31 March 2011
It’s not often I am stuck for words when I am speaking. But I am often stuck for them when I am writing. So that’s when I reach for my trusty Thesaurus (or an electronic version of it, anyway) to steer me to a veritable cornucopia of synonyms and antonyms that I can use to describe what I want to convey.
This week, I was looking into the words ‘risk’ and ‘creativity’ as I believe these are the particular characteristics that define an entrepreneur. Try it yourself: you will see that other words for ‘risk’ include ‘peril’, ‘gamble’, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘opportunity’. For ‘creativity’, read ‘talent’, ‘imagination’, ‘resourcefulness’ and ‘vision’. All of them apt words to describe the entrepreneur.
And entrepreneurship is big news at the moment. The PM has launched a range of initiatives to support entrepreneurs (much like his predecessor did) all of which have the capacity to work well together to create a package of support for those who are, in the words of the PM, taking that ‘difficult, brave first step’.
But what about the second and third steps – and all the others that follow? They are ‘difficult’ and ‘brave’ too. To say the least. Running a business takes nerves of steel all the way through: making payroll every month, recruiting and managing staff, managing finances and premises, attracting and increasing investment, creating products and getting them to the customer, being lithe enough to respond to markets, and bold enough to create and lead them, shouldering responsibility and stepping up to the mark – day after day after day.
I don’t know if entrepreneurs are born or made, but I do know the entrepreneurial spirit knows no bounds of race, gender, colour or class. Creative thinkers who are brave enough to take risks are in every community, yet ambitions vary within the individual. Some want to grow their businesses to multi-nationals. Others want to run small organisations where they have more control. Still others are happy running microenterprises which meet their needs. And, of course, there is a burgeoning cohort of social entrepreneurs who want to run viable businesses which address social concerns. All these different types of entrepreneurs should be supported, wherever they live and whatever the scale of their ambition. And throughout their entrepreneurial lives, not just at the beginning.
So any government initiative that really values entrepreneurship has to be long term, accessible to all, recognise different ambitions, mitigate risks and support creativity. Because it is no one type of entrepreneur that will get our economy moving. It is all types, working in a myriad of ways, that will make the difference.
