreed process proceed and started to become unstuck in places was it realised that the point of a church isn’t to be perfect: it should always allow space and opportunities for growth (a core tenant of all beliefs). 
• Having an assumption that the outcome of a process will be able to be adopted and acted on was another ‘gaffe’ shared –facilitation often crates new outcomes that existing systems may not exist to accommodate. This can be challenging enough for secular groups, but as faith communities can often be culturally steeped in maintaining and celebrating traditional practices, this makes introducing and managing change more difficult for them.

Helpful hints for facilitators

In trying to draw some points of learning from these stories that we might use as ‘initial hints and tips’ that we might share with a fellow facilitator who is thinking about/starting to work with a faith community, 2 key insights were agreed: 

• think of everyone in a faith community as a volunteer (even if they’re paid) - the culture of faith means their organisations will be closer in feel to community groups and smaller charities than formal organisations. 
• be prepared to practice grace in terms of patience and acceptance: although issues that arise when working with faith groups are usually similar to those with secular groups, they are more explicit and manifest to greater degree owing to faith being a bigger part of people’s personal identity than their job is.

Faithful facilitators 

Finally, we turned inwards to ourselves as facilitators to begin to consider the influence that any faith we profess might/should have in informing how we work.

This identified that for some, we saw our work as our ‘calling’, whilst others saw their role as such in a more pragmatic way to work – a means to a (greater) end. Understandably, depending on which position you hold, your response to the question of “would you ever turn work down because of your beliefs” drew contrasting responses that might be expected.

Those for whom work is more than just a job were more explicit and open about how this informs their choice over clients they choose to work with. But briefly exploring this from faith-based perspectives and the scriptures of different beliefs, highlighted various examples of where a person of faith deliberately chose to put themselves, and work, in both places and with people that their wider community of faith might not otherwise feel comfortable with nor appropriate.

 

Heading to the promised land

In seeking to draw conclusions from the conversations, it was apparent that we’d probably created more questions than we’d been able to reach a consensus in answering. But this in turn prompted some in the call to want to keep exploring these ideas and themes further – so they’re now off finding times to convene to start to explore and design what/when that might look like. If you want to remain updated as to when more details about it are confirmed, please contact me and I’ll start a list….

 

Molotov cocktails, jelly babies, onions, and handfuls of sand - how people I work with really see me...

As part of my ongoing CPD*, I commit to an adapted360-degree feedback process on myself every couple of years. But instead of sending out questionnaires or survey forms, I ask people 1 question – this year, that question was

“if there was to be a statue made of me, what would you expect to see it holding in its hand?”

People offered a wide range of accessories, but all seem to relate to two themes:

* My playful nature, and encouragement that we should all try to find more moments of enjoyment in what we do;

* My desire to encourage and support others in their journeys and roles.

This seems to be aptly illustrated by the most commonly referenced items being a fez, and my book on imposter syndrome.

 

However, there was also a wide of other creative ideas, and I felt it only proper to share these on, to see if people feel these might also be fitting decorations to a form of me:

- lego bricks

- a business award

- Post it notes

- sand (because it represents my being able to hold lots of tiny details which most others can’t retain)

- a light sabre

- jelly babies

- a cup of water (because its essential, life affirming, and bountiful – although personally I’d prefer it to have been a glass of whiskey…)

- weird glasses (to convey my ‘quirkiness’)

- a rubicks cube (which co-incidentally I have a lego version of one)

- a Molotov cocktail (because I make very policy-based subjects incredibly entertaining and, drawing comparison with the revolutionary symbol of the Molotov, I’ve been unafraid to do this by myself for almost 20 years.

- a fedora (don’t worry Tony Robinson, you’ll always be the king of the fedora for me!)

- a sealed envelope with all the answers inside (not for me to give to you, but to encourage you that there are answers that are right for you, and I’ll help you work through things to get to yours in the end)

- someone else’s hand (to illustrate my helping other people)

- an onion (because it has many layers, it has a heart, it has a tough skin, it is essential to most recipes, it represents the coming together of good food and good people, it is versatile, it is important to all sectors of society)

But one person’s response described a vista, that’s making me think that I should be considering a portrait, rather than a statute:

"If there was ever a statue to be made of the coolest consultant in town, I would imagine it would resemble the eternal image I have etched into my hippocampus of Adrian, it would be one of a man wearing a red fez hat standing proudly on top of a really complicated looking but easily assembled lego structure holding a magnifying glass as he examines a thin green book!!....an eccentric who finds solutions to the most complicated of conundrums with supernatural attention to detail, the man the myth the legend that is Adrian Ashton"

 

And the idea of a portrait might also help resolve another conundrum about my being ‘statue-d’ I’d not considered: someone asked what it would be cast in: gilt, marble, iron or papier mâché; and if it would be life size or larger than life?

*CPD = not what you think it stands for...

maybe I am ok with being a 'guru' after all...

10 years ago, I publicly posted in a deliberate attempt to distance and separate myself from the title of 'guru' that others were (and still are) referring to me in association with, for my work with enterprises, charities, businesses, sector bodies, and educational institutions of all types - https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-being-guru.html

However, a recent conversation prompted my revisiting my understanding and definitions of the word "guru", and I've now come to associate this title with a person who's a popular expert / influential teacher. And on this basis, I now feel comfortable to 'don the mantle' of being a guru: 

• I'm happy to be known as an expert and teacher (after all, those are the bases on which I 'sell myself', and people extol my virtues through posts on social media and recommendations left on my LinkedIn profile);
• similarly, based on comments people make about me, and the followings I seem to have amassed across different social media channels, I would seem to have garnered a degree of popularity (although I never meant to!);
• and I also know my work has changed policy, legislation, created jobs for others; so I can say with confidence that I've had influence.

So - I'm now ok if you want to call me a guru, but my next question to figure out, is what am I a guru of...?

social enterprise legal structures for humans

Some people regard me as an expert authority on legal and governance forms for social enterprise, community businesses, and co-operatives - and while I always encourage people not to trust any guidance I offer them on this topic (because I'm not academically accredited in legal stuff, and more importantly because I'm not the one who's going to be legally responsible for administering the chosen form), people take encouragement from my achievements in changing company law, navigating Society Rules with the FCA, and finding paths through charity legislation.

Over the decades that I've been supporting people understand these choices, I've created a few tools/prompts to help focus discussions and reflections ('CHAMP' and 'Adrian's 4-boxes') - but this post isn't about those tools - instead it's about a 3-part limited youtube series I was invited to be part of the 'main cast' for.

A contact through one of my networks had approached me to ask if I could help them explore and understand what the best legal form for a new social enterprise they were developing might be. And as we talked about how I might offer guidance and assistance, we hit on the idea of making this a 'performance piece' - drawing back the curtain on how people usually go through this process as an encouragement to the wider sector, and also a working out of some of their (and the emerging enterprises') values.

So we scheduled 3 afternoons to talk though approaches to not only understanding why this legal form question is so important to get right, but the different ways we can pick and choose between them, and finally, applying all of this learning in real time/live to their nascent social enterprise.

There's an 'official' long post on LinkedIn by Matthew Bellringer (the contact that sparked this) where you can get the official story of how this series came to be: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/foundations-thriving-social-enterprise-matthew-bellringer/ but I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on how I found this process, in it being different to the ways in which I usually offer this type of support - to pull out what surprised me that I hadn't considered before, what was an encouragement in allowing more time and space to explore than is usually available, and some of the things which you don't normally hear or read about in this area.

So - the below points are what I think are useful framing/warm-up for anyone thinking of approaching either choosing or reviewing a legal or structural form for their social enterprise - if you want to know more about them, you'll have to follow the links to youtube and watch all 3 episodes...

- Comparing legal structures to buying second-hand car: you wouldn't buy a car without wanting to know some of its history to assure you that it's been built well, and looked after, so why don't we seek the same assurances when deciding between legal forms?

- The risks of using data that maps legal forms used by social enterprise in helping us choose one for our own: as part of the episodes, we looked at research into how far different legal forms are popular/less popular by the wider social enterprise sector. But as you'll see as you watch this segment, this mapping - as undertaken by national sector bodies, often presents a contradictory picture of findings. As with all research, what you find depends on how you ask the question, and whom you ask it of. And it seems that our sector leaders can sometimes do this in ways that might not seem to be that robust..?  

- None of the existing tools designed to help you plan your social enterprise model (social enterprise canvases, specialist business plan templates, etc) help you relate your ethos and values to the legal form you'll pick. Which seems a bit bonkers, because your chosen legal form is probably one of the best ways you have to make sure said ethos and values can be best protected into the future. That's why I developed my 'CHAMP' framework, which is profiled in detail through these episodes.

- Your legal structure as a social enterprise can influence your credibility to lobby and speak out on social issues. For example, charities and CICs are banned from undertaking political activities: but if we're serious about creating systemic change as a social enterprise, then at some point we have to engage with the policy and law makers (which perversely, our chosen form may actually prevent us from being able to do!).

- The problem with all of the toolkits designed to help making the process of picking a legal form easier is that they assume you understand the jargon, and underlying concepts associated with legal forms and governance. Which most of us don't, which explains why these toolkits are so underutilised by the wider sector.

- There's a confusion about Members, members, and membership, that knots so may people up when approaching social enterprise legal forms: one has legal power over you, one is a supportive friend, and the other is about collective activism that influences your decision making. Can you tell which is which?

- Stickers and badges, or legal power – which would people prefer to have in your social enterprise? And which would you want people to have? (remember that there are wider trends going on in society that means formal membership bodies are generally seeing their numbers start to plateau and decline - people may be more interested in being part of you for specific periods, rather than for life).

- We managed to compress over 400 years of legal structures for social enterprise into just over 10 minutes. A new personal best for me!

- How the regulator for your chosen social enterprise legal form can strengthen others' trust in your venture. None of the toolkits or other materials 'out there' that I come across to help you decide about legal forms ever talk about the regulators: what they can do to you, how they can support and protect you, and how they may influence how others see you. But this is also a far wider issue and problem: I also see it a lot of start-up programmes, where social entrepreneurs are supported and encouraged to start-up and incorporate their ventures, but then given no support in knowing how to 'look after it' with their respective regulator - leading many early stage social enterprises to suffer fines, penalties, and even enforced winding up because no-one explained to them about the regulators... 

- It turns out that knowing how to bake cakes can be very helpful in informing how we approach designing different membership models in social enterprise legal forms.

- Campfire songs can be equally important in the selection of choosing a legal form for a social enterprise.

- and finally - why every social enterprise should be wary of S&M clubs if they’re going to be a CIC.

I've found myself enjoying this process of working with a group to find an answer to a question, and also that it's encouraged us to take more time in how we consider the options and implications - despite doing the whole thing remotely to each other with video calls, etc, it's felt like it's helped to make choosing a legal form a process that's allowed us to be more human. 

Episode 1: what's a social enterprise, and why do I care?  

https://youtu.be/5T7TzanQh0s 

Episode 2: what do social enterprise legal structures mean to me? 

https://youtu.be/EaRRsWPfDK0

Episode 3: social enterprise in the real world. 

https://youtu.be/JmEi3b6f9_g 

the great resignation, being pushed, and becoming superheroes

There seems to a growing awareness of a movement that's come to be known as "the great resignation" - Covid and the pandemic have forced people to re-examine of what they were doing almost automatically in their lives, and many are finding that they're unhappy with what's become their lot, and are spurring themselves to change that. Mainly by quitting the jobs that currently leave them unfulfilled to pursue hopes and dreams that will better feed their souls.

And it got me thinking about our origin stories as freelancers and entrepreneurs.

Usually, when people share them, they seem to echo the current 'great resignation' - people "felt the fear, but did it anyway" and heroically quit their jobs to pursue their dream. (and research studies like this one from theRSA re-enforce this)

But, as usual, my origin story isn't in keeping with this typical narrative. (TL:DR = relocated my family to the other end of the country in a pre iphone age to find said job didn't exist, and the first work I could find to allow my family to remain housed and fed meant I was forced to go freelance).

And it's made me wonder about if we should all try and be a little more honest about where we've come from (especially if it's not from what seems to be the usual position of having savings, a partner still salaried, and clients already confirmed, before jumping off an otherwise dependable monthly payroll). The point of which would be to better challenge stereotypes and misconception, and encourage others who might otherwise think that they haven't 'got what it takes', and subsequently live a live of regret and missed opportunity for themselves and those around them.

And the actual research out there also seems to encourage this: theRSA's "salvation in a startup" found that there's actually a far wider range of motivations in play for those of  us who find ourselves self-employed than might be otherwise first imagined:

Might it also also make us more like the superheroes we always wanted to be when we were kids (although some might say that if you're part of the Freelance Heroes community, you're half-way there already!) - because we remember and know who the likes of Spiderman and Batman are in large part because we know what their origin stories are...?

Is the growth in CICs actually damaging the wider social enterprise movement?

Some people may be aware that I've always questioned and challenged the Community Interest Company (CIC) legal form (see previous blog posts here) - largely because I've found that most social enterprises who've incorporated with this form have subsequently learnt that it wasn't actually the 'best fit' for them and their business model, and because what they're usually presented/'sold' as it being, doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny when looked at by evidence and research...

However, there are several social enterprises out there that I've supported to gain this status - I've always seen my role as an adviser to help people make better informed choices, not to tell they what decisions they should be making.

And it's in that vein, that I come to be typing this latest blog - prompted in part by a recent article by Pioneers Post on the 'explosion' of CICs during the pandemic: https://www.pioneerspost.com/news-views/20210825/record-number-of-community-interest-companies-amid-rise-of-grant-funds and CIC regulator wind up extent and causes

My concern about this sudden 'blossoming' of CICs is that rather than being a good thing in showing the growth of social enterprise in general, it may actually be more damaging to the sector in the long run...

Let me walk through through my thinking here, so as to try and help clarify and explain this rather bold assertion - and as always in my blog posts, you can leave comments to refute or challenge any of these:

1) Social Enterprises should be trading businesses, but most CICs aren't

In the absence of an overarching legal definition of what absolutely defines a social enterprise, the sector bodies have reached a consensus on what their defining characteristics should be (interestingly, none of which specify particular legal forms). Front and centre in these is that a social enterprise should be (or be clearly moving towards) generating most of its income from trading activities - but there is no requirement for CICs to need to trade, in order to generate their income or achieve their social mission! 

• when you apply to be a CIC, the application asks "if" you make a profit, not "when" - so the CIC Regulators' assumption is that most CICs' default business model will be that they expect to them lose money each year and/or will be reliant on grant funding to achieve their social purpose (you can't make a profit/surplus from grants);
• according to the CIC Regulator in their own published annual reports, most of the CICs they register will be wound up within 18 months - usually because they were unable to access the grant funding that they thought this legal form would enable then to be awarded.

2) Why are social entrepreneurs being encouraged to set up social enterprises in ways that mean they don't need to trade? 

As this legal form seems to be oft promoted to start-up social enterprises and social entrepreneurs as being the 'best form' for them, but it doesn't actually require them to act in ways that facilitate them to better meet the qualifying criteria of being what they say they want to be - how do we reconcile this apparent contradiction?

3) Are the public now seeing CICs as another form of charity, creating confusion about what social enterprise really 'is'?

If the most feted legal form for social enterprises to adopt therefore doesn't encourage the 'social enterprises' using it to act as social enterprises (with some evidences finding that CICs are actually more reliant on grants than charities are!) - it's going to cause confusion amongst others (who are already confused about what social enterprise is from the lack of a legal definition). If CICs are seen as not trading to achieve their social purpose - how will this not confuse people as to the need for social enterprises to trade: are social enterprises therefore just another type of charity, rather than a revolutionary/innovative/transformative way of doing business?. And this confusion will surely mean its harder to create more consistent messages about what social enterprise is and can do, in order for the sector to realise its full transformative potential.

However, as will all things, there are exceptions to the above - there are social enterprises out there who've never taken a penny in grant funding; who have found clever ways to harness what many feel to be 'too risky' elements of the CIC form with regards to the powers of the CIC Regulator over them; and who are trailblazing for the wider sector as a result.

My interest here isn't to decry this specific legal form wholesale, but rather to try and contribute to a wider ongoing discussion that means as a sector we can be more coherent, and ultimately make it easier to achieve the things we aspire to.

be kind, above all else in your professional life

As a consultant-type (of sorts), I'm often seen as someone who is clever, knowledgeable, experienced, etc. Most other consultants you see will probably present themselves as being these things as part of assuring you that they're worth your spending your money on them.

But I've often wondered how far these things really matter when businesses, co-ops, charities, social enterprises, universities, government bodies, and others who invite me to work with them, are really wanting and valuing these attributes.

And my wondering about this has, over the years, seen me introduce some unusual practices (such as asking people what they think my superpower is, and not being overt about the various qualifications I've come to hold ), and subsequently also make changes to how I work as a result of what I learn about how I'm seen, and how people value what it is I'm able to do with/for them.

So why am I sharing this with you here? If you're someone who's kindly offered me feedback about my working practices in the past, you'll know this already. If you're someone else, you may be thinking that this may be sound vaguely interesting, but it's all very personal, and are struggling to see the relevance of why I'm reflecting on it so openly?

Well - wonder no more, because I now have an empirical data set (of sorts) to help me validate these ideas!

I recently came across Google's Ngram viewer, which is a nifty little site that allows you to track how frequently any given words have been used across all books published. So I thought I'd pop in a few keywords about how as consultants we think we're supposed to portray ourselves, and a few about how people seem to value the way that I work with them (click on the image to open the original google page and graph):

All those words about how the support consultants and advisers are supposed to 'be' and the attributes they're valued for, all pale against the approach to how we work with you.

Fortunately, kindness is one of the KPIs that I track within my annual impact report (listed as 'grace' and 'pro bono'), along with knowledge; so I know that I'm making sure I try and keep this at the forefront of how I work with people (following the adage that "we manage what we measure").

As consultants or advisers we're often initially commissioned on the basis of expertise or specific skill, but as the Ngram and my experience suggest, those things become far less important in the working relationship that we subsequently form when delivering on the agreed project. 

But I wonder how far others might agree with this?

So how do you actually start a social enterprise?

'Social enterprise' is a phrase that seems to be increasingly commonplace, and something that we're all being encouraged to start-up to if we think we have an idea for a new project or a business that might do some good in some way.

There's also a lot of 'stuff' about them out there: mapping by Social Enterprise UK; webinars on how they can best report their impact and how they're changing the world for the better by Social Value UK; offers of funding for how they can support local communities continue to recover from the impact of the pandemic; and such like...

But I'm often approached by people who want to know the answer to a much more basic question about social enterprises - how do I actually set one up?

Well, the good news if that I've been running seminars, boot camps, and webinars covering this for about the last 20 years, and hopefully will be able to distil them down into a few pithy bullet points in this blog to help you start to chart your adventure into the lands of social enterprise...

1) You'll already have a (social) idea, but is there actually the potential for a trading enterprise in it? 

Have you identified people or organisations who might be willing to pay you money (which is different to offering you philanthropic grants) for what you're going to be doing? 

2) How are you going to raise the money you need to get it started?

It's very rare than a start-up enterprise of any kind will have customers who line up in advance of it officially opening for business, to pay for the services and goods before they've even seen them. So have you thought about not only how you'll raise the cash you need for those early bills, but also where you'd be happy to seek it from?

3) Do you see yourself as a lone hero, or part of a 'Scooby gang'?

Creating any new enterprise is hard work and risky. Social enterprises even more so, because of the additional dimensions they have (balancing social mission with need to generate cash; trying to keep a set of values and ethics central in every decision made; feeling a responsibility to try and save the world...). So do you feel you can take it all on by yourself, or are you looking to recruit others to work with you in developing, leading, and managing it (and how will you ideally structure these relationships between you all)? 

And what measures can you think about putting in place to support yourself (after all, if you're supporting the birth of this exciting new social enterprise, whose looking out for you in return)?

The next steps in starting up a social enterprise flow from these, and may seem far more mundane in comparison, but are true for any enterprise thinking about starting up:

- create some budgets to help you manage costs and make sure you're going to be charging the right prices;

- pick a legal structure that will help you manifest and protect all of the above;

- register the enterprise with HMRC and whichever regulator is responsible for the legal structure you've picked, and open a bank account;

- do some marketing;

- Oh yes: and get out there to tell people you're now 'here' and so some selling!

Once these are in place, then everything else you come across out there about how social enterprises can thrive and prosper should start to make more sense.

But if you'd like to explore these steps in more detail, chat about how to tell if your idea really does have sufficient potential to be a trading enterprise, or would like to know about any other aspect of social enterprises, feel free to get in touch: I'm always happy to have an initial conversation by phone or video without charge or obligation.