Both words are highly topical. Few of us will have been able to avoid hearing them in recent months. However, while most of the attention has been directed to the MBA schools and leadership in large private and public sector organisations, Pye Tait has been helping to develop ideas to bring these skills to the smaller companies.
Micro and small businesses (MSBs) employ between 1 and 49 staff. There are almost 3.5 million of them in the UK today - over 380,000 of them employ 5 or more people. And a very great many of them need assistance and guidance but don’t know where to get it.
Report after report has shown that the MSB is a very special entity. Unlike managers of medium and large companies the owners and managers of MSBs tend not to see their own personal development as distinct from that of the company as a whole. Their culture shuns formal education and training in favour of direct solutions to business problems.
For the owner or manager of an MSB there is simply no distinction between their own knowledge and skills and the needs of the business. This, when taken with their aversion to formal training and to Government schemes, means that enhancing the overall effectiveness of MSBs requires a highly sophisticated 'business-centred' approach.
It is just this approach that Pye Tait is piloting through a multi-channel programme based on a central website.