Our series of articles so far has addressed the idea that you were designed to create. We have also explored the idea that small businesses can choose to create collaboration teams rather than tackle the journey of solopreneur ship by themselves. As described in our last article, creating collaborative sales & marketing teams is one way to engage in a simpler form of business, but is there a way small businesses can come together to form a whole new level of innovation?
Let’s talk for a moment about where this idea comes from. Believe it or not, it’s corporate America. I remember early in my corporate career being trained to be a leader and facilitator of what they were calling “quality circles”. The idea was that the people closest to the problems the company was facing were likely the people who best understood the root causes of the problem, and were best able to brainstorm and come up with a new solution. That makes sense, right?
In the corporate environment, it involved not only digging into the root causes of a problem, but also determining what that problem was costing the company. The team would then talk through the root causes until they could develop a solution – not just a band-aid – that would make the problem disappear. When the problem disappeared, the profit would go up. As long as the cost of the solution could be covered by the increase in profit, it would make sense to move forward, and the managers would normally approve of it.
Now imagine this. What if you can take a group of small business owners who are well versed in some of the challenges that are disrupting our communities and get THEM to brainstorm together about how to solve them? What if those same small business owners can engage with groups in their communities to find out where their greatest concerns are? Is it possible that we can all work together to build real solutions in our communities, instead of waiting for “someone else” to do it for us?
Our experience would suggest that it’s not only possible, it’s necessary. Here’s an example.
We recently spent some time in a local high school talking to students. We found that about 1/3 of them planned on going to college after high school. About 1/3 wanted to start their own business. The final 1/3 really had no clue. We know that our high schools serve the college-bound students very well, but what about the other two thirds of the population? Does this start to explain why we only have a 40-50% graduation rate in many of our colleges?
If the problem with our graduation rates is actually caused by our students not being given enough career options to seriously explore during their high school years, is there something we can do about that?
We have a small business team that says there is, and they are calling it “Careers Reimagined”. In this case, a group of small business owners have come together and created an apprenticeship-style learning experience that gives students hands-on experience in learning some of the key skills for becoming an entrepreneur.
This core program can also be modified and adapted to work with mentors from any industry that has an interest in helping to build a pipeline of future employees. The trades industry is one possibility that has been suffering from a lack of skilled talent.
The program not only addresses the hard skills of entrepreneurship like sales & marketing, but also addresses communication skills, technology skills and self-care that leads to physical and mental wellness. What other new ideas can be created through collaborative problem-solving teams? Do small businesses hold the key to helping our communities find more health, more prosperity, and more peace? Stay tuned to this series to explore further!
