Joining Entrepreneurs in their World: Improving Entrepreneurship, Management, and Leadership in UK SMEs

Small businesses are the backbone of the British economy, accounting for more than half of the UK’s turnover. Failures are frequent and often are thought to be due to management and leadership weakness. Clearly, helping improve the quality, calibre and capacity of leaders in small and medium sized businesses can have a significant impact on the British economy. Even more so because entrepreneurs provide the key to Workforce Development in smaller businesses. If entrepreneurs are not engaged, then their workforces will not be either. But small business entrepreneurs are also the hardest to reach and reluctant to engage in external activities away from their day to day business.

There is a plethora of schemes available, many publicly funded, the majority offering formal learning opportunities. However, entrepreneurs feel confused by the array of opportunities, find the approach bureaucratic and often irrelevant to their needs. There is little demand or desire for formal training opportunities and a strong preference for informal learning opportunities that mirror their own working practices.

The provision currently available is largely supply led - for us to achieve our goal of improving management and leadership abilities in entrepreneurs, it is vital that we stimulate demand and meet that demand with relevant, accessible solutions. Entrepreneurs are clear about the abilities, skills and experience that are needed to be good managers and leaders. Whilst the language and tone is different, the core skills closely mirror those identified by the Council overall. Entrepreneurs emphasise that the crucial skills needed to build strong businesses are people abilities and strategic and analytical thinking abilities. The real challenge is to join entrepreneurs in their world - stimulating demand, helping identify priorities for learning and giving the entrepreneur ownership of their own learning opportunities. Crucially,
entrepreneurs must be responsible for making their own choices and decisions - the starting point must be for the entrepreneur to choose a partner they trust to help identify the priorities and challenges. This is most likely to be their accountant, bank manager, lawyer or a trusted ‘mentor’.