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Generous with his time and thoughts, The Eden Project's Chief Executive Tim Smit dropped into the NCVYS office today to run the second of our leadership masterclasses with members and staff. His direct, charming and suitably sweary brand of wisdom was peppered with useful anecdotes from the front line of entrepreneurialitarianism.

What follows is my personal, junk-science interpretation of his best bits. 

 1. "Anyone with a pencil"

 Creativity these days, says Tim, is at a very low premium. Whereas morein the goldener ages you had to be off ye face on drugs to be regarded as creative, these days such titles are afforded to 'anyone with a pencil'. I think the message here is don't believe your own hype, or indeed that which others may afford you. Be warned, social media strategists.

2. Lose your fear of being disliked

'It's lonely at the top' may be well-understood by (and possibly over-used) but hey, get used to it kid. Don't try to be loved by your team, for the path to leadership is littered with the corposes of talented but overly-genial middle managers. Don't protect the incompetent. Lose your sympathy. These people are stealing minutes of your life! And if you don't get into the habit of doing something about it early on you'll get angry inside. Anger leads to hate, hate to suffering and suffering to middle-ranking, low risk civil service positions (he might have said).

3. Accountants don't know the value of everything

Difficult to fully explain this one - something about the immense, incalcuably magical value of using high risk as an asset. Backs to the wall seige mentality, electricity created. Go for the crazy idea - big crazy! - show no doubt or weakness and if you can bring people on board you'll automatically lower your chances of failure. Your accountant may be great at highlighting critical risk, but what few realise is the mere act of bringing it to wider attention usually focuses minds sufficiently to significantly shorten the odds of doom. Play risk. Play that bitch.

4. Lying = the telling of future events

Closely related to my own 'make the lies true' philisophy, Tim encouraged us to openly state our intended goals even if unsure how you'll acheive them, knowing the prospect of being publicly held to account is the greatest motivation you'll ever have to simply get on with the freakin' job.

5. When fundraising, do your homework

Establish the maximum budget in advance so you never price yourself out of the running. When approaching senior individuals, go for the ceiling of their personal discretionary amount. Pitch it right and nine times out of ten you're in.

6. Name drop

"So I said to Peter Gabriel, Pete we have to do something about this!" 'Nuff said.

 7. Be cunning and prepared each Quarter 4

Always have a half-dozen great projects in your back pocket to dangle in front of underspend-rich funders every March. Do this convincingly and your status as a professional, safe pair of hands is assured. This is essentially a scaled-up version of my own tried and tested 'it's late March, lets ring Capacitybuilders' routine.

8. Accept every third invitation you receive

This is Tim's personal strategy for broadening his horizons and giving fate a randomly helping hand. The idea is to meet people you're not supposed to and see where it takes you. Be open to this and help keep both you and your philosophy fresh. 

9. If it ain't broke don't fix it - "bollocks"

More like 'If it ain't broke someone has a vested interest. Smash it immediately.' < Love this.

Here's the text of the speech I gave to the farewell party of the Young Core Leaders of Civil Society Development programme last night in Tokyo.

To Mr Yoshinori Suematsu, Senior Vice-Minister of the Cabinet Office of Japan, Representatives of CENTREYE and IYEO, International Delegates. And Friends. Thank you.

It’s a great honour to be able to say a few words on behalf of all the international delegates at the end of such a memorable, unique and productive experience.

We’ve already passed on our thanks to many organisations and individuals in the last two weeks but I know I speak for everyone in the German, New Zealand and UK delegations in wanting to do this once more.

Thank you to the Cabinet Office of Japan, for providing the resources and the political will to make this programme happen and to keep it running for a decade. Your commitment to the development of the Japanese NPO sector should be commended.

Thanks also to the CENTER for INTERNATIONAL YOUTH EXCHANGE and the INTERNATIONAL YOUTH EXCHANGE ORGANISATION. Both are central to this programme – without them it would not happen and to the Cabinet Office I say that if they didn’t exist you would need to invent them.

I know also that all delegations took the opportunity to pass on their sincere thanks to the Local Programme Organising Committees, the local groups with whom we had the pleasure to meet and representatives of the three Prefectural Governments of Shimane, Miyagi and Kumamoto who welcomed us so warmly.

And to the international delegates I say congratulations! Via two weeks, four prefectures, numerous hotels, nearly forty home stays, one hospital visit, a quarantine and a lot of hard work we made it. I am extremely proud to be part of this group and know we already have some deep personal and professional bonds between us.

I think it is fair to say we have been challenged and I hope the Cabinet Office consider us worthy of their investment!

In week one in Tokyo we soon appreciated the effort that was demanded of us. But in week two in the local prefectures I truly understood the scale of this programme, the hours of planning and hard work that went into making it happen. We are very fortunate to have been working with such dedicated, capable individuals.

Within the management forum it was often tempting to highlight the differences between international and Japanese working practices.

However through experiencing this programme I know we have all learnt something very valuable about Japanese organisation - your care and attention to detail, and your ability to work under considerable stress but with consistent good humour - for which we are all truly grateful.

But we learnt more than simply good organisation. There are far too many examples to list here, but one theme I know was common to many of our visits to local groups was the strong focus on people’s needs – their emotional wellbeing – that drives the services of many Japanese NPOs.

But now we must look to the future, and that is what I want to concentrate on in my final few minutes here.

Many of our economies are currently facing severe challenges. But I joined the NPO sector because I believe it takes more than simply economic growth to promote wellbeing and to achieve social cohesion - and I know many others in the room feel the same.

Perhaps at this point then we have an opportunity to build new social economies at home and abroad, and perhaps this network can play a small but important role in that process – learning from and sharing with each other - across the public, private and NPO sectors.

 I have always been a passionate supporter of networks – and it is not organisations that have relationships, it is people. And as my colleague Chibwe from the United Kingdom says, this programme has helped make the world a little smaller for all of us.

We the international delegates will take much from this experience – both personal and professional – and our challenge is clear - to build on this programme and ensure it does not end tomorrow at Tokyo airport. 

When we get back to our homes and our work, when the excitement and adrenaline of the programme has subsided, we should reflect on what we have learnt and then act on it.  

If the old saying is true – it’s not what you know it’s who you know – then we are all very rich because through this programme we now know some very talented, dedicated and inspirational people.

So I go back to London full of hope and ideas for the future. And I hope you all feel the same. And until we meet again, goodbye and thank you Japan.

(download)

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speech-to-the-young-core-leaders-farewell-party-gpoCBaGnnmIrmhJJFEeo.zip (508 KB)

As our week-long local Japanese programme of study visits in the Kumamoto prefecture comes to and end and we prepare to return to Tokyo for some final evaluation, I find myself starting to reflect and what I've learnt from colleagues, both within the interntional delegation and our Japanese hosts. 

Week one brought the three-day management forum as cited in earlier posts. This week has taken in visits to five local organisations working with young people - truants, those socially withdrawn, those suffering from drug and alcohol abuse and more. Such a brief tour doesn't give you much of a sense as to how typical these groups are of Japanese NPOs, but does at least give you the foundations of some conclusions. These I plan to write up more fully at a later date, for publication here and possibly elsewhere (the agent is in dicussions).

What has impressed me most about Japanese NPOs has been their ability to recruit volunteers - especially older ones recently retired - and involve them in a wide range of activities. They also seem to be quite successful at getting their servcie users to pay for part or all of the costs of their servcies - something on which we in the UK aren't traditionally that hot. They also have a very relaxed attitude to service planning, which initially terrified the control freak project manager in me but actually makes for a very user-led service that avoids any notion of paternalism.

On the other side it's clear some Japanese NPOs have some way to go to embed notions of quality assurance and monitoring and evaluation into their day to day work. But considering their sector is still young, has very little infrastructure and takes a reasonably small proportion of its income from the state this is hardly suprising.

There have been some fascinating insights along the way. I often think you can tell a lot about a country from the words they have that English does not. In France for example they have a word for the back of the knee. Quite.

Slightly more interesting is the Japanese concept of hikikomori, meaing social withdrawl. Affecting mostly young boys, symptoms manifest in them sitting alone in their rooms for days on end, often with nothing but video games for company and immune even to the approaches of their immediate family.

Another aspect that deserves further exploration, and one I don't have time for here, is the effect the hierarchical nature of Japanese society has on the provision of voluntary servcie and attitudes towards receiving it. This week Japan's economy was overtaken by China and pushed down to third largest in the world, so perhaps there is an opportunity here for some rebalancing of social priorities in the coming years.

Anyhow, a full day of local seminar awaits before tonight's homestay with a Japanese family. Back to Tokyo tomorrow where on Monday I have the privelege of giving the closing speech to the Young Core Leaders Programme. Trying to pull all of our thinking and learning together may be the biggest challenge yet.