By Olusola Aladejebi

I was present at a youth leadership programme recently when a lady asked at the end of the 3-day programme why the organizers chose speakers who were more of the entrepreneurial leanings than those who spoke on career development. I can’t recall the answer she was given but it is a common fact that leadership is often associated with entrepreneurship. (A past article discusses this http://mouthpiece.com.ng/entrepreneurship-and-leadership-a-remarkable-overlap/
). So with this continual call to entrepreneurship, is it really for everybody? Can everyone be good at it?

I got the views of 2 business people at a National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp market. The first is Miss Maryjane Awai. She is into the food business. Asked if she thinks entrepreneurship is for everybody, she answered that entrepreneurs are born, meaning if you have it you have it and you don’t have it then you don’t. Maryjane who studied marketing in the university says she had been into business since she was a little teenage girl. She thinks being your own boss is the greatest thing. She doesn’t like people tying her down. Since she is in the food/catering business I asked if she would be willing to leave her business to work as the head of Aso Rock kitchen. Her response was NO. She resents control.

Maryjane believes some people who struggle with business have not identified the right business. She also thinks entrepreneurs encounter needless limitation because they seek to do everything by themselves. There are some aspects of the business that are better left for others to handle. In order to do that, the entrepreneur must understand the terrain and find how to compensate for his or her weakness.

In March 2012, the NYSC inaugurated a scheme for serving corps members called Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurial Development (SAED) programme. In the scheme corps members are trained in one skill or the other and are introduced to entrepreneurship. Maryjane who passed through the programme during her service year rated it as “95% waste”. In other words, the scheme largely fails in ensuring that corps members learn those skills. She cited incompetent SAED instructors as one reason for the failure. She wondered how a corps member who wants excellence be motivated to learn from a fashion designer whose office (or let’s call it shop) is ill-equipped and the quality of her clothes poor. Another deficiency is the fact that some SAED instructors give clearance to corps members—whether they come for the lesson or not—as long as they have paid for the training.

Another entrepreneur, Mr Komolafe Busuyi, whose views I sought rated the SAED programme more highly. He thinks the programme is 50% successful. He is in fact an instructor in the programme. Mr Busuyi believes along with MaryJane Awai that some people are not just cut out for entrepreneurship. He began entrepreneurship before gaining admission to study Political Science. His entrepreneurial voyage began after he read the book by Robert Kiyosaki—
Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He says the book showed him how to be wealthy—a desire he had always had.

Komolafe Busuyi clearly affirmed that he does not believe in certificates. He undertook his first degree to more or less gratify his mother. Komolafe’s Masters programme was undertaken for the same reason. He believes that graduates who get to use their certificates in Nigeria are the very few ‘lucky’ ones.

While I do not think everybody has clear entrepreneurial temperament, neither do I see entrepreneurship as a binary—one or zero. It is not an all-or-nothing affair. Entrepreneurial behaviour is more like a continuum. Some people are incredibly entrepreneurial. People like Aliko Dangote and Ibukun Awosika fall in that category. Ibukun considers herself a serial entrepreneur. She identifies a business opportunity, sets up a business to exploit the opportunity, then she moves on allowing other people to do the actual running of the business. Some others are not as entrepreneurial but clearly have some leanings towards it. By associating with people who are extremely entrepreneurial their own latent ability sparks to life. Personally I regard myself as falling into this category. Some others fall into the class of people who, rather than go into entrepreneurial activity, won’t mind doing the worst of jobs. If they ever start a business, it just would not take off the ground. I know a man who intends to start a business. He puts 100% of all the business finance available to him to build a highly sophisticated facility. If he spends about half of that amount on the facility it still would be suitable for production. Afterwards he has no money for materials for production. He does not understand the process of value creation.

Doing entrepreneurial work is more of comparative advantage. We ask ourselves: would I be more accomplished if I choose to work for a firm or choose to start my own business? Contrary to what some ‘entrepreneurs’ would want us to believe, one choice is not superior to the other.

Olusola Aladejebi works to build effective people systems in organizations. He also writes on Leadership and Organization architecture.

http://mouthpiece.com.ng/is-entrepreneurship-really-for-everybody/