Some of the types of Entrepreneurs

—  -Business entrepreneurs

—  -Corporate Entrepreneurs (Entrepreneurship within established organization- intrapreneurship)

—  -Social entrepreneurs - changing the performance capacity of society

Key Principles of Innovation

The key principles of innovation include:

• Make the process or service simple and customer-focused.
• Start small but aim high.
• Try, test and revise the process or service.
• Learn from failures.
• Reward good performance.

Tips for Leading Creativity and Innovation

Leaders of innovation note that creative and innovative people:

• Are thoughtful.
• Demonstrate vision.
• Listen to customers/clients.
• Understand how to manage ideas.
• Are people-centred.
• Maintain a culture of change.
• Maximize team synergy, balance and focus.
• Hold themselves and others accountable for high standards of performance.

Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur and Enterprise

Entrepreneurship

The concept of entrepreneurship can be described in many ways:

• Identifying and pursuing economic opportunities

• Starting and managing a new business, small business or family business to create ‘incremental wealth.’

o   This wealth is created by individuals who assume the risks of equity, time and career commitment to provide value for some product or service.

• Creating something with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the financial, psychological and social risks, and receiving the rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction.

o   The product or service itself may not be new or unique, but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur through necessary skills and resources.

Almost all definitions of entrepreneurship include the following key behaviours:

• Taking initiative.
• Organizing and reorganizing social and economic mechanisms to turn resources and situations into practical account.
• Taking well calculated risks .

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is a risk-taker who uses purposeful searching, careful planning and sound judgement to create economic change. Entrepreneurs are uniquely optimistic, committed and creative in establishing new resources or endowing old ones with a new capacity, all for the purpose of creating wealth.Is a person who makes money by starting or running businesses especially when this involves taking financial risks

Enterprise

An enterprise is a business undertaking or commercial unit aimed at producing products and services. An enterprise in health, for example, may focus on assisting the public, clients or service providers through:

• Research activities (e.g., proposal development in health).
• Academic work (e.g., book writing in health).
• Counselling patients and their families (e.g., PMTCT counselling).
• Providing mortuary services.
• Providing cytology and histopathology services in the periphery.
• Providing a selection of full burial services.
• Clinic care of patient.
• Improving the quality of services within an organization to increase clients.

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Kuratko and Hodgett (2007) describe the entrepreneurial mindset beyond just the creation of a business. The entrepreneurial mindset entails extraordinary thinking and recognizing opportunities that move beyond or reconsider routine/traditional ways of doing things.

Entrepreneurs seek opportunities and accept risks beyond security. The person with this type of mindset has a knack for putting ideas into action.

The entrepreneurial mindset can be taught, learned and developed in individuals. This mindset can be seen within and outside the profit and non-profit sectors, including private and public health systems. Entrepreneurs have produced innovations that have revolutionized processes and approaches towards providing health care, with rapid and positive change.

Pillars of the Entrepreneurial Mindset

The entrepreneurial mindset is a dominant economic force. Some scholars conceptualize three pillars of the entrepreneurial mindset. A successful entrepreneur has the Means, Ability, and Desire to materialize his or her vision. If any of those three pillars does not exist, and the entrepreneur cannot mobilize resources to create all three, then the entrepreneurial mindset does not exist.

Means

·         Capital/access to resources, which could be external funding, self-funding, or the ability to harness labour.

·         It generally takes something (often money) to make something else.

Ability

·         The physical and mental capacity to understand the vision and organize resources available in novel ways. It does not necessarily dictate a need to have all of the answers from the beginning.

·         Entrepreneurs tend to constantly adjust their course as they proceed, in contrast to large enterprises which must chart their course more slowly.

Desire

·         The aspirations to invest in new ideas to make something of value happen.

Many great ideas in the environment could produce positive change. However, it takes the alignment of ability, means and desire to invest in those ideas to make something of value happen to an individual or a community. Most take a personal investment of the entrepreneur’s time and thus must yield sufficient payoff in exchange for that time investment, even if the work is self rewarding. Profits enable the entrepreneur to continue investing themselves in newer, bigger projects.

Team Building

The most central function of any manager or leader is coordinating human resources to complete the tasks of an organization. Organizing and motivating a group of people to work together is often called team-building. There are many steps in successful team building. Each step in creating and facilitating teams is described below.

Creating the Team

1.      Define the Task

A team is required to perform a particular task or a set of tasks. Clarify what the team must achieve to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency.

2.      Develop Terms of Reference (TOR)

TOR are the ‘job descriptions’ of the team members. A proper TOR usually includes background information, objectives, description of the tasks and how the tasks should be performed, concrete ‘deliverables’ that the team member should produce and the time frame. It can also include brief job descriptions and characteristics of the team members (qualifications, experience, special skills and attitudes) as well as the support and resources at their disposal.

3.      Select Prospective Team Members

It is not always necessary to follow a formal process, but it is best to use a selection committee to recruit and interview several candidates for each position.  Before appointing or engaging team members, obtain their consent. It is important that team members agree to work with each other.

4.     Announce the Team

Let everyone know that a team exists, who its members are, what it will be doing and what support and cooperation it may require.

Initiating Team Work

Introduce the team members to each other. Each team member should know:

• Other members by name and their responsibilities.
• The purpose, goals and specific activities of the team.
• His/her own responsibilities to reach the team goal(s).

Establish a process for how the team will work together and a regular meeting schedule (e.g. daily morning briefs, weekly or bi-weekly meetings).

Coordination and Communication

Most groups follow a similar pattern when working together. The leader will need to guide the team through these phases:

• Forming: the initial stage when people are still new and polite to each other.
• Storming: group members struggle for dominance.
• Norming: members begin to accept each other, their roles and how to proceed.
• Performing: team members work well together and achieve.

Prompt, consistent and clear communication is critical to team building.

·         Schedule meetings where all ideas and opinions are welcome and heard.

·         Establish a mechanism to pass information to all team members, making sure that all members receive it correctly.

·         Members have the right to know the progress of the implementation.

·         Communicate and inform each member on progress and matters concerning them.

·         Give timely feedback to team members on relevant matters.

All team members should be responsible for monitoring and assessing the progress of the work. Progress should be reviewed regularly (weekly, monthly, or quarterly) with clear decisions on the way forward.

All problems that arise should be solved as a team rather than by individuals, preferably through a process with all team members. This will develop consensus about solutions and increase likelihood of successful outcomes because all members feel ownership.

Maintaining Team Spirit and Cohesion

Every team member should feel included through respect, equal opportunity and fair distribution of resources. The best way to accomplish this is to involve every team member in the planning process, setting priorities and goals, making decisions, and sharing results with the team. Other creative strategies to build cohesion include:

• Retreats

o   A good way to conduct reviews away from the ordinary work place. Retreats are not necessarily costly (e.g. could be organized at the home of the team leader).

• Team Building Exercises

o   A whole range of exercises that can be performed in the workplace.

• Occasional Recreation
• o   Team members may decide to meet occasionally for purely recreational purposes without needing to talk about work.
  • Celebration of Achievements (important team motivator).
  
  
  Discharging the Team
  Once the task has been performed it is necessary to formally discharge the team. Follow these important steps when discharging a team:
  • Accountability
  o   Present a final report for acceptance.
  o   Account for all assets and finances. An audit may be required.
  • Acknowledgement 
  o   Publicly acknowledge and thank the members.
  o   Perhaps give small gifts or certificates as a token of appreciation.
  • Follow-up
  o   Arrange for any ‘next steps.’
  • Keeping in touch
  o   Exchange contact information and e-mail addresses. Send an occasional newsletter as team members may need each other again during new opportunities.
  
  
  Team Leaders
  
  
  Of course, all successful teams need a competent, active leader with skills and experience in:
  • Creating team spirit and cohesiveness.
  • Facilitation, guidance and directing.
  • Coordination and communication.
  • Problem solving.
  
  
  Effective team leaders should:
  • Be concerned of each member’s concerns and problem.
  • Be available and give needed support when a member finds difficulties with his/her responsibilities.
  ·         Act as a facilitator and not a dictator. Demonstrate and let members do their tasks.
  ·         Guide and direct members towards reaching the goals, creating a sense of ownership.
  ·         Assist members who need help until they reach the needed level of performance.