People who start their own business are known as entrepreneurs. In the more recent years however, many have pointed out that launching your own venture is only one way to be entrepreneurial. It is believed that at its core, entrepreneurship is about creating value for others. By this definition, we can take entrepreneurial action in all walks of life. From launching a fundraiser to support a cause, to putting together a school play or taking on a new initiative at work, we can create value for those around us. To do that, we need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skills.
Before we get into how we can do this, let’s clarify why it is important to develop such a mindset and skills. We live in a world that is increasingly global, highly uncertain and more and more competitive. Entrepreneurial skills are deemed to help us successfully navigate all of this.
What are some of these skills that we call “entrepreneurial”? Those who studied thousands and thousands of business founders, have observed a series of shared behaviours and ways of thinking. These actions and attitudes are at the core of what we call entrepreneurial skills.
Why study business founders? Because the skills and attitudes involved in starting your own business are the ones that can teach us how to successfully navigate our current world. Among other things, starting a business is most and foremost about identifying a problem and taking action. It involves dealing with many complexities and unknowns, taking risks, holding yourself accountable.
Many, myself included, believe that not only can some of these skills and attitudes be taught, but that they are key to navigating the complex and uncertain future ahead. To help teachers understand what they need to teach, in 2016 the European Commission has launched the EntreComp, a framework clarifying what skills are deemed “entrepreneurial”. You can see it below.
Of course, many of these skills are learned and further developed ‘in action’, as in by working on a venture or a project. However, we can take our own steps to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
What are some of things we can do to develop an entrepreneurial mindset?
Embrace learning for life.
- Don’t ever stop being curious. Ask questions. Find the people who can help you get answers. If there’s something you don’t know, learn it. Even if it takes time and even if its hard.
- Listen to podcast, watch youtube videos, read books. Do you have a favourite podcast?
Meet interesting people.
- Connect with someone new every week (at least). You can do this virtually (ie. on social media or in real life. Personally, I find a lot of really smart and creative people on Twitter. Of course this takes some time and thought.
- For example, if you happen to read an interesting article about someone or a really cool organization, look them up. See if you can find them on social media and then follow them. Smart people and organization, share really interesting things that you can learn from. Plus they follow and are followed by other really smart people. Connect with them, too.
Build self awareness.
- This is a big one. Often times we tend to underestimate our strengths and overemphasize our weaknesses. Sometimes the opposite happens, too. Work on yourself and learn to leverage your strengths, and if you need to, ask for help to manage your weaknesses.
Ask for feedback.
- That is step one. The second super important step is to actually listen to it and thirdly, of course you have to take action and do something about it. An important consideration here is of course who you ask for feedback. Your mom and close family and friends are likely to be encouraging and tell you what you want to hear. You want to get feedback from people who are familiar with the topic or the field of work you are in, people who you respect and look up to. Keep in mind too, that you don’t need to act on all feedback you get. There is a balance between the feedback you get and what makes sense for you.
Keep moving forward.
- Even when things aren’t clear. You don’t need to fully visualize a path before you start. You can create the path. Sometimes you discover new paths as you keep going. When you have a setback, see what you can learn from it, what you can apply moving forward and keep going.
Champion good ideas and good people.
- Stand up for both. If you or someone on your team has a good idea, support it and push for it. If you strongly believe in something don’t let others tell you it can’t be done or that it doesn’t matter.
Its okay to break a few rules!
- Especially when they don’t make sense and they stand in the way of progress. Some rules were put in place when the world and organizations looked a whole lot different. Most of these rules have not been changed to reflect our current reality. Challenge these rules and be the agent of change.
Always go for the challenge without an easy answer
- If its easy, someone else probably already has an answer. This doesn’t mean that the solution can’t be simple. Sometimes,
Look for connections.
- Always. Especially between new things you are learning/observing and your own lived experiences. Train yourself to look at things from your own unique lens rather than the one of everyone else. That is how you can bring real value. When you see a gap, ask yourself how can you build a bridge?
Sometimes you are plain wrong.
- When you are, understand why. Really understand and learn from it. Being wrong is not shameful. We’re all wrong at times and we all make mistake. The real value is gained when we build the capacity to learn from it.
Find ways to celebrate failure too
- When you fail, you learn. And therefore you grow. Related to being wrong, when you fail at a project you started, take the time to understand why it failed. Implement these lessons into your future projects.
With enough awareness and discipline these are all practices we can implement into our lives to help us develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
These are all ways in which you can train your entrepreneurial mindset an grow more entrepreneurial.
