A colleague recently asked me “what’s your definition of entrepreneurship?”
Well, my answer could be twelve words short or take a presentation of 50 slides long. But here’s my answer in blog format.
To start with the twelve word version: entrepreneurship is the process by which new opportunities are identified and implemented.
It refers in the first place to an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action. It includes a clear sense of direction, creativity, risk taking and in many cases a lot of perseverance. In many cases (but not necessary always), there is a sense of innovation. Therefor I deliberately mention the individual and not the organization. To quote myself: organizations do not innovate; only PEOPLE do! … but organizations can facilitate or destroy innovation. Innovation and entrepreneurship being very akin , the same can be said of entrepreneurship: organizations are not entrepreneurial; only PEOPLE are! … but organizations can facilitate or destroy entrepreneurship.
The 4 keywords for entrepreneurial organizations are vision, culture, resources and people.
A strong vision is needed to create a clear direction and to identify the playground.
A culture which starts with the sincere belief of management in the need of individual entrepreneurship within the company and with the support management actually gives providing freedom, authority and responsibility. A culture encouraging entrepreneurship should give people the room they need. Without some freedom, there is no experiment. Without experiment there is no success or failure and no entrepreneurship. People need some time, incentives, job security and room to experiment. And a culture that accepts that mistakes will be made (from which one can learn).
Resources imply that people should get the means and time and that some confined supporting structure is available. A well-known example is Google expecting innovation and entrepreneurship from everybody so many of its employees have a 20% time budget for defining, implementing or contributing to innovation projects. One cannot expect from an employee under high operational pressure working overtime to start new initiatives.
And this brings me to the fourth keyword, people. A real entrepreneur will not work for long in that kind of environment with no opportunity to start new initiatives. Entrepreneurs have some specific attributes like being able to seize opportunities, have focus & drive, being able to organize and manage ambiguity, etc. and mostly they are just BEING an entrepreneur.
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