Entrepreneurs have an Attitude of Life-Long Learning
Dr.Amrinder Kaur
Entrepreneurs are the backbone of any economy as they fuel, it through their purpose, innovation, and persistence, and thus creating opportunities not only for themselves but many others including the society and its stakeholders. Entrepreneurs flourish by creating their own brand identity through unique propositioning to add value through their offerings to their customers. Even when they are inspired by a business model or idea, it will still have their identity and a unique USP to cater to their market and customer segments that they wish to serve. Numerous small businesses have taken a form through Entrepreneurship and even bigger organizations and corporate are fuelling entrepreneurs in the form of intrapreneurs or employees with entrepreneurial thinking and attitude in their organizations for more clarity of thought, creativity, and innovation.
India is at a threshold wherein we have started ushering into a culture of promoting entrepreneurs and their ventures through an effective eco-system, growth including policy support like the ease in business at every level. The entrepreneurial focus enhanced post the opening of markets in 1991 and it got the necessary fuel from the pursuit of knowledge and the advent of technology in the Indian economy. So now apart from the family businesses, entrepreneurs started rolling out from college dorms, corporate, etc wherein compatibility, skill, competence, clarity of thoughts, and persistence get the thrust.
Entrepreneurial Characteristics that make them different
Across the globe, entrepreneurs are characterized by their never giving up attitude and fearless pursuits of their goals. It definitely doesn’t come free of risk and usually, the entrepreneurs are driven by their never giving up attitude with failure being an option to them.
Entrepreneurs when starting up usually work in small groups in pursuit of a certain goal. Working in small groups gives them an edge of flexibility, fast-thinking, and execution if compared to their counterpart of large organizations that have multiple checks and hierarchy for relevant decisions and execution. A small and focused team works by seeing the larger picture for the opportunity thus their solution fosters creativity, innovation, and fast execution and they change, pivot if the need may be.
Also, an entrepreneurial initiative is not always or necessarily a new or breakthrough proposition. But it is always through an understanding and envisions unusual combinations to achieve certain goals. Smaller team sizes help entrepreneurs to experiment, fail, and pivot fast enhancing the chances of success. Creativity is yet another product of entrepreneurship, as their unique vision shows unique challenges and thus gets unique solutions. It is exemplified by an HBr article Strategy needs creativity as well that explains creativity is actually connecting or linking different products and services that seem independent but are linked through a unique offering or proposition. This thus creates the case for clarity and a greater vision which definitely comes through some specific traits or entrepreneurial traits.
In India, greater education and a rising middle class with global exposure gave the necessary spark for the creation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Knowledge, skills, and talent are important, and with it, an entrepreneur also needs specific leadership skills that include transparency, integrity, and strong communication skills for collaboration to motivate, energize the teams against all the odds and yet remaining flexible and agile. Teams remain glued together in a start-up as the leader in the form of an entrepreneur can envision the bigger picture and thus support to achieve the goals.
So, are there some precise characteristics that support entrepreneurs to become fearless to envision the different dots and achieve goals?
Knowledge and skills are important but what also makes an entrepreneur unique is their passion which is ignited by their attitude. An attitude of believing in themselves and it is necessarily a mindset. And the mindset becomes more important when statistics prove that India is host to one of the biggest entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world. And despite this, 90% of start-ups fail in the first five years. The prime reason for it is not the lack of knowledge, skills, or talent but some intrinsic mindsets of being receptive, belief in oneself, perseverance along with natural leadership traits to keep the team energized and the customers engaged.
Entrepreneurs have a Mindset of Life-Long Learning
An entrepreneur works by taking risks to turn challenges into opportunities. Identifying opportunities amongst various challenges to create workable solutions definitely needs a mindset. A mindset that has an attitude of courage, a keen observation, understanding with perseverance to keep going against all the odds while taking quantified and measured risks.
An entrepreneurial mindset is all about not scared of failure or rejection and developing the ability to foresee things that helps them to remain organized, energized, and agile. More so, empathy skills and good emotional quotient help to tide over difficulties while engaging with employees, customers, and various stakeholders. The clarity of themselves and their goals makes them earn the trust of others too.
It’s important for entrepreneurial success, that the entrepreneurs,
– Remain focused by limiting energy on opportunities that have limited potential
– To enhance flexibility and creativity by observing stakeholders including customers along with existing market conditions, competitors, and various role models
– Be receptive to feedback and working to gather, analyze insights to effectively pursue the opportunities.
– Enhance understanding and learning to meet the vision with constant execution every day to achieve growth.
– Have the ability to accept reality and change course when needed to survive and thrive.
So how can entrepreneurs develop all the specific entrepreneurial characteristics in themselves along with the knowledge and other competencies?
An entrepreneur is not gifted with a growth mindset genetically but it is developed through relentless work and endless learning or in other words lifelong learning. And this lifelong learning is along with the regular training, learning, and building capabilities of entrepreneurial skills.
All entrepreneurs have their own characteristics and individuality which is a product of their own capabilities and thought process. But one common root in their personalities is their urge to know or to learn. So most of the entrepreneurs listen, read, build capabilities and even if they do not know anything, they will work to bring the resources for them. Entrepreneurs are on the lookout for opportunities always. For instance, if we see the likes of Steve Jobs Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Narayan Murthy, Aziz Premji, and the list go on…all have and had a deep love for learning through not only books but from people and other stakeholders. In other words, it is the mindset of lifelong learning to unlearn, learn, and re-learn to enhance understanding, receptivity with a clear vision and thoughts for action that helped them in their entrepreneurial success.
The Entrepreneurs have an attitude of Life-Long Learning which is not only important to create successful enterprises and ecosystems but is a need for everyone to create a better planet that is sustainable.
Dr.Amrinder Kaur
