Social Entrepreneurship and

Behavioral Health –

Defining, Measuring and Coaching

Steve Herr, PhD – Advanced Metrics – Chief Executive Officer

Nate Lubold, MA – Advanced Metrics – Director of Solution Implementation

• Limited financial resources

• Pressure to increase efficiency

• Difficulty in attracting/retaining talent

• Business operations must equal quality of clinical

operations

• Identifying where leaders come from within an

organization

Challenges Facing Service Providers

A Successful Entrepreneur is…

“… one who is able to generate individual and

community wealth by developing a business asset,

and can do this repeatedly under a variety of

circumstances. This requires that an entrepreneur

consistently overcome the obstacles faced in obtaining

and using the resources required to start, grow, and

sustain a business.”

- Lyons, Lichtenstein & Kutzhanova (2007)

Other Explanations for

Entrepreneurship Success

• Traits theory (Greenberg and Sexton 1988; Huefner

and Hunt 1994; Kassicieh, Padosevich, and Banbury

1997; Schumpeter 1991) – no consistent evidence of

unique entrepreneurial characteristics

• Behavioral theory (Block and MacMillan 1985;

Gartner 1989; Carter, Gartner, and Reynolds 1996) –

ability of entrepreneurs to learn and adapt is missing

Other Explanations continued

• Cognition theory (Mitchell and Chesteen 1995;

Krueger 2000; Shane and Venkataraman 2000;

Minniti and Bygrave 2001; Keh, Foo, and Lim 2002;

Cope 2005) – no guidance for how to develop

knowledge and apply it; not actionable

Recent Research Suggests That…

• Entrepreneurs learn from others (Cope 2005)

• Opportunity recognition may be a systematic process that

can be learned (Fiet 2002)

• Successful entrepreneurs create opportunities by “starting

with who they are, what they know and whom they know.”

(Sarasvathy 2008)

• Developing entrepreneurs is about developing skills (Smith,

Schallenkamp & Eichholz, 2005; Lichtenstein and Lyons

2010)

• Social skills are essential to entrepreneurship

success (Baron & Markman, 2000).

Entrepreneur Skill Theory (EST)

– Entrepreneurs are successful to the extent that

they have the necessary skills;

– These skills are definable and measurable;

– They include both “hard” and “soft” skills;

– Entrepreneurs come to entrepreneurship at

different levels of skill;

– Entrepreneurship skills can be developed.

Our Definition of Skill

The ability to perform a particular action or task

on a consistent basis, at a high level of

performance, without a great deal of conscious

thinking or attention, to achieve a desired

outcome (Lichtenstein & Lyons, 2010).

Skills are Not…

• Behaviors – a specific behavior that is

“entrepreneurial” in one context will not

necessarily be so in another time and space.

• Competencies – these are highly abstract and

do not and cannot indicate specifically what to

do, how to do it, and under what circumstances.

Observations about Skill Levels

• Entrepreneurs at each skill level vary by conception of

their businesses, timeframe in which they operate, ability

to delegate, span of control, ability to abstract from

concrete reality, scope of experiences and the way they

categorize them

• Higher skill levels represent greater ability; not

necessarily greater intelligence

• Everyone starts at Level 1

• Distribution of skills tends to be a pyramid

The Readiness Inventory for Successful Entrepreneurship

(RISE) for Social Entrepreneurship

Thomas Lyons PhD

John Lyons PhD

• A web-based tool for assessing an individual’s

entrepreneurship skills

• Uses the Communimetric approach to

assessment (like CANS)

• Measures skills drawn from multiple disciplines

• Assesses 33 skills across four skill dimensions

What is the RISE?

• Transformation Management – the skills of

creativity and innovation

• Relationship Management – the skills of

networking, partnering, etc.

• Business Management – the skills of business

• Organizational Process Management – the

skills required to sustain and grow an organization

Skill Dimensions of the RISE

Entrepreneurship Skill

Development Levels

Skill Dimension/

Level

TransformationManagement

RelationshipManagement

BusinessManagement

OrganizationalProcess

Management

Level 5 Exceptional Exceptional Exceptional Exceptional

Level 4 High High High High

Level 3 Medium Medium Medium Medium

Level 2 Low/Medium Low/Medium Low/Medium Low/Medium

Level 1 No/Low No/Low No/Low No/Low

Level 5

Level 4

Level 3

Level 2

Level 1

Skill Ladder

Sales Revenue by Skill Level for Clients

Participating in the Entrepreneurial

League System of Central Louisiana®

(N = 109)

Skill LevelAverage

Sales

Revenue

Ratio

Between

Levels

Median

Sales

Revenue

Ratio

Between

Levels

Level 3

(13) $5,114,762 4.9 $3,616,748 7.14

Level 2

(43) $1,042,913 2.3 $506,375 2.1

Level 1

(53) $456,745 1 $242,665 1

Sales Revenue by Skill Level for

Advantage Valley ELS®

(N= 73)

Skill LevelAverage

Sales

Revenue

Ratio

Between

Levels

Median

Sales

Revenue

Ratio

Between

Levels

Level 3

(5) $1,480,397 1.6 $1,780,267 6.5

Level 2

(47) $951,188 6.0 $273,604 10.7

Level 1

(21) $158,926 1 $25,645 1

Does Skill Development

Make a Difference?

A Comparison of the Developmental / Skill

Level and Annual Revenues for 13

Entrepreneurial Professional Ophthalmologists

Skill Level

(n)

Average

Sales

Revenue

(1987)

Ratio

Between

Levels

Average

Age

Average

Years in

Practice

Level 4

(0)n/a n/a n/a n/a

Level 3

(3)$4,200,000 3.23 n/a 13

Level 2

(5)$1,300,000 3.9 43 9

Level 1

(5)$330,000 1 40 14

Entrepreneurial Skills Can Be Measured

• Clinimetric/Communimetric Assessment Tool

• Uses numeric ranges

• Can track changes in skill within a skill level and across

skill levels

• Administered by a trained diagnostician (usually a

coach) or taken by an individual entrepreneur

• Over past ten years, the forerunner to the RISE (the

ELSA) has shown tremendous inter-rater reliability

• How the Site Works

Demonstration of the RISE

Let’s Get Started

Let’s Get Started

Reliability

• Benefit of having fundamental CANS knowledge (scoring is more cumulative)

• Shared decision making

• Process of getting acclimated to RISE is often an exploration in self-awareness

• Address performance that would normally be ignored

• Change over time reporting to help identify progress

Concepts From Behavioral Health

• The pilot covered a 7 month time period and continues today

• 5 entrepreneurs

• Entrepreneurs and coaches represented the management team at small-medium treatment foster care agency in Maryland (Kennedy Krieger)

• Purpose: assess the impact of using a standardized tool to develop entrepreneurial skills as part of a strategic plan to develop leadership and business acumen from within the organization

Impact to Organization

Average Score Comparison

Entrepreneur Average

• Time one = 53

• Time two = 57

Coach Average

• Time one = 61

• Time two = 64

Transformation Management

Skill Level

Entrepreneur

• Time one = 3.3

• Time two = 3.6

Coach

• Time one = 3.7

• Time two = 4.2

Relationship Management Skill Level

Entrepreneur

• Time one = 2.9

• Time two = 3.8

Coach

• Time one = 3.8

• Time two = 3.8

Business Management

Skill Level

Entrepreneur

• Time one = 2.3

• Time two = 2.8

Coach

• Time one = 3.2

• Time two = 3.3

Organization Process Management

Skill Level

Entrepreneur

• Time one = 3.1

• Time two = 4

Coach

• Time one = 4

• Time two = 4

• Why is this important?

• First Impressions of the R.I.S.E

• Personal Journey

– Obstacles and Challenges

Participant Experience

Participant Experience

• Personal Growth

– Impact on professional relationship

– Impact on approach to job

• Lessons Learned

– What would we do differently?

Next Steps

• Expand the use of the tool within the

organization

• Develop and implement common

language across all levels