A case in point was New Deal. When it was replaced by the Work Programme a number of companies operating effectively in the third sector realised that they would need to establish private sector companies in order to compete for business. Some were joined by laid-off public sector workers whose job it had previously been to facilitate the administration of New Deal. Some of these organisation retained the dominant logic of their previous organisations but others recognised that they could increase their social value yet continue to be successful. The three-dimensional representation below shows this more clearly: the greater the social value achieved the higher up the cone towards a Holistic Enterprise an organisation travels.

Unlike

Minds

Unlike Minds: thinking

holistic enterprise

Unlike Minds is attempting to define, and strive towards, “Holistic Enterprise”.

We coined the phrase to differentiate ourselves and our ambitions from those of “social enterprises”. Some organisations describing themselves as social enterprises demonstrate the characteristics of the most voracious private sector players at the same time as some major corporations demonstrate remarkable levels of social value.

In many ways this mirrors the state of Corporate Social Responsibility: many corporate consciences being salved with a donation to the company “charity of the month” and business practices remain anything but responsible, social or charitable. In our terms, Holistic Enterprise continually strives to increase social value wherever and whenever possible and will not permit antisocial or irresponsible business practices either internally or within any part of the supply chain.

We use the terrain map in the diagram below to help clients analyse the potential for increasing social value their business development decisions. The red represents the traditional private sector companies and their behaviour, the blue, traditional public sector, and the green, the practices external observers have come to expect of traditional third sector teams.

Driven by austerity measures resulting from the Western financial system collapse, boundaries between sectors have begun to erode. Nick Clifford of the northwest Change Centre at Manchester Business School recognises this process as part of a shift from Model 1 to Model 2 organisation: a much larger trend. Nick has agreed to produce a think-piece for Unlike Minds explaining these and surrounding concepts that he has been developing in conversations with Unlike minds. We have seen people laid off from local authority teams either move to set up in private sector or establish social enterprises (shown in the diagram as the yellow, magenta and cyan). Some of these organisations retain the behaviours (dominant logic) of their previous organisations, while others manage increase their social value shown on the terrain map as a move towards the centre.

Click diagram to enlarge

Just as it is unwise to define organisations by sector, it is equally unhelpful to think of some as being holistic enterprises, others as not. Some companies have to capitalise their activities by traditional means and therefore have to build shareholder value, but they may be able to demonstrate high levels of social value in other areas. Unlike Minds developed the imaginary machine shown above so the clients could explore social value trade-off.  Imagine a complex series of levers such that moving one automatically caused intelligent corresponding movement in the others.

The power of interaction

Click diagram to enlarge

Click diagram to enlarge

1. 1.Dominant Logic, Prahalad & Bettis (1986)
   

2. ‘an interpretation of how a company has succeeded . . the cultural norms and beliefs that the company espouses; management response [to events] will depend upon this cognitive orientation of management’.

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