To help you succeed, the course is split into the following units:

1. Spotting opportunity

Where we introduce the understanding of seeing the chances that surround us every day. Students are introduced to several practical activities that promote an oblique view of the world that exposes them to opportunities.

2. Creativity

Explaining techniques used by creative people to curate ideas. Practical advice is given via John Cleese and Brian Eno. We develop ideas of improvisational and compositional creativity and introduce the SCAMPER technique and Oblique Strategies.

3. Valuing Ideas

All enterprise needs to create value in many forms to provide it with resilience. We explore the fleeting appreciation of the value that goes beyond the instinctive utilitarian or fiscal appreciations. We dip dive into the Buddhist definition of value as well as the modern exploration of value using Lakeus five forms using reflections on the work of bin men, bankers, and Banksy.

4. Creating a Vision

Every enterprise needs a vision to provide the guiding star to steer its principles and action. We explore the visions of Kennedy’s moon-shot and the immortal speech of Dr Martin Luther King. Students create a vivid vision that becomes the backbone for their own enterprise and going forward.

5. Ethics and Sustainability

Modern enterprises are faced with the moral imperative of our time: the sustainability agenda. The idea of “doing the right thing” is unpacked via an appreciation of the driving morals of Marvel’s Captain America and Ironman. This is balanced by the concepts of eudemonia from the 2000-year-old yet still relevant work of Aristotle.

6. Self-awareness and Self-Efficacy

A successful enterprise is shaped by leaders that are both aware of their shortcomings yet confident of their abilities. We expose the value of Brene Brown’s vulnerability approach and give practical advice on mindfulness as well as finding (and listening to) a loving critic.

7. Motivation and Perseverance

Where we explore the historical lessons of the success and failures of management science over the last century. We bring the student up to date with Ryan and Decci’s Self Determination Theory. This is contextualised with a lecture by Daniel Pink on Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose with associated material by supremo public speaker and thinker of our time Simon Sineck.

8. Financial and Economic Literacy

Student's need to develop skills in communicating with fund holders and financiers. We develop an easy-to-appreciate communication mechanism using the Business Model Canvas. In doing so the student is encouraged to develop creative approaches to HOW the enterprise will be delivered rather than just WHAT it is. We introduce the concept of bootstrapping which reduces the requirement for finance.

9. Mobilising others

Where we dismiss the old-fashioned idea of the heroic leader capable of running an enterprise single-handedly. We explore the idea of how the management style alters as the enterprise matures with the discussion of Griener’s stages of growth. Finally, we explore finding co-founders and team mates for the student’s business enterprise idea.

10. Mobilising resources

In this unit, we explore Sarsavathy’s causal and effectual style of entrepreneurs. In doing so the learning draws from the idea of the lean start-up adopted by Silicon Valley. We show how an enterprise’s viability should be tested with the minimum set of resources that can be mustered and go on to develop a Minimum Viable Product using free resources available from Canva.


11. Learning through experience

We dismiss the ideas of knowing our offering in intimate detail before development in favour of the approaches described in Senge’s Learning Organisation. Senge’s approach is flavoured with an appreciation of systems thinking. We develop the idea of deep and active listening skills for you and your team to learn how the organisation fits into the world.

12. Working with others

We resurface the ideas of heroic leadership and lead the student into a transformational leadership style. Using the approaches to management defined in the nursing profession, we discuss responsibility, accountability, and liability to work out how work should be allocated. We talk about dealing with the failures that the learning approach inevitably surfaces and how to communicate them to your team and stakeholders using emotional intelligence.

13. Planning and Management

Modern enterprises realise that they do not know what they may need to know and that the development of a project with unknown elements is done with a less instinctive style of management. We introduce the student to Agile project management used in the app, video game and creative industries. This includes a definition of sprints, stand-up meetings, MOSCOW prioritisation techniques.

14. Taking the initiative

This unit attempts to unpack the procrastination associated with the fear of doing something truly innovative. Using approaches developed in the coaching industry we talk the student through to stress reliving metaphors associated with any initiative based on Britain’s got Talent that can be used personally and projected to third parties as their management responsibilities increase.

15. Coping with ambiguity and risk

Using insights from professional gamblers we explore the calculations made by entrepreneurs balancing the risk associated with starting something new against the risk of not starting at all. We explain how to mitigate some risks using Ashby’s law of Requisite Variety and revisit some of the techniques taught in the course through the lens of risk.