Changes brought by the new normal that occurs after the end of the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) come as a challenge for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia, including social and creative enterprises.
Innovations are essential to thrive in the new normal. To be able to innovate well, they need to develop a growth mindset.
British Council discussed Fix & Growth Mindset on its webinar titled Growth Mindset for Creative Social Enterprise in Facing New Reality on Wednesday, 17 June 2020. This is one of the tools from the Active Citizen Social Enterprise (ACSE) module developed by the British Council that is usually shared through face-to-face training.
Moderated by Ari Sutanti, Senior Programme Manager, British Council Indonesia, the webinar presented three speakers. They are Jimmy Febriyadi, Founder of INCREASE and facilitator of Active Citizens Social Enterprise; Endahing Suryanti, Founder of Pelangi Nusantara; and Dwi Purnomo, Founder of The Local Enablers and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Agro-Industrial Technology, Padjadjaran University.
In each of the session, the speakers shared their experiences on how to keep businesses running and continue bringing positive impacts to society.
Jimmy Febriyadi opened the first session by explaining the tool for Fixed & Growth mindset. Starting by explaining the relations between Growth Mindset and the Fixed & Growth tool that ignites the way of thinking in managing business models, Jimmy then emphasised on how to think about the survival of social enterprises to withstand crisis. According to him, there are three important things that can increase business opportunities in a pandemic and crisis. These are business management, agile business model, and mindset. Thinking patterns affect the way business actors respond to economic challenges. The mindset will be tested with challenges and failures which will later serve as the learning process for business actors in developing business pivot strategies, if needed.
"Many business actors think that the limitations of the circumstances should not be the main focus, the important thing is looking at opportunities on how the business can develop optimally and still be able to help many people," Jimmy said. Closing his session, Jimmy added that with the challenges in the current economic climate, the most important thing was the desire of business actors to not give up quickly, to believe in the actions taken, and dare to step out of their comfort zone.
Endahing Suryanti, or Yanti opened the second session by sharing the innovation of economic ventures that she initiated with a community of women from low economic background or women who are vulnerable to underaged marriage. Most community members often find it difficult to access economic knowledge to improve their businesses. Reflecting on this situation, Yanti has always been actively creating economic opportunities through the Pelangi Nusantara activities. One of the activities is collecting cloth waste from local tailors to be processed into products such as masks, bags and accessories. The principle of this community effort is to provide skills and business opportunities for women by utilising cloth waste into patchwork to generate income.Many women who are members of the Pelangi Nusantara community have enjoyed positive impacts from this initiative, such as increased self-capacity and income to support their families. "Community members no longer practise underaged marriages, and instead discuss how children from each family can pursue their higher education," said Yanti.
In the final session, Dwi Purnomo shared that British Council's Fixed & Growth tool is one of the significant reference materials for starting social enterprise.
Dwi teaches the students incubated by The Local Enabler the ability to act in an innovative and resilient way to start and run their business, and, if needed, to do a pivot or change the business model. To him, this is an important lesson for the students because universities tend to teach students linear thinking patterns. Conversely, to be innovative and creative, students need to be taught to think laterally or out of the box to be able to find new patterns and ways in innovating their respective businesses.
Overall, the webinar concludes with a key point that social and creative enterprises, when faced with a crisis, are required to have a mindset to want to change for the better and be creative in finding new opportunities and not giving up easily. The 2-hour webinar was attended by around 180 enthusiastic participants who actively interacted and asked questions to the speakers and moderators.
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Growth Mindset for Creative Social Enterprise in Facing New Reality webinar is part of British Council’s Active Citizens Social Enterprise (ACSE) programme. The recording of the webinar can be accessed via this link.