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December 20, 2005
Food for thought
Here's something that Mary Schmidt wonders about:
| Yet, can an entrepreneur be created? Sure, risks can be encouraged and rewarded; lessons can be learned; tools can be provided. However, as with leadership, I’d submit that if the person doesn’t have certain inherent qualities – and isn’t in the right place at the right time – it just isn’t going to happen. |
Interesting question. When you say you want to teach people to be more entrepreneurial, a lot depends on what you mean by entrepreneurial.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines entrepreneur as 'A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.' For most people who discuss the subject, the key word there is 'risk.'
Now what's interesting about that is that there was a time in the history of this country when the 'risk' involved in launching a business venture was less of an issue.
Early on, when almost everybody was either a farmer (the original small business owner), a shopkeeper, a tradesman or an apprentice to one of the above, it wasn't really a risk. Or at least, that's not how most people thought of it. It was just what you did in a kind of shrug-of-the-shoulders, this-is-normal-life way ... in much the same way that people currently view growing up and getting a job today.
The Industrial Revolution and mass production gave us the "job" as that term is understood today. It also taught us to invest an inordinate amount of our collective cookies into the concept of "security."
On a certain level, that's how the new concept of a "job" was sold to begin with: the promise of security.
Nowadays, with layoffs hitting people left and right (sometimes with all the predictability of a tornado), the notion of job security is not really consistent with experience. But, in our collective psyche, the wage-earner route is still considered less risky in spite of its inherent passivity.
What I'm getting at with all this is that I'm not so sure it's necessary to teach people to be entrepreneurial. The public school systems, as they were designed in the 19th century, assumed the task of training the entrepreneurialism out of people. And, because bureaucracies are just like this, they are still doing it even though they don't have a real reason to anymore.
Maybe, if we just stop teaching our children that life is all about playing it safe, we'll find that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well — and no longer suppressed.
Posted by The Journal Blogger at December 20, 2005 10:35 AM
