Empowering Students to Be Innovators free essay sample

But I have known many people salespeople, surgeons, journalists, scholars, even musicians-who did have them without being the least bit entrepreneurial. What all the successful entrepreneurs I have met have in common is not a certain kind of personality but a commitment to the systematic practice of innovation. † What Peter Drucker conveys is that besides acquiring entrepreneurial qualities, a person must be innovative to be successful. Innovation is the key trait of successful entrepreneurs . In the case study â€Å" Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation: The case of Google. Inc. written by Todd A Finkle, CEO Eric Schmidt says , â€Å"I looked at Google as an extension of graduate school; similar kinds of people, similar kinds of crazy behavior, but people who were incredibly smart and who were highly motivated and had a sense of change, a sense of optimism. It was a culture of people who felt that they could build things; they could actually accomplish what they wanted and ultimately people stay in companies because they can achieve something. † What Eric Schmidt conveys is that employees in Google behave like entrepreneurs; have freedom, crazy work habit, committed, innovative and so on. Innovation is key to successful employees not only in Google, but many companies. Innovation is therefore a common trait for successful person, name him entrepreneur or manager. Many books and articles provide an inventory of characteristics of an entrepreneur, like passion, commitment, achievement orientation, courage, risk taking and so on and on. However you ask any CEO / business owner, he will also describe the same characteristics for his managers, as we have seen what Eric Schmidt said above. What differentiates entrepreneur from a manager? Entrepreneurs create wealth and create jobs; managers support entrepreneurs in their journey. Therefore for managers to be successful in their journey with the entrepreneurs, they must also have entrepreneurial qualities. And innovation is the key characteristic. Having said this, students aspiring to be successful managers need to possess the qualities of an entrepreneur. At some point of time in their career/ life they may decide to be independent to create wealth and employment. How do they get these qualities? There is no course to teach to develop entrepreneurial qualities. They have to be inculcated and nurtured. How do we inculcate the characteristics? To understand the method , first let us understand what is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur is the one who practices entrepreneurship which is defined next. Though there are many definitions by different authors, the one by Joseph A Schumpeter is widely quoted, which is â€Å" Entrepreneurship is an activity mainly concerned with innovations and the use of untried technologies; this process of replacing existing products , processes, markets, source of supply of raw materials, and existing businesses with better ones, is termed as â€Å" creative destruction† †. Peter Drucker in his book â€Å" Innovative entrepreneur † defines entrepreneur as innovator and according to him â€Å" Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit changes as an opportunity for different business or a different service. † Practice of entrepreneurship is therefore also practice of innovation. When a person develops entrepreneurial qualities, he practices entrepreneurship and innovation. Methodology of inculcating practice of entrepreneurship and innovation. As we said earlier entrepreneurship can not be taught; entrepreneurial qualities must be inculcated to practice entrepreneurship. There are two factors, external and internal, that facilitate development of entrepreneurial qualities. External factors are those eco systems such as governmental , social, educational institutions etc. The objective of this paper is to discuss the intrinsic factors that enable development of entrepreneurial qualities among aspiring students. Whenever we talk about internal/intrinsic factors, we refer attitude, motivation, perception, personality of the individuals and in our case here they are students. These are all inherent characteristics to be inculcated and nurtured by making them participate in entrepreneurial activities. One given fact is that management students have been trained in acquiring the knowledge and skills in managing business by virtue of their participation of management programme. While imparting them the knowledge and skills, the methodology may be innovative to nurture entrepreneurial qualities in them by making them participate in relevant exercises and activities. I give below simple steps that can easily be followed to empower students participate in entrepreneurial activities: Meeting an entrepreneur: First, students shall meet a successful start up entrepreneur and spend few days, say, a week to personally observe how he handles the issues. The experiential learning of their approach to finding solutions to various issues is very important. This exercise can be done as part of class assignment. The experiential learning will give the student opportunity to adapt the attitude and behavior to be entrepreneurial. Case study analysis: Second, students should be encouraged to participate very actively in case study discussions in different subjects, like marketing, business strategy, entrepreneurship etc. Many management institutes have the system of case study discussions. The instructors should facilitate students come up with innovative ideas. Here the training is required for the instructors to effectively make the students participate in case discussion. Case study discussion is a situation where positively students have opportunity to think laterally/ differently to come up with innovative solutions. Ideation: Third, students should be encouraged to come up with a viable business idea, as an independent entrepreneur or intrapreneur ( corporate entrepreneurship). The student and instructor interact frequently to identify what student is passionate about, academic subject, sports, entertainment. Student will be encouraged to ideate and come out with an executable business idea. Student may be passionate on something other than business also. How will he pursue the passion ? For example a student may be passionate on music. He should be encouraged to conceive an idea on how he will pursue this passion in future; how will he reach his audience. Ultimately to pursue the passion and improve and reach intended audience, his efforts should be sustainable. This idea to be translated into business idea, not just making profit, but much more than that. Student will be more innovative to execute his idea which he is passionate about. This practice of innovation will be useful to him to extend to other business ideas. Attitude and skills through business plan: The student has learnt business knowledge through the academic curriculum. Many institutes send him for internship for practical learning. To encourage the student to be confident that he has the talent, he should be asked to submit a business plan on the idea he has generated based on his learning of business modeling during the course. The instructor can give him practical inputs to enable him to make an executable business plan. Student becomes confident and his attitude to handle business independently becomes positive. This is an essential entrepreneurial quality a student should acquire. What I have discussed are simple methods and doable. While external eco system is important to enable developing entrepreneurial qualities, we, educational institutes and instructors, should inculcate the habit of acquiring entrepreneurial characteristics among the students. If the students are enabled to practice innovation and entrepreneurship, they continue this habit in their career. We may,thus, help more innovation in products, markets, process and so on contributing to the economy. Someday these experienced students will become independent to create wealth and create employment. It will be great if some of them start at an early stage.