Cultivating Skills for Social Economy
Summary[edit | edit source]
Editorial[edit | edit source]
Though motivations and aspirations play a crucial role in deciding to launch a SE organization, they are not enough to set it up, successfully run it and to secure its sustainability through time. Skills and competences also play a key role. We distinguish between two types of skills, hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills refer to skills stemming from academic and technical education and training on a particular field, like digital competences, marketing and management skills, financial and accounting skills. On the other hand, soft skills refer to general behavioral and interpersonal skills, such as active listening, empathy, team spirit, conflict resolution skills, flexibility and patience. Soft skills are often perceived as personal traits and behaviors, that people develop through everyday life experience and they are often seen as related to cultural contexts. For example, communication skills are enhanced through teamwork in a collaborative environment. However, soft skills can also be enhanced and improved through teaching and learning.
Running a SE organization requires a wide range of hard and soft skills, often even broader than that of a capitalist enterprise. This is due to the fact that SE organizations aspire to produce social and environmental value, in addition to economic value. Capitalist enterprises can also produce social and environmental value, but their key objective remains profit making and profit maximization. By contrast, SE organizations are structured from the outset with a broader set of key objectives at equal weight, including economic, social and environmental goals. This increases their level of complexity. Therefore, combining a wide range of skills is particularly crucial to a SE organization. Apart from the hard skills mentioned in the "Running a SE organization" section, soft skills can also help SE organizations deal with the inevitable, inherent tensions amongst their key goals. This is why skills like openness, flexibility, critical thinking, cooperation skills and dealing with tensions, which are either underestimated in the conventional business world or focused on productivity enhancement and profit maximization, have been acknowledged as particularly important for successful social entrepreneurship.
Let’s take for example the case of democratic governance in a SE organization. Hard skills, like management and accounting, can help people make informed contributions in democratic decision-making. Soft skills enable smooth and effective collective decision-making. More specifically, conflict resolution skills can help people deal with a conflict, which can hinder democratic and effective decision-making and even lead to the weakening or dissolution of a SE organization. So, both hard and soft skills can promote active participation in decision-making, critical evaluation of different viewpoints and ideas, and collective decision-making, which are vital to democratic governance in a SE organization.
Another example would be the social impact assessment, mentioned in module 4. Calculating economic and financial indicators, or employing a complex method, like SROI, to quantify social impact, requires hard skills. Conducting interviews to get users’ feedback requires organizational as well as communication skills. In general, flexibility and out of the box thinking can assist choosing the right mixture of quantitative and qualitative value assessment methods or even adjusting it to correspond to the SE organization’s time, skills and resources. So, again, both hard and soft skills are required to plan and carry out this part of running a SE organization.
From the aforementioned, it is easy to see that a SE organization should not chose between hard and soft skills, since none of these categories is more important than the other. Both hard and soft skills paly a crucial role, and they work in a complementary manner. Importantly, more often than not, one needs to possess certain hard skills in order to be able to develop soft skills. For example, management skills do facilitate time management or conflict resolution, while technical knowledge on environmental impact facilitates collective decision making on the pathways for a positive socio-environmental impact. Equally, one needs to possess certain soft skills to be able to acquire or apply hard skills. For example, patience and organizational skills can facilitate attending training courses and studying, while interpersonal communication skills can help making accountancy-related decisions.
In the following table one can find some indicative examples of hard and soft skills, necessary or useful for running a SE organization.
| HARD SKILLS | SOFT SKILLS |
| entrepreneurial skills | active listening |
| digital know-how | empathy |
| marketing skills | flexibility |
| management skills | adaptability |
| financial skills | patience |
| accounting skills | conflict resolution skills |
| data analysis skills | openness to critique |
| database management skills | out of the box thinking |
| fundraising skills | critical thinking |
| budgeting skills | visionary thinking |
| legal knowledge | organizational skills |
| reporting skills | team spirit |
| proposal writing skills | facilitation skills |
| language skills | decision-making skills |
| photo editing skills | respectfulness |
| graphic design skills | disability awareness |
| web development skills | diversity awareness |
| video production skills | stress management skills |
| governance | public speaking skills |
| responsibility | |
| honesty | |
| communication skills | |
| networking skills | |
| commitment | |
| time management skills | |
| non-violent communication | |
| emotional intelligence | |
| problem-solving | |
| willingness to learn | |
| integrity |
When it comes to the way skills can be acquired and further developed, it is reported that this can be achieved through three main pathways: 1) professional, referring to formal education, training, lifelong learning, coaching and mentoring, 2) experiential, referring to learning by doing and on the job training and 3) kinematic, referring to peer to peer (P2P) learning, liaising with other SE organizations, country and worldwide, participating in coordination mechanisms.
More specifically, hard skills are usually acquired through professional pathways, like formal education and training (e.g., academic education, vocational training), but can also be achieved through coaching and peer to peer mentoring. In a fast-evolving world, lifelong learning is crucial to develop and enhance hard skills so as not to become obsolete. The same holds true for soft skills which are usually acquired through experiential (or even kinematic) pathways, like learning by doing, on the job training, voluntarism and generally informal education and everyday life experience. Non formal education and training, which is structured, organized, intentional and planned but does not lead to formal qualifications, can also assist developing soft and hard skills.
Networking can also promote skills’ development and upgrading. Especially when it comes to SE organizations, networking promotes the development of skills such as critical thinking, visionary thinking, conflict resolution, flexibility, commitment, team spirit, independence and openness. Networking refers to the internal network of the SE organization which consists of its members, workers, partners, clients, producers etc., along with the network it forms with the wider socio-economic environment, which can include other SE organizations, NGOs, social movements, governmental institutions, support structures, standard businesses etc.
Social Economy and Skills are currently high on the EU agenda. The year 2023 has been declared as the European Year of Skills. Accordingly, the European Commission has launched the Pact for Skills, a shared engagement model for skills development in Europe. To support a fair and resilient recovery and deliver on the ambitions of the green and digital transitions and of the EU Industrial and SME Strategies, the Commission invited public and private organizations to join forces and take concrete action to upskill and reskill people in Europe. The Pact is the first of the flagship actions under the European Skills Agenda and is firmly anchored in the European Pillar of Social Rights. The said EU initiative in conjunction with the 2023 European Year of Skills is hopefully expected to bring skills in the spotlight and provide more clarity on their definition, classifications and importance. The recently (2021) published EU Action Plan for Social Economy constitutes an additional factor which is expected to attract attention to the direction of Social Economy and its dimensions, one of which are the much-needed skills to make SE field flourish and further develop.
In the index below, one may find a multitude of resources consisting of books, papers, articles, online tools, courses, videos and games to boost mainly soft skills such as organizational skills, horizontal decision-making, teambuilding, active listening, empathy, non-violent communication and conflict resolution. This material can serve as the basis for non-formal education and training in SE organizations.
Index of Resources[edit | edit source]
| Title | Type | Description | Language |
|---|---|---|---|
| Successful Niche Building by Social Innovation in Social Economy Networks and the Potential for Societal Transformation | Academic Paper | The paper examines the role of networking in social economy initiatives in strengthening their innovativeness capacities, and, thus, increasing their potential for societal transformation. The analytical framework reflects the different clusters of networking relations within and outside social economy initiatives, as well as the roles of cognitive frames, skills and capacities, governance, activities, and funding under each of these networking clusters. | EN |
| Skills and Selves in the New Workplace | Academic Paper | Drawing from Internet sites marketing skills-related services, this paper explores the semiotic properties of discourses that facilitate skills' commensurability and commodification. | EN |
| Επαγγελματική εκπαίδευση και κατάρτιση στη σφαίρα της κοινωνικής οικονομίας: Μια συγκριτική ανάλυση πέντε χωρών της ΕΕ. | Paper | Summary of results of comparative study in five countries (HR, FR, EL, CZ, IT) for the type of education provide in SE. Contains the profile of educator with the acquired skills (empathy, creativity, problem solving, etc.) | GR |
| LinkedIn course on Thinking Skills (Smart Thinking; overcoming Complexity) | (Paid) Course | Critical thinking and problem-solving are among the foundational skills needed in the modern workplace. They help you break down complex problems and remove barriers—such as overthinking and overengineering—that stand in the way of simple solutions. In this course, renowned author, speaker, and educator Richard Gerver provides proven tools and techniques to deal with complexity, including cultivating a greater sense of control and confidence to make proactive decisions that are sustainable. Learn how to collaborate with others, and manage fear and other negative emotions. | EN |
| LinkedIn course on Collaboration Principles and Process | (Paid) Course | Collaboration can be difficult. As a word alone, collaboration seems abstract, conjuring up images of people always being together. On top of this, collaboration involves the complexities of human beings. Encouraging people to work together towards a shared mission may not be successful if you don't convey or provide an incentive. In this course, Prakash Raman dismisses the premise that collaboration is fixed, explaining that there is a wide spectrum of what teamwork and partnerships can look like, so you can begin to learn and experience the benefits of collaboration. First, he describes how to overcome common challenges. Next, he outlines ten principles, providing a checklist that helps you to diagnose why your team may not be collaborating. Then, he reveals how you can systematically address the gap. Lastly, he shares how to operationalize collaboration through more effective meetings that are aimed at achieving the mission of your project or organization. | EN |
| Non Violent Communication as per Marshall Rosenberg | Book “Nonviolent Communication. A language of Life” | Non Violent Communication (NVC) as per Marshall Rosenberg’s Theory. A Method to Understand why we behave the way we do, to manage negative emotions as anger, to enable conflict resolution and to increase our levels of Empathy. | EN |
| Non Violent Communication as per Marshall Rosenberg | Articles | Non Violent Communication (NVC) as per Marshall Rosenberg’s Theory. A Method to Understand why we behave the way we do, to manage negative emotions as anger, to enable conflict resolution and to increase our levels of Empathy. | EN |
| Perceptual Positions; A Neuro-linguistic (NLP) Technique to boost Empathy | Article and Video | Neuro linguistic programming is a modelling approach that offers a toolkit of ways to deal with life’s opportunities and challenges.This is key in learning how to communicate, both with both ourselves and with others. | EN |
| Mentoring. Find yourself a mentor | Recommendation | Mark Zuckerberg considers Steve Jobs a mentor. Bill Gates mentioned Warren Buffet as a mentor. Maya Angelou mentored Oprah Winfrey. None of these powerful people would have gotten where they are today without the guidance of someone who had been there before. Oprah said, “A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” It can be someone you work with, someone you meet through networking, or even someone you follow on social media or whose content inspires you. The important thing about a mentor is that they inspire you to achieve – and give you the real-life advice you need to take action. There are several pools of mentors out there, usually managed under NGOs. Indicatively, if you are 18-29 y.o., you can find one through YES! EEA and Norway Grants Project, implemented in Greece through ANKA S.A., in Spain through Autoocupacio, in Italy through Microfinanza, in Poland through YBP. | EN |
| How to improve your organizational skills. Lack of organization has been reportedly one of the biggest challenges while running a SE Organization. | Apps designed to enhance one’s organizational skills | Apps to better organize your team or get better self-organized. | EN |
| Greek Labour Institute (INE GSEE) | Paper(uploaded on google drive) | Paper on skills enabling access to the labor market | EN |
| Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson et al. | Book on Conflict Resolution | Book enabling us to manage challenging situations and efficiently tackle conflicts. | EN |
| Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury | Book on Conflict Resolution | Book enabling us to manage challenging situations and efficiently tackle conflicts. | EN |
| The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbringer Institute | Book on Conflict Resolution | Book enabling us to manage challenging situations and efficiently tackle conflicts. | EN |
| Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Bruce Patton, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen | Book on Conflict Resolution | Book enabling us to manage challenging situations and efficiently tackle conflicts. | EN |
| Building Conflict Competent Teams
by Craig E. Runde and Tim A. Flanagan |
Book on Conflict Resolution | Understanding how to cool down, slow down, and engage the naturally occurring conflicts among team members is critical to the ultimate success of a team. This book focuses on how conflict emerges and how to respond in ways that will leverage conflicts to their advantage. Team members will learn the importance of establishing a safe team climate, agreeing on processes to guide interactions, and use of constructive communication skills in order to develop a conflict competent team. | EN |
| You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy | Book on Active Listening | Book enhancing active listening | EN |
| Listening Well by William R. Miller | Book on Active Listening | Book enhancing active listening | EN |
| The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships by Michael P. Nichols | Book on Active Listening | Book enhancing active listening | EN |
| Active Listening Techniques: 30 Practical Tools to Hone Your Communication Skills Nixaly Leonardo | Book on Active Listening | Book enhancing active listening | EN |
| Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen by Howard Binkow and Susan F. Cornelison (Illustrator) | Book on Active Listening | Book enhancing active listening | EN |
| 4 Essential Skills for Social Entrepreneurs (and how to build them!) | Article | Article on the 4 most important hard and soft skills for social entrepreneurs according to Enrique Rubio and how to acquire them. | EN |
| The School for Social Entrepreneurs | Educational platform | The School for Social Entreprneurs is an organization which runs courses that equip people to start, scale and strengthen organisations that make a positive difference, such as SE organizations. | EN |
| The Three Chairs Exercise | Game | The 3-chairs exercise is a useful exercise to help us understand situations better and other persons’ perspective in a situation they come across and because of which they may even disagree/argue. The exercise helps build upon empathy, understanding and conflict resolution. | EN |
| 'Soft skills': The intangible qualities companies crave | Article | Article on the importance of soft skills in the contemporary working environment. | EN |
| I2E Talent Tool | Online tool | Online self-assessment and guided action plan for growing your entrepreneurial leadership skills and capabilities. | EN |
| European Parliament Social Economy Intergroup public hearing video from the 18th FEBRUARY 2021 | Video | Zoom webinar on the importance of investing in the upskilling and reskilling of social economy entrepreneurs and employees as drivers of sustainable development and fair transitions. | EN |
| EU Green Week 2022 Side Event: Skills for Green Social Entrepreneurship Economy | Video | Panel organized by Diesis Network as a partner event in the context of EUGreenWeek. The focus is on training schemes, good practices and upcoming innovations regarding upskilling and reskilling of workers for a green economic transition. | EN |
| Resolving Conflict | Video | Short video that describes 8 steps to successfully deal with conflicts in a council. | EN |
| Training | Training module | Training module on Products/ Services Design within SSE operational framework. | EN |
| Training modules | Training module | Training module on Democratic management and horizontal governance in and for SSE ventures. | EN |
| ISSE Game | Game | Acting as entities of the Social and Solidarity Economy, the players will need to make decisions that will have certain consequences for daily organization and function of the entity. Thought to promote the knowledge of the SSE on a large scale, the game is an economic simulation in which the players will aim to achieve a final objective through managing capital, creating a company or managing their own domestic economy. | EN |
| Εκπαιδευτική πλατφόρμα ΚΑΛΟ | Educational platform | Educational platform including videos, exercises and forums regarding the theory and practice of Social and Solidarity Economy. It includes a module on the dynamics of a group of people working together: their roles within the team, meetings’ management, ways of decision-making and conflict resolution. | GR |
| OECD Study on Social and Emotional Skills | Video | The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has launched a study on the social and emotional skills of students to help cities and countries improve social and emotional skills amongst school-aged children and young people. This study aims to improve understanding amongst policy-makers, education leaders, teachers and parents on the critical role of social and emotional skills and the types of policies and practices that support the development of these skills. The video provides an overview of the study and how to get involved. | EN |
| Brené Brown on Empathy | Video | What is the best way to ease someone's pain and suffering? In this beautifully animated RSA Short, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities. | EN |
| Team Emotional Intelligence 2.0: The Four Essential Skills of High Performing Teams by Dr. Jean Greaves and Evan Watkins | Book on Team Building | Dr. Greaves, Evan Watkins, and their contributing team of experts begin with a life and death story of team failure that illustrates how emotions can drive team decisions and lead to disaster. They share a proven approach to helping teams understand Team EQ skills, build these skills into strengths, and use them to sustain positive momentum and achieve peak performance. | EN |
| You Are The Team: 6 Simple Ways Teammates Can Go From Good To Great
by Michael G. Rogers |
Book on Team Building | With captivating stories, relatable examples, introspective activities, and actionable exercises, this book challenges the team's mindset and equips them with the tools to elevate their personal performance and that of the entire team. | EN |
| 101 Team Building Exercises: To Improve Cooperation and Communication
by Mr. Herman Otten |
Book on Team Building | This book contains 101 of the best team building exercises to improve cooperation and communication. Some exercises are fun team building games, and others are profound communication exercises. Each exercise includes two pages of step-by-step instructions, explained clear and precisely. | EN |
| Appreciative Team Building: Positive Questions to Bring Out the Best of Your Team
by Diana Whitney , Amanda Trosten-Bloom, Jay Cherney and Ron Fry |
Book on Team Building | This book contains provocative and positive questions that aim to develop and enhance team performance, yielding faster and better results | EN |
| Building the Team: Cooperative Power Dynamic Relationships
by Joshua Tenpenny and Raven Kaldera |
Book on Team Building | When we create conscious and consenting power dynamic relationships, most of the models we find in fiction and fantasy are adversarial, with dominant and submissive members on opposite sides of a display of force. This model works for some couples, but not for all. Instead of an adversarial model, this book outlines a cooperative Teamwork model where the dominant and submissive members work together to make effective progress in the goals of the relationship. The Teamwork method of building a mindful unequal relationship emphasizes mutual responsibility, problem solving, honesty, and trust. | EN |
| Over 600 Icebreakers & Games: Hundreds of ice breaker questions, team building games and warm-up activities for your small group or team
by Jennifer Carter |
Book on Team Building | With literally 100’s of icebreaker questions, dozens of activities and team-building games, this book helps the reader to use icebreakers with ease, build effective teams and be a team leader who makes things happen. | EN |
| Do Team: How to get the best from everyone| by Charlie Gladstone | Book on Team Building | This book is about working with other people. It’s about making that experience a positive one. It’s about how a happy, engaged and motivated team becomes an unstoppable force. | EN |
| The Big Book of Team-Motivating Games: Spirit-Building, Problem-Solving and Communication Games for Every Group (Big Book Series)
by Mary Scannell |
Book on Team Building | This book includes games that improve team cooperation, communication, and spirit. Th games can be played in or out of the office, requiring few or no props. | EN |
| The Power of a Positive Team: Proven Principles and Practices that Make Great Teams Great by Jon Gordon | Book on Team Building | In this book Jon Gordon shares the proven principles and practices that build great teams - and provides practical tools to help teams overcome negativity and enhance their culture, communication, connection, commitment and performance. | EN |
| Mouse in the Room: Because the Elephant isn't Alone by David Wood and Jack Canfield (Forward) | Book on Team Building | In this book, David Wood explains how the simple yet courageous act of noticing and naming our “mice” can profoundly change our lives, our work culture, and the world. | EN |
| The Culture System: A Proven Process for Creating an Extraordinary Team Culture
by J.P. Nerbun |
Book on Team Building | Supported by the latest research in motivation, behavioral psychology, and neuroscience, and full of practical strategies and real examples, The Culture System gives you the power to create an extraordinary culture no matter your sport, level, or circumstances. | EN |
| Scaling Teams: Strategies for Building Successful Teams and Organizations
by Alexander Grosse and David Loftesness |
Book on Team Building | Each section of the book covers essential strategies and tactics for managing growth, starting with a single team and exploring typical scaling points as the team grows in size and complexity. The book also provides many examples and lessons learned, based on the authors’ experience and interviews with industry leaders. | EN |
| Stick Together: A Simple Lesson to Build a Stronger Team
by Jon Gordon and Kate Leavell |
Book on Team Building | Stick Together delivers a crucial message about the power of belief, ownership, connection, love, inclusion, consistency, and hope. The authors guide individuals and teams on an inspiring journey to show them how to persevere through challenges, overcome obstacles, and create success together. | EN |
| Group Dynamics by Forsyth, D.R. | Book on Team Building | Group Dynamics covers all major theories and topics pertaining to group and team processes. | EN |
| Cultures of Belonging: Building Inclusive Organizations that Last
by Alida Miranda-Wolff |
Book on Diversity Awareness and Inclusion | This book involves clear, actionable steps to build new values, experiences, and perspectives into the organizational culture, infusing it with the diversity, inclusion, and belonging that employees need to feel accepted, be their best selves, and do their best work. | EN |
| The empowerment manual: a guide for collaborative groups. | Online Book on Democratic Decision-making | The Empowerment Manual is a comprehensive manual for groups seeking to organize with shared power and bottom-up leadership to foster vision, trust, accountability, and responsibility. | EN |
| Community Self-Help by Burns D., Williams C., Windebank L. | Book on Community Self-Help | This book explores the dynamics of community self help in local neighbourhoods. It shows how widespread it is, and argues that it should be considered as the third major sector of social and economic organization (alongside the state and market). | EN |
| EU Pact for Skills | Website | The Pact for Skills is one of the flagship actions of the European Skills Agenda.
The Pact aims to support public and private organisations with upskilling and reskilling, so they can thrive through the green and digital transitions. Members of the Pact have access to knowledge on upskilling and reskilling needs, advice on relevant funding instruments to boost the skills of adults in their regions and countries, and partnership opportunities within our growing community. |
EN |
| Chapter 2 On “Out-of-the-Box” Thinking in Creativity | Chapter in a Book | This chapter proposes that “inside-the-box thinking” is the basis for creativity: innovation is based on extensive knowledge in the area in question and moves beyond what is known in increments—small steps—based on ordinary cognitive processes, such as retrieval of knowledge from memory, analogical thinking, and logical reasoning. | EN |
| Facilitating for Gender Balance | Article | This article puts forward the gender inequalities arising during discussions at forums, seminars, conferences, festivals etc. It also offers tips to participants and facilatators regarding how to promote gender equity during these discussions. | EN |
| Facilitation guide Gender-sensitive conflict analysis | Training guide | The guide is intended to support facilitators to undertake a participatory gender-sensitive conflict analysis. It seeks to:
Explain how to design and facilitate a flexible and participatory three-day gender-sensitive workshop. Provide step-by-step guidance and participatory tools to analyse gender, peace, violence and conflict for any given context. Position practitioners to apply this analysis to policy thinking and programme design and implementation, which can range from gender-sensitive to gender-transformative peacebuilding practice. |
EN |
