ligiabuzan.com Blog

Why start early?

Why start entrepreneurial education early? Because it gives the child courage and confidence to act, it teaches the child tools for problem solving, and it clears a lot of blocks to creative thinking that most of us accumulate during formative years.  An example:

In one of the recent KidzBusiness classes we were discussing pricing for a little group project.  While all the kids thought that the value we offered was pretty good, and that people might be interested in trying our concept, I discovered that they were resisting to charging for it. I was amazed. During a previous inquiry, they have offered positive connotations to money.

We went a little deeper with the inquiry:  was it acceptable to charge for a great experience, for instance, should we leave tip for dinner, or should we pay for someone who plans a great trip abroad, should we pay for a dating service? Answers were mixed. What I learned is that they thought that only a tangible exchange (something we can touch with our hands), or accepted services that everyone knew cost money (lawyer, dentist, doctor fees) warranted pay. Any new project, such as self publishing a book, building a new game or toy, anything yet untried, created a huge pricing anxiety as if their self worth was at stake and by having their project rejected, they were rejected themselves.

So here’s where entrepreneurial education (or map) can help remove some early blocks, that if left unquestioned, would interfere later in life with one’s ability to ask for a raise, for more time to complete a task at work, for help from a colleague, etc– and perhaps, might interfere with being able to present the world with an authentic (and coherent) personal brand.

Design thinking for kids- or how to give them a ‘map’

Imagine giving a group of kids the tasks and tools to build a new city. It’s play, of course, but you make it competitive and you announce that there will be prizes for one winner. There may be building blocks to be put together, rivers to be assembled, traffic zones, shops to be created, movie houses, etc. Each kid gets an assignment to build a part of the city, and the tools to do it.

There is a clock in the room, time is ticking loudly, and the anxiety rises as everybody rushes to complete the task. It’s a game but it is not play anymore. The only frame of mind in the room is that there are losers and winners, and everyone wants to win—which is not a bad thing when the conditions are right. The right place for winning is a collaborative environment where kids understand the big picture (why are we doing this),  which in this case, is to create a working city.  

Everybody completes their assigned tasks, you have a winner, and now time has come to assemble the city. It really does not matter who won and who lost because the pieces do not fit together. So the guidance I offer kids is to explore with others what the right city looks like, to make decisions together, to build a first prototype, to try it out for fit, to experience new ideas, re-do the work if necessary and use everyone’s talent to build a functional city.  In order words, kids learn to design a business with the goals of value, functionality, ease of use and style/beauty in mind.

This way, they became competitive to create the best project ever, rather than to own a piece of it. This is a metaphor as much as a real online entrepreneurial game we are creating at KidzBusiness.  The idea is to learn through play, and to be flexible in choosing best approaches rather than be fixated on using particular tools. There are many business tools we can choose once we learn to ‘design’  the learning journey, and we get clear about the business we want to develop.

Why teach teens entrepreneurship?

It’s almost a year now that I teach kids entrepreneurship through KidzBusiness, www.kidzbusiness.com, and I get many questions about the meaning and importance of teaching entrepreneurship at an early age.

Today’s teens have certain paths available to them – and they get the message that it is better to be a surgeon rather than a mechanic, be a lawyer rather than a school teacher, and be a movie star rather than a bus driver. Parents may bring their kids to work to show them the daily mechanics of their jobs, thinking that it helps kids understand what it is like to make a living and to be responsible.

There is an extra element that parents should consider when they are trying to expose their kids to the professions they have chosen for themselves, and that element is the parents’ interaction with their jobs.  Are parents happy with what they do? If there are conflicting messages such as “be a movie star! but I AM ONE, and I am not happy” kids may internalize the cognitive dissonance, and will have challenges in deciding their own path for self expression.

The way most educational systems operate today, kids are offered tools but not a clear understanding what to do with them, and little insight into why one choice is better than another, except when related to making money, or a good living. Sometimes, a good living happens at the expense at one’s true calling.   In the absence of early, authentic explorations, a ‘good living’ choice may turn out to be very unsatisfactorydespite the money made. 

The exploration I am envisioning starts with a conversation: What do I like in life? What do I do well? Where is the possibility to contribute now? Where do I start? How do I start? I do similar facilitation with my business clients, and we always finish with an action plan. The plan for the entrepreneurial child is simple: create a little prototype (be it a new game, a new solo venture, selling a product, a service, writing a blog, a series of ‘how to’ for other kids)  anything that moves the kid to self expression and action.  

There are very important reasons for these facilitated explorations for kids: we want to teach them to act (often) rather than let them be stuck in some sort of paralysis (due to too much thinking, or due to need for approval); we want to teach them the ability to solve problems creatively; educate them to be flexible in terms of choosing or creating new tools for action; we want to teach them solid ways to assess the big picture (the why).

Through action, and measurement of that action’s consequences (in a safe envirnonment, of course) kids learn to do the “picking” rather than wait to be picked. And picking is a much better paradigm for work and career than waiting to be chosen (by a college, by a hiring manager, by a superior for a raise, by a critic for a show, or by the Apprentice, etc).  In the work we do together, kids can say yes or no to a number of projects or actions, and they learn to  for collaborate and brainstorm with a group of peers in a very respectful and non-bullying way.

“The story” behind rebuilding a business

I am pondering the power of  the “story” that informs our lives and the lives of our businesses– I am working with distressed clients fearful of losing their businesses, fearful for their families’ well being, breathing a sort of dark, collective gloom. This is the “story” that is unraveling for us right now, the “reality” of the day, and it seems normal to accept it.

I’d say we must learn to access better “stories” about our lives..

Earlier in life, the quality and variety of stories available to us are tremendous: “I will change the word” “ I will find the love of my life,” “ I will be a writer,” “I will invent the time travel machine” etc— As time goes by, fewer and fewer stories seem to fit our experienced and much tried souls and bodies. “Now it’s too late to…Now, I’ll never be able to …This is how it is now…” Businesses reflect their owners’ and teams’ beliefs and end up with fewer possibilities, unable to embrace new “stories,” instead—re-living the pattern of old and battered metaphors.
 

After proper due diligence —a bleak situation, indeed– I started to re-write the “story” of a client’s business— “Once upon a time there was a business owner who reached the end of his rope. Cash flow was dismal, he could not pay rent, and his team lost all hope. He simply did not see how he would get up in the morning —every day–let alone run a business. The tiredness he felt was gray as the grave, and he was sinking deeper into it. One day a small thing happened that strangely started to change everything…”.
 

He stopped me briskly: “Yes, all right, that happens in fiction, but not in my life, not in real life—look around!!!” I had experience with the magic of the ‘story’, so I gently insisted: “What is the small thing that happened that changed everything? Tell me that story!“ 
His body relaxed slightly, and he said with visible trepidation: “All right—let me warn you—this is a story, I’ll tell you a story—it isn’t happening, ok?“ His team sat around him, as we heard the ‘story’, and they all added their piece– how they needed a certain amount of cash to start over, how the company will reach customers and make sure it’s a really fabulous experience for them, after all let’s dream a beautiful story if we are at it, how the responsibilities of the team were better defined— they all added knowledge they did not even know was useful in the bigger context of the company’s success. In the end we wrote down the “new story,” the turnaround story—