MODULE 7. Personnal skills and behaviors for enterprising

OBJECTIVES

• Thinking about a good idea.
• Knowing the useful skills.
• Having a good team and managing your role as an entrepreneur.
• Being able to adopt the right behaviors to start a green enterprise.

CONTENT

• Introduction.
• A list of skills and behaviors under three categories: 
  • Ideas and opportunities.
  • Resources.
  • Action.
• A practical activity.

1. Introduction

What is an “entrepreneur” and what makes a good one? How can you know if you have the right skills to start your own business and how can you develop these skills?

The word entrepreneur has become a catch-all title for just about everyone who starts and/or builds a small business. (Goldberg & all)

Once you have understood what an entrepreneur is, we take you through the most important leadership and organization skills to develop if you want to build your own business in the Green economy. 

2. Ideas and opportunities

• Spotting opportunities

• Creativity.
• Vision.
• Valuing ideas.
• Ethical and sustainable thinking.
• Self-reflection.

For spotting good opportunities you should use your imagination and abilities to identify needs and challenges in order to create opportunities. You can be creative by developing innovative approaches and better solutions to existing and new challenges. Having a vision means imagining the future and working towards your vision. Valuing ideas is to make the most of your ideas and the opportunities at hand. And finally, having ethical and sustainable thinking means thinking about how your enterprise can have a positive impact on the target community, the market, society and the environment. 

Leadership Model developed by Goldberg & all (2008)

In her book From Start-Up to Grown-Up – Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business, Alisa Cohn recommends that future entrepreneurs learn self-reflection: 

“Self-reflection needs to become a reflex.”

In order to develop self-reflection, young entrepreneurs should be able to discover what their natural leadership style is, to know themselves well, and to be emphatic, to think about what other people need from them. In order to do so, they should constantly seek feedback from the people around them. Here is a list of reflective questions, provided by Alisa Cohn, that you can use regularly to interrogate your state of mind and make sure that you keep a stable self-awareness. 

Reflective Questions

How would you describe yourself?

Your company is a mirror. What do you want to see there?

Where do you need to dial up or down the elements of your leadership style?

What are your superpowers and what is your Achilles’ heel?

What energizes you and what drains you?

Here are some videos that can help you better understand what skills need to be put forward when we want to start our own business: 

The entrepreneur inside everybody:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=784b8ERvzoU 

Startup positioning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgefo8kHP4E 

8 mistakes founders make: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4pxIObYreE  

3. Having the right resources

Due to your imagination and creativity, you have one or more business ideas that you wish to implement. But before starting anything, you must make sure that you have the right resources to continue this entrepreneurship adventure. 

First, it is important to cherish self-efficiency: believing in yourself and wishing to keep developing are key attributes. Being motivated and having perseverance means staying focused and not giving up. 

Second, analyzing the market and the industry is crucial in order to find what sort of business is the best for you and for the customers. Your business idea is a product of your imagination, but it should also be connected to the market needs in order to be viable. For this, it is essential to undergo a solid market analysis, which will allow you to assess the capacity of your future business to attract customers. 

Your market analysis should include:

• An industry analysis, to assess the general environment in which you compete.
• A target market analysis, to identify and quantify the customers that you be target.
• A competitive analysis, to identify your competitors and analyse their strengths and weaknesses. (Williams)

Third, being able to manage your finances is one of the most important qualities to develop. As Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union states: 

« Financial literacy is about empowerment and being able to ask the right questions ». 

In order to develop your financial and economic literacy, we invite you to take a look at Module 9 of this course (Financing). You may also contact local agencies for business development which may sometimes offer free courses on financing. Internet is also a valuable resource and a lot of books on entrepreneurship deal with this topic. 

Finally, you should keep in mind that nobody can succeed on their own and that you will need help and assistance to implement your ideas and attract clients. This is why mobilizing others is a key competence. Being able to inspire, enthuse, and get others on board can make a great difference in the success of your business. Even if, at the beginning of your business, you may need to work on your own, you should be able to adapt to a new role as your start-up is growing. From a “doer”, you slowly become a mentor, and it is important to keep this in mind from the beginning. 

4. Putting your green enterprise into action

Based on Jonathan Estes’ experience, the attributes of the entrepreneurial spirit can be summarized into seven parts: see a need to fill, be a self-starter and be independent, desire to grow financially, thrive with change, make connections that others don’t see, be driven to persevere under all conditions and be keenly aware of your own strengths and weaknesses (Estes 2009).

It is also important to take the initiative by initiating processes and taking up challenges; planning and management by prioritizing, organizing and following-up; Coping with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk by making decisions and handling fast-moving situations; Working with others by teaming up, collaborating and networking and learning through experience, from both success and failure.

The five stages of change towards sustainability, as explained by Estes (2009) are: 

• Pre-contemplation.
• Contemplation.
• Pre-action.
• Maintenance.

As you go through these stages, it is useful to place the decisions in a framework and to understand the mindset and actions necessary to move from one stage to another. 

5. Turning a Hobby into a Business 

● Will you enjoy doing your hobby when you have to do it to a deadline? 
● Are you committed to this hobby? 
● Can you sell ‘yourself’, or the thing you create? 
● You may love what you do, but will others share your passion? 
● Is there definitely a market for your creations/ services?
● Will you be able to generate the income you require? 
● Have you thoroughly researched your market?

6. Practical activity

Do you think these behaviours are relevant?

• Thinking about the future.
• Waiting for opportunities to appear.
• Not thinking about your weaknesses.
• Relying on others.

Answers: 

• Thinking about the future.
• Waiting for opportunities to appear.
• Not thinking about your weaknesses .
• Relying on others.

7. Further information

“Entrepreneurial Skills: Definition and Examples.” Indeed Career Guide, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/entrepreneurial-skills. 

“Market Analysis for Your Business Plan.” Back to Top, https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/market-analysis-for-your-business-plan. 

Sugars, Brad. “How to Research Your Market for Business Startup.” Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur, 11 July 2018, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/175276. 

“What Are Green Skills?” UNIDO, https://www.unido.org/stories/what-are-green-skills. 

Alisa Cohn. « From Start-Up to Grown-Up – Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business. » Apple Books.

Goldberg, Dan, and Don Martin. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Successful Leadership. ABC-CLIO, 2008.

Estes, Jonathan. Smart Green: How to implement sustainable business practices in any industry and make money. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
“IED.” Institute of Entrepreneurship Development, 12 Mar. 2021, https://ied.eu/.