My very first outing in the training field was when I devised and delivered a Fire in the Belly module as part of a Start Your Own Business programme offered by my local County Enterprise Board. Unlike most other SYOB modules, which focus more on the How (i.e. what do I need to know in order to start my own business?), my module focuses more on the Why – why am I forsaking the employment world for the world of self-employment? As the title of my module implies: “Should I, Shouldn’t I start my own business?” (or sometimes: “Do I have what it takes to be my own boss?”), my aim is to help wannabe entrepreneurs sort out in their mind whether they are capable of making the emotional switch from employee to self employed. My module always ends by my telling seminar participants: “Once you persuade yourselves that you do have the right attitude, the right mindset, and the fire in the belly to go out on your own, you need to learn the appropriate business and management skills (by attending more courses, by reading books and websites, etc.)” But after reading Alison Branagan’s Making Sense of Business, I think I’m going to re-word my advice: “You need to learn the appropriate enterprise skills.”

As readers of this newsletter may have gathered already, I am very proud of my role as father to my sons Ashi in California and Amiti in Israel, and grandfather to Amiti’s sons Uri and Nissan. When it comes to business networking, Ashi is an old hand. He has a very friendly and very persuasive patter, and always manages to infiltrate into every conversation – long or short – the magic networking phrase, “And did I tell you, I’m a marketing expert?” (or Hebrew Interpretation expert, or Computer Instructor, according to which of his business cards he is handing out that day).

Leadership and management professor Stewart D Friedman, founder/director of Wharton's Leadership Program, developed his Total Leadership ideas during a two-year spell as a senior executive at Ford, where he ran a 50-person, $25 million Leadership Development Centre. In Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, Friedman helps us identify our core values, and express ways in which we feel out of sync with those values. Friedman describes the four-way wins: our life at work, our life at home, our life in the community, and our personal development. Friedman emphasises three core aspects of leadership. Authenticity - being real - arises when leaders behave in ways that are consistent with their core values. Integrity - being whole - arises when the different aspects of life fit together coherently and consistently. Creativity - being innovative - arises when leaders question traditional assumptions.

It is unlikely that a book entitled “That’ll never work” would ever get published in America – because when Americans think of innovative individuals who start their own business, they don’t have such negative associations. In Ireland, where a culture of home-grown enterprise and entrepreneurship is still regarded with some suspicion, the phrase “That’ll never work” has more resonance. With great fanfare, Ireland’s Minister for Health and Children (and former Minister for Enterprise), Mary Harney, officially launched That’ll Never Work…Success Stories from Private Irish Business by KPMG’s Michael Gaffney and Colin O’Brien, in April 2008.

(Adapted from a blog posted by Dr. David R. Kamerschen, Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia): Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.