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Entrepreneurship- An Art Or Science, Or Could It Be Both? - Business - Nairaland

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Entrepreneurship- An Art Or Science, Or Could It Be Both? by kesx(m): 8:05am On Apr 09, 2013
There has been a lot of interesting debate on this matter- how would you classify entrepreneurship? Would you classify it as an Art or as a Science? Where do you derive your skills- empirical studies with precision findings, or an innate act on the whims of your instincts?

Those of the art school of thought have a compelling argument- many entrepreneurs do what they do from the inside. They feel it in their gut, and they spill out their inspiration on their business work. They may take a certain amount of inspiration from the works of others (Steve Jobs and his calligraphy classes) but they tend to use it as raw material to develop something novel.

I was once a believer in the art school. However, upon introspection, it seems that there is, in practice, a shift in the way entrepreneurship is perceived, and based on that perception, developed.

Decades ago being an entrepreneur was only a life option for persons considered failures or too adventurous for the comfort of others. If you were in it, you were in it alone. You had only yourself and maybe but rarely the support of friends and family. If you were thinking of being an entrepreneur in most LEDCs (less economically developed countries), it meant employing yourself as nobody else was ready to employ you. However these days it seems entrepreneurship has become better perceived. The proportions of success stories have greatly increased, and the social economic impact entrepreneurs have had on their society can no longer be ignored. The global wave of success is not only limited to strong economies like the United States, UAE or Finland, but also countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Botswana and Mozambique.

Given the above, a number of private and public entities have attempted to restructure the learning of entrepreneurship along the lines of those of the scientific school of thought. A number of institutes and initiatives have been undergone to harness the power of entrepreneurship. There is Martin Trust Centre For Entrepreneurship of the M.I.T University, the Swiss Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Size Enterprises, The CISCO Entrepreneur Institute, the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship, the Zazida Institute of Entrepreneurship, The African Leadership Institute, the Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies Nigeria and scores of other institutes in the same field.

Several positive success stories have been taken from members of the above institutes or like-minded fora. Take for example Mahmood Oyewo, a Nigerian and founder of RubiQube and developer of the RubiQube app that allows users to upload all their applications onto the app’s server, therefore doing away with the need to save your applications on your phone’s memory. We have also got Andrew Mupuya of Uganda, an entrepreneur who made Uganda proud by being the winner of the prestigious 2012 Anzisha Prize in South Africa. With little over $18 and debts to pay, his determination saw him start Youth Enterpreneurship Link Investment (YELI) which was the first paper bag and envelope producing company in Uganda. Both these gentlemen were products of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa.

It brings a smile to my face to see so many young men and women being empowered by these initiatives, but I do have my reservations which I am eager to share.

We all know that education helps us organize our thought. It is the fusion of relevant information into every fiber of our rational thought, thus making us think, act, and talk according to how we were educated.

Certain aspects of life need “education” for the purpose of consistency. The most popular disciplines of the world, for example medicine and engineering would be in real chaos if there was no consistency in learning. I agree that if people want to become exemplary engineers, doctors or even lawyers, they should strive to achieve the highest level of education possible. I do not believe that the same should be said about entrepreneurship.

Looking at it critically, the success of our contemporary entrepreneurial maestros was borne out of their innate rationalization, and not their overt education. Jobs, Gates, Branson, Sloan, Alder, Durotoye, Oyewo, Mupuya… even those of them that had the opportunity of receiving Ivy League education opted out, because they knew that to learn any more, would adversely affect their innate rationale, which was what they really needed to be successful entrepreneurs.

On his Ted Talk titled ‘Changing educational paradigms’ (you can access the video here http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html) Sir Ken Robinson speaks of the dangers of conventional learning. Creative children are taught at a young age to follow convention, thereby losing touch with their innate ability to think outside the box. Extending this theory into adulthood, many people are flooded with ideas they feel will change their lives and the lives of others, but have been made to follow suit to generations before them- ‘get a stable job, reach the apex of your job and retire rich’,  ‘Working for somebody else is always more secure and fulfilling than working for yourself’. That is not true of course.

I feel the same may happen to entrepreneurs on the long run. Bringing people together to teach them a number of consistent principles will indeed mean you are changing their perspective on how things work to a uniform perspective of how things work. That can only lead to monopolistic results. The originality and identity of these entrepreneurs made to think in a uniform thought pattern may be lost, and we may never have the privilege to see their best works, if they feel their thoughts (business ideas) run against their education.

To clarify, I am not suggesting that entrepreneurs should not be empowered and further educated- no. Indeed I feel that the crux of any business idea is an amalgamation of pieces of information an entrepreneur has amassed from both formal and informal sources. What I am clamoring against however, is an education that monopolizes the process to which that amalgamation of business ideas must go through, and the result that process must produce.

Maybe trying to make entrepreneurship into a science is not a good idea after all.

Let’s try and make it both.
What are your thought?

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