The Meaning Of Being Entrepreneurial

By M. Isi Eromosele

Entrepreneurs tend to start ventures that build on specific skills they've already developed and knowledge they've already acquired in a certain occupation or industry. But all entrepreneurs tend to share other, more general skills such as great communication, team-building, and creative-thinking skills.

The idea of entrepreneurship has struck a responsive chord. It is a phrase well suited to our times. It combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley.

The time is certainly ripe for entrepreneurial approaches to global business problems. Many governmental economic efforts have fallen far short of our expectations. Major business sector institutions are often viewed as inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive. Business entrepreneurs are needed to develop new models for a new century.

It is true that many of the entrepreneurs have in mind to serve their function by starting new, profit-seeking business ventures, but starting a business is not the essence of entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. The notion of opportunity has come to be central to many current definitions of entrepreneurship.

An opportunity, presumably, means an opportunity to create value in this way. Entrepreneurs have a mind-set that sees the possibilities rather than the problems created by change. Starting a business is neither necessary nor sufficient for entrepreneurship. Not every new small business is entrepreneurial or represents entrepreneurship.

The heart of entrepreneurial management is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled. Entrepreneurs not only see and pursue opportunities that elude administrative managers; entrepreneurs do not allow their own initial resource endowments to limit their options.

Entrepreneurs mobilize the resources of others to achieve their entrepreneurial objectives. Conversely, administrators allow their existing resources and their job descriptions to constrain their visions and actions. Once again, we have a definition of entrepreneurship that is not limited to business start-ups.

For true entrepreneurs, mission-related impact becomes the central criterion, not wealth creation. With business entrepreneurs, wealth creation is a way of measuring value creation. This is because business entrepreneurs are subject to market discipline, which determines in large part whether they are creating value. If they do not shift resources to more economically productive uses, they tend to be driven out of business.

Entrepreneurs are innovative. They break new ground, develop new models, and pioneer new approaches. Entrepreneurs need not be inventors. They simply need to be creative in applying what others have invented. Their innovations may appear in how they structure their core programs or in how they assemble the resources and fund their work.

This willingness to innovate is part of the modus operandi of entrepreneurs. It is not just a one-time burst of creativity. It is a continuous process of exploring, learning, and improving. Of course, with innovation comes uncertainty and risk of failure.

Entrepreneurs tend to have a high tolerance for ambiguity and learn how to manage risks for themselves and others. They treat failure of a project as a learning experience, not a personal tragedy.

And yes, I consider myself to be an entrepreneur.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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