The View
Cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset
Preparing students for success in a dynamic world.
By Linda Scott, Managing Director, Thinking Leaders
The traditional approach to education is being challenged like never before. The job market is evolving at a staggering pace, with advancements in technology, globalisation and shifting economic paradigms creating both opportunities and challenges for graduates. In such an environment, the need for cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset among students has never been more critical.
The need to think differently, be resilient, be comfortable with taking risks and being uncertain, feeling fear and making mistakes, are all skills the modern-day graduate must have in order to stand out from the crowd and thrive. It is no longer enough to be a great technician, students must also understand their own thinking, behaviour and feelings, and how this impacts their results and success. Because the one thing we know for certain is the modern world is changing at a faster pace than ever before, rapid change is the new normal and educational providers must empower students to navigate these complexities and thrive in their chosen careers.
Understanding the entrepreneurial mindset
So, what is an entrepreneurial mindset? The entrepreneurial mindset goes beyond merely the technical skills we teach our graduates. It encompasses a set of attitudes, behaviours and skills that are essential for success in any field. At its core, it is about thinking differently, taking calculated risks, and persisting in the face of adversity and failure.
Entrepreneurs are great problem solvers, always curious, constantly seeking out opportunities and finding innovative ways to capitalise on them. Where some see a problem, an entrepreneur will see an opportunity.
Although having an entrepreneurial mindset doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us, it is definitely a skill that can be developed. And it starts with our students understanding themselves first as humans, what comes naturally and normally to them, and then learning how to think and behave differently, learning how to grow and stretch themselves outside their comfort zones. By developing and fostering this mindset in students, education providers will equip them with the tools they need to excel and flourish.
A little bit of psychology…
When you research what an entrepreneurial mindset is, there are many lists of skills and attributes that are essential. However, I’m going to focus here on something a little bit different. I believe in order to achieve an entrepreneurial mindset, we must understand the psychology behind it because in order to help our students to think and behave differently, we must first understand how we are all wired.
When a student comes to study with an education provider after completing school, they have already had around 13 or so years of formal education, which has heavily influenced their thinking and behaviour, and before that 4-5 years of being surrounded by other influences such as family, friends and kindergarten. Students also have certain behaviour traits they are born with. Are they naturally an introvert or extrovert? Do they love the big picture or the detail? Are they a natural risk taker or do they like to follow the plan? Do they fear mistakes or thrive on them? All of our students are different, and are impacted by the people, culture, values and experiences in their lives to this point. And now suddenly we want our students to think differently? Behave differently? It’s just not that simple.
Embracing uncertainty and failure
Take a moment to stop and think right now. Do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Chances are if you feel comfortable you are in your comfort zone; this is the place where we feel secure, there are no risks and no growth. We can do the same things day in day out. This is the same for everyone, including our students. But if we want our students to think like an entrepreneur, they must take risks, be comfortable with uncertainty and failure, which may sit outside their comfort zone.
The next step is to ask, how do we help them learn how to expand their comfort zone? Generally, as humans, in order to step outside our comfort zone, we are going to feel uncomfortable, it’s going to hit us in the chest, or in our heads, and we may want to run the other way! And this is normal.
And we will feel fear! We must feel fear to grow. The most successful people feel fear every day. So, educators must help students to learn how to feel fear, embrace it and thrive.
Uncertainty and failure are completely normal and expected parts of having an entrepreneurial mindset. Why? Because you are innovating, doing new things. They have never been here before. It’s new. It’s like marketing, success only comes with lots of failure.
And making mistakes? Yes please! Mistakes and failure mean we are challenging the way things have always been done… we are going where we haven’t been before! How exciting. It’s the ability to keep taking the small steps each day, and learning and growing from feedback that is the difference that makes the difference.
Modelling excellence
And then the question becomes, how are educators modelling this for students? How are education providers enabling students to embrace failure, risks and being uncomfortable as being the benchmark of excellence? How do education providers empower students through their language that failure is great and the path to their success? Education providers are now having to unwire the years of learning that mistakes are bad!
The role of the educational provider is paramount here in nurturing and developing these skills in their graduates. For example, what opportunities does a student studying business have to explore and experiment? How are the students learning in a safe environment about failure and risk taking? We are often so focussed on getting the answer right, rather than being curious about how else we could solve the problem. There is a role for enhanced experiential learning activities across all academic disciplines to help draw out these skills in students.
Be curious and flexible
We all hear about ‘thinking outside the box’. What does that even mean? It’s about questioning the way things have always been done. We all have a tendency to accept our world as it is. . It’s part of our programming. It makes us feel comfortable and secure. But the way it has always been done is just one perspective… just one way of looking at it. Who says the current way is the ‘right’ way or the ‘best’ way? It’s just one way. Why do we do it this way and not that? Is there another way of thinking about this?
There are many ways to get from A to B. And being flexible as to how you get there is key, because the one thing we know for sure is that it won’t be a straight line! We must help our students learn to be flexible in their thinking and behaviour in order to adapt to challenges that come along, while always keeping focussed on the end goal. This is the entrepreneurial mindset.
The entrepreneurial mindset has become a prerequisite for success. By teaching our students to understand how they think, behave and feel, we are giving them the skills to grow and stretch outside their comfort zones, to take risks and embrace uncertainty and fear, and to be curious and flexible about how to achieve the results they want. Only then are education providers truly preparing students to thrive in the face of uncertainty, to seize opportunities in an ever-changing world and empower students to become the leaders, innovators and change-makers of tomorrow.
As we look to the future, it is clear that cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset is not just an option but a necessity for preparing students for success.
Read more on this at www.thinkingleaders.com.