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Entrepreneurship is a skill that can be taught and which should be fostered
The world we live in would be a rather different place if we were to know what will happen in the future. Foreknowledge is a valuable asset through which errors of judgement may be avoided. However the future is often obscure and planning ahead often involves risk taking and uncertainty. As Michel Godet states, futures thinking represents ‘an art which requires many talents, e.g. non-conformism, intuition and common sense’.
Practical methodologies have been designed in recent years which are used to develop scenarios or visions to ‘design’ the future. Foresight is often used as a methodology to counter uncertainty and reduce complexity. It involves thinking about the future, creating and sharing alternative scenarios and visions, planning and acting now to ensure a better future. Through foresight, alternative future scenarios are created and explored in an attempt to clarify the potential future implications of present action. Subsequently, steps may be taken to formulate policy, to make a desirable future occur or to optimise unfavourable future circumstances.
Foresight is closely related to creative thinking as it involves the use of the imagination, the cultivation of a sense of enquiry and inquisitiveness, and the motivation to make the necessary leap to a future which is still unknown and uncertain. This is essential in today’s day and age when both technological and social change has become so pronounced.
Foresight is closely related to entrepreneurship and innovation. Peter Drucker maintains that ‘Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service.’ Entrepreneurs look towards the future, recognise opportunities and take risks because ‘The entrepreneur is a maker of history, but his guide in making it is his judgement of possibilities and not a calculation of certainties.’
Entrepreneurship does not only involve starting a new business, generally as a response to an opportunity that has been identified. Starting any sort of association that brings something that people did not think possible into a community counts as entrepreneurship. There are social entrepreneurs, civic entrepreneurs and commercial entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship may also be considered as a set of skills – most people will benefit by adopting a basic set of entrepreneurial practices in their working lives and, where possible, applying them to the social, civic and commercial institutions within which they are active. Maltese people are well known for being entrepreneurial in their free time – what can be done to harness and capitalise on this ability during their working lives, regardless of whether they are self-employed or employed by others?
A brief discussion of Flores and Gray’s concept regarding the ‘decline’ of careers as traditionally perceived is relevant at this stage. In their view this ‘decline’ constitutes the principal economic challenge facing people in employment – a challenge which urgently calls for new thinking. Flores and Gray predict the emergence of two different forms of life as a consequence of the decline of the career – the wired life and the entrepreneurial life
The wired (fast, globally networked, project-centred) life relates to the form of productivity which is emerging in high-tech and media centres – which brings to mind Malta’s projections concerning Smart City. Wired productivity creates new social goods and ethical values which replace and diminish esteem for the traditional values related to careers.
Many working lives today are both wired and entrepreneurial, the latter accentuating new values and supporting the traditional social goods of the career in new ways.
The concept of entrepreneurship can therefore be shifted from an individualistic way of life motivated by financial gain towards the recognition of opportunities and acting upon them with commitment and creativity. This is in line with Peter Drucker’s statement, ‘everyone who can face up to decision making can learn to be an entrepreneur and to behave entrepreneurially.’
Innovation and entrepreneurship are key concepts where the Maltese economy is concerned. Recent research reveals that only 21 percent of local enterprises are actively engaged in innovation, placing Malta at the bottom end of the scale. The publication of the National Strategy for Research and Innovation and Government’s commitment of resources towards a National Research and Innovation Programme should contribute towards improving this situation.
Edward de Bono’s numerous publications demonstrate that ‘judgement of possibilities’ is not sufficient for entrepreneurship. Possibilities have to be first generated, designed or created, and the Lateral Thinking techniques for which de Bono is internationally renowned provide excellent methods to achieve this aim, mainly because of the importance they attribute to possibilities. The entrepreneurial spirit can be nurtured through the use of simple and effective methods for divergent thinking and generating ideas, such as the ones which de Bono advocates.
Entrepreneurship is a skill that can be taught and which should be fostered. A step in the right direction is the recently launching of a pilot project to teach entrepreneurship skills to children in local primary schools. This is being done through the initiative of Young Enterprise, the Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and the Self Employed and the Ministry of Education.
In an attempt to encourage increased competitivity it is necessary to take concrete action now to encourage opportunities for commitment, innovation and entrepreneurship, both for those who are in employment and others who are entrepreneurs in the more traditional sense of the word.
Individuals and organizations that are not open to creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and foresight and that are not receptive to opportunities, possibilities and change may risk becoming obsolete in the short-term. What is needed for improved economic development is the recognition of opportunities, the generation of possibilities together with the development of skills for thinking out of the box.
Dr. Sandra M. Dingli is Director of The Edward de Bono Institute for the Design and Development of Thinking at the University of Malta where she lectures on Creativity and Innovation. Dr. Dingli coordinates a Masters Program in Creativity and Innovation. She is a Director of Young Enterprise (Malta) and a member of the recently set up working group that forms part of the Forum for Entrepreneurship |
