by Margaret Heffernan - Thursday, 6th September 2007

Gordon Brown wants to know how to make Britain more entrepreneurial. It’s a good question and, however much business enjoys its ritualistic chancellor-bashing, I’m glad he’s asking it.

Gordon Brown wants to know how to make Britain more entrepreneurial. It’s a good question and, however much business enjoys its ritualistic chancellor-bashing, I’m glad he’s asking it.

It seems funny to me that, to answer his question, he’s hired academics (I’d just ask entrepreneurs directly) but when one called me the other day, I was happy to help.

We got talking about education and how schools can inspire kids to think about running their own businesses. What did American schools do, the chancellor asked, to give American youth their entrepreneurial spirit?

Business plan contests? Lemonade stands? Courses in entrepreneurship? The answer is: none of the above.

Sure, a few schools might try them but the answer to Brown’s question is probably the opposite of what he expected: American schools give their children very long summer vacations.

Schools finish around the beginning of June and they don’t resume until September. Apart from driving their parents nuts, what do kids do during those three months?

They work. When I ran companies in the US, I hired a lot of young Americans. I didn’t think most of them were very well educated. But they all had a great deal of work experience – because, by their early twenties, they’d already been working for years.

When they were teenagers, these could be pretty dull jobs: shelf-filling, waitressing, swimming pool attendants. Many worked throughout college and those who didn’t always did internships in the summer.

Aspiring lawyers manned law office photocopiers; putative Bill Gateses did software testing, Ralph Lauren wannabes got sore feet serving in department stores.

Swelling student loans drove some of this activity but so too did the spectre of boredom. No one in their right mind wanted to spend the summer plumbing the depths of American TV.

By the time these kids got their first jobs (and they were still kids, believe me) they knew a fair amount about the world of work. They understood hierarchies perfectly.

Most of them understood deadlines. All of them were confident enough to speak up and each one knew that, only by making a contribution, could they expect any recognition.

I often grumbled about their efficiency but I never once questioned their drive to succeed. These kids weren’t time-servers.

They knew that staying at the bottom was boring and that the only way ahead was to learn as much as they could, as fast as they could – and show it off. Did that make them obnoxious? Not often. Most of the time it gave them drive.

It’s a shocking thought that our kids might develop a stronger work ethic by spending less time in school. But learning happens everywhere and we need to become more imaginative about exposing our kids to it everywhere.

The University of Bath’s business studies department, like many around the country, requires its students to complete two six-month placements with businesses. It’s a great way of ensuring that lecture-room learning is tested by reality.

It’s a good plan – but it’s severely let down by the business community itself. Why? Because they can’t find enough companies to take on their students.

Here you have a bunch of bright, motivated kids who actually want to go into business – and it’s the companies that don’t want them!

I grow rather weary of the business community’s whingeing about the government. As entrepreneurs, we’ve succeeded by fixing problems ourselves.

If we want Britain to become more entrepreneurial, if we want our children to respect business, to understand the contribution it makes to society, if we want the world at large to appreciate the complexities of commerce and the trade-offs that it requires of us, then we have to let our kids see this first-hand.

We can’t stand on the side lines and wait for the government to fix it – it’s hypocritical, lazy and way too slow. We should do what we always do: lead the way.

I hired a student from the University of Bath. Jennifer was great: hard-working, reliable, engaged and engaging. Next year, she’s going to work in China.

She wants to learn Mandarin and she wants to see economic growth up close and personal. I sincerely hope that, when Jennifer returns (if Jennifer returns) entrepreneurs in the country will give her a chance.

She’ll need to know what she wants, of course. And she’ll need to be prepared to work hard for it (that won’t be a novelty for Jennifer).

But if she doesn’t find that chance, I don’t think there’s a government on earth that can fix her problem. It’s up to us.

Tags: university, entrepreneur, education, usa, student,