Sowing seeds of success

YOUR child arrives home from school complaining he couldn’t eat his lunchtime sandwiches “because they were all soggy”.

If you say, “Let’s not bother anymore with sandwiches — let’s put pasta in your lunch box”, you miss a vital opportunity to encourage entrepreneurial thinking in your child, says author, business woman and mum-of-one Lorraine Allman.

If you have a conversation with your child, asking they why they think the sandwiches went soggy and what could be done to keep them crisper, if you encourage them to think about solutions, inviting him to google ‘How to stop sandwiches going soggy’, you’re fostering the kind of flexible mindset that’s the bedrock of an entrepreneurial attitude, says Allman.

Author of Enterprising Child, Developing Your Child’s Entrepreneurial Potential, Allman isn’t trying to turn kids into the next Richard Branson. She says she wants to help parents support children to think and act in ways that will help them make the best of the opportunities and challenges life presents.

“For me, entrepreneurial characteristics include ability to work as a team, communication skills, commercial awareness, problem-solving and financial literacy. Having these can help a child whatever he does.

“The whole job for life thing is long gone. The more children can learn these skills from very early on, the better chance they have whatever they decide to do.”

Allman’s book has loads of fun activities tailored to encourage entrepreneurial skills/attitudes across age groups from four to 14.

Your eight-year-old wants the latest scooter? Assuming you’re happy to buy it, ask for more detail as to why they want it. Saying “because it’s cool” isn’t enough — they’ve got to tell you the benefits (“It’ll keep me fit”) rather than its features (“It’s got nice handlebars”). This encourages communication, as well as the skill of presenting themselves and their idea positively.

Why not encourage your 11-year-old to be a film critic, suggests Allman. Watch the movie as a family. Discuss it. Did the storyline follow through and make sense? What are people’s views on the actors and the messages of the film? “Doing it as family helps children see how people perceive things differently.”

In any typical household, there are myriad opportunities for developing entrepreneurial skills in children, says Allman, whether it’s helping them resolve playtime conflict by encouraging them to come up with solutions to the problem which they then share with you or allowing them take the lead in planning a meal or family day out.

Research conducted in 2011 among the most influential employers across Britain found 58% believed schools were very poor at teaching entrepreneurial skills.

It’s a finding that could well be replicated here. Business skills are not being taught in any formal sense in Irish schools, says Loman O’Byrne, chair of the Enterprise Education Committee with the County and City Enterprise Boards. Approximately six of the County Enterprise Boards countrywide run Bí Gnóthach in primary schools. This engages children in a piece of trade in a protected, guided environment. Kids come up with a product or service idea — cookbook, school diary, craft, sweets, smoothie — and produce it for sale.

“Research shows the earlier a child’s exposure to entrepreneurship as a concept, the more powerful it is and the more likely to produce entrepreneurship in later life,” says O’Byrne, who grew up in a rural village, where almost everybody was self-employed.

“The only employees were the teacher and postman. In an urban environment, that’s increasingly not the case. Children have to be given role models of entrepreneurship. With the Bí Gnóthach programme, we’re trying to change the culture so children see entrepreneurship as a perfectly valid vocational path.

“The economic collapse made it clear Ireland’s place in the world must be entrepreneurial. We have to develop our own intellectual property and sell it worldwide. This is true whether we’re an employee throughout life or have our own business. Employers are looking for people who can drive the business, not simply be passengers.

“This requires understanding of the business process, as well as innovativeness, inventiveness, energy — people who understand how wealth is created and their part in that chain.”

Fiona McKeon is CEO of BizWorld Ireland, an organisation set up to help teach primary school children about enterprise, critical thinking and money management in a fun, creative way. BizWorld runs two-day immersion workshops in fifth and sixth class.

McKeon says BizWorld targets primary schools because every child will have baked a cake or done some art but they won’t necessarily have experienced anything of a business nature.

“So how can they make a choice in secondary school about an important subject like Business if they haven’t had a go?”.

BizWorld gets children producing a brief animated movie on a laptop. Children come up with a name for the company and do market research among younger kids to find out what they’d like to see in a movie.

They discuss who’s best for each role, whether design, marketing or production and, in order to gain funding, pitch their idea to a venture capitalist — member of the local business community — who visits the school.

The initiative has been running for 10 years in the Netherlands.

“BizWorld encourages children not to be afraid to have a go, that it’s ok to detour, back track and try again,” says McKeon.

Education, she believes, was traditionally about equipping children with the necessary skills to fill a wonderful CV.

“We’re sowing the idea that the pupil may be the one receiving CVs,” she says.

* Visit www.bizworldireland.ie.