Could you be an entrepreneur? What does it mean to be entrepreneurial? Can it be learned? Are there entrepreneurial skills that can be applied equally in business, social activism and politics? What does "an enterprise culture" mean?
These were some of the questions posed last week at a seminar organised by Vision Consulting. The seminar was led by Dr Fernando Flores, a minister in the Allende government in Chile, who was exiled in the US, obtained a doctorate in philosophy from Berkeley, grew his own business and now promotes wider concepts of entrepreneurship around the world.
Dr Flores believes that entrepreneurial skills can be taught, but not in the conventional way of rule-based learning. In fact, in anything but the conventional way of rule-based learning. His idea of entrepreneurship is about a frame of mind, the way we communicate and deal with other people, and a public commitment and identification of oneself with the change one seeks. Fundamentally there is a need for an attitude of "care" about the change one wants to see happen.
Such an attitude towards the world view of entrepreneurship may seem to belong more to political and social activism than business, but it actually works quite well as a conceptual framework to understand entrepreneurship in business. We don't conventionally think of an entrepreneur as someone who organises things simply to suit him or herself. For example, we don't think of a solicitor who sets up a sole practice and employs one or two people as an entrepreneur, even though he or she may be very creative in organising casework, workload and lifestyle. Not even if he or she makes a lot of money.
An entrepreneur must make a change in the external environment, fundamentally in the products or services available to the market. Dr Flores spoke about spotting anomalies in dominant practices of human beings (conventional uses or behaviours) and in marginal practices (unconventional ways of behaviour or patterns of use). Clearly, by spotting an anomaly in the dominant practice, for example, in moving from typing to computing, an entrepreneur seeks to base a business on a grand societal change. People who are experts in fulfilling the dominant practice do not become entrepreneurs because they don't look for anomalies. Basing a business on anomalies in marginal practice could be rewarding also.
Spotting anomalies - gaps in the market, you could say - and building a business proposition on the resolution of those anomalies is entrepreneurial. In my view, it is also an essential part of being an entrepreneur to orchestrate resources and people towards the achievement of the desired change, be it in buying patterns, social services or policy. An entrepreneur is not a commander of an army, which controls, owns and commands resources. The entrepreneur's challenge is to effect changes in the external environment without controlling and owning the resources required for the change. Persuasion, communication, convincing of others, motivating people to buy into a vision of the future, selling to the market (possibly a new market) are all aspects of a business entrepreneur's challenge to make more happen with the scarce resources available than one would otherwise expect.
This is part of what I think Dr Flores means by commitment and identification of self with the project. An entrepreneur must commit to a view of the future which is special to him or herself. Others must be brought to share that commitment. The commitment must go beyond the idea of a coldly, analytical view of the economic merit of a business proposition. You must believe in the future you seek to create. And because you must bring others with you, shared commitments, communication and trust become essential to the achievement of the future one wants to shape. You can only change what you care about, says Dr Flores.
One can argue whether this view of entrepreneurship is borne out by the evidence of all those we would commonly call entrepreneurs. It has the merit at least of encouraging one to believe one can be an entrepreneur. One thing is for sure. While we should accept business failure as a learning process rather than a damning life sentence, an entrepreneur is never an entrepreneur until at least one success has been achieved. Entrepreneurs have succeeded, by definition.
Some of the most provocative ideas at the seminar came by extending Dr Flores's analysis to social and political activism. The remarks of the former head of government of Spain, Felipe Gonzalez, were very stimulating in this regard. That's for Entrepreneurship, Part II, next week.
Oliver O'Connor is managing editor, Fintel Publications
