We need Entrepreneurs in all our areas of business!

Professor John Potter, member of the Advisory Board to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship.

In an open letter written in November 2011 to the members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship Prime Minister David Cameron outlined the government’s vision for many more people in the UK to have the opportunity, aspiration and motivation to be enterprising and set up their own business.  In his speech at the recent Conservative Party Conference he referred to the substantial economic challenges we face as a country.   It is becoming clear that if we as a country are going to rise above those challenges and retain our position as a respected world power we need to unlock the potential of our people particularly in the area of entrepreneurial leadership.   We as individuals and all of our organisations need to become more enterprising and adopt what I call the ‘entrepreneurial mindset’.   Traditionally we have looked at business in terms of focusing on the major corporates and more recently the SME sector.   We have very recently moved towards learning more about micro businesses and those businesses which exist with less than ten employees.   We therefore have a spectrum of business ranging from the large corporate organisations, public, private and third sector to the micro businesses and individual start ups.   Our challenge is to develop the entrepreneurial mindset throughout this full spectrum rather than focusing just on the micro and SME sectors.

The traditional view of the entrepreneur is that they are often a highly individualist risk takers, seeking opportunities to turn ideas into hard  cash.    We need to widen the application of the entrepreneurial mindset and thinking to all types of organisations, large as well as small.  To do that we need to consider how people become entrepreneurs.  The key issue is that they are passionate about what they do.  They have a very powerful ‘WHY’ which drives them through the challenges and ‘bumps in the road which they inevitably encounter along the way.   Many people have marketing expertise, financial resources and quality products and services.  However if they lack passion, the ‘WHY’ that fuels their psychological engine,  they will not succeed .  To generate a powerful ‘WHY’ there are three areas we have to develop in helping people become passionate about their work and become more entrepreneurial: 

• Firstly they need to enhance their business knowledge and skills. 
• Secondly they really do benefit from having a coach and a mentor to guide them along the way.
• Thirdly, and most important, is that they have to have the right mindset.   They need to fuel their passion, develop personal leadership and improve their creative problem solving ability if they are going to succeed in their venture.  All three attributes can be acquired but it takes time, effort and dedication. 

     The most important issues that the budding entrepreneur either within an organisation or individually needs to address are: 

•       Belief in themselves, their product and their business.
•       Commitment to do what it takes to success. 
•       Persistence to keep going when the going gets tough.

If all of our businesses and organisations can learn from the characteristics of the entrepreneurial mindset the UK will once again be on track to become Great Britain.

- Professor John Potter

For a full, unedited, free 2000 word edit of this article please e-mail jpglobal@btconnect.com