The A-Z of entrepreneurship focusing on flexibility, growth and hope

Entrepreneurs, just like farmers are known for their high hopes for the expected yield. The success of any entrepreneurship and business endeavour depends on its willingness to flex when need arises. It is such flexibility that leads to business growth and sustainability.

This article is going to dwell on three factors as they relate to entrepreneurship, flexibility, growth and hope.

Flexibility

Since entrepreneurship means the willingness to risk resources by starting a new business in anticipation of a profit. It automatically follows that the newness of the business needs to be maintained for the business to remain relevant.

I say relevant because any lasting business is a call to solving socio economic challenges, which ordinarily changes all the time. Having said that, flexibility in adjusting to change becomes imperative.

An unresponsive business finds sustainability challenges and will eventually wind up obsolete. Nokia corporation failed to quickly ride on the winds of change and found it difficult to remain standing. Entrepreneurship demands a high level of flexibility as you respond to current and emergent business opportunities in your domain.

Your ability to flex as an entrepreneur speaks highly of your intelligence. Albert Einstein once said, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Entrepreneurship is a domain of smart minds otherwise you will die an ordinary copy-paste business person.

You eventually join the tuckshop mentality, and become a permanent resident there.

Entrepreneurship is a big mission whose accomplishment is never possible without a flexible mind and approach. Entrepreneurs are naturally peak performers.

Charles Garfield also noted that, “Peak performers see the ability to manage change as a necessity in fulfilling their missions.” For peak performers, the ability to change is a can’t do without.

If you don’t flex, you’ll break. You just need to be fluid in your entrepreneurship endeavour. We all know how fluid water is, and is the most difficult thing to resist. It weathers even the hardest rocks.

Flexibility is fluidity. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the ability to flex, “Be flexible, but stick to your principles.” Being flexible doesn’t mean being tossed around anyhow. You need to maintain your cardinal points. After all has been done, keep your real north.

Let me conclude by saying, stay committed to your entrepreneurship endeavour, but stay flexible in your approach for relevance and survival

Growth

Growth has always been a sign of life. Entrepreneurship is business and as such progress and success therein is a sign of growth. So, growth becomes key in the entrepreneurship equation.

From a survey I carried out, a greater percentage of small and medium enterprises wound up since 1980 due to failure to register growth. Business continuity is a factor of growth and sustainability. If you can manage to grow your business and sustain it, then you have passed the business test.

I am privileged to be dealing with business persons almost on a daily basis because of my office of Business and Entrepreneurship Coach.

I have seen relatives and friends alike dismally failing to break out of a certain layer and level in their business. Some grow to fame leaving these behind.

Failure to grow can be due to a myriad of factors but chief among them is failing to differently nurture and nourish the business.

Just like a person that needs a balanced diet and constant health checks, your business is no different. Continuously improve on the strategies, systems, skills and structure set.

Business has key areas that require your constant attention and monitoring. Here we talk of your sales and marketing, finances, internal operations of the business (internal controls and others) purchases and relationships.

Growth is therefore never by chance; it is the result of forces working together. Make sure you balance your effort in these areas for a normal growth in your business endeavour.

I always tell people that entrepreneurship has innovation and uniqueness at its core. For your hustle and business to grow, you need to be doing things differently.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “Growth can be painful, change can be painful but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” Doing business entails being prepared to take a certain level of risk (pain).

Growth entails disconnecting with a certain level of both systems and styles and connecting with some higher order form. This is a necessary though painful and involving transition.

The business and entrepreneurship journey is a never ending one to those who know the rules of the road. Do not be comfortable with stagnancy. Ensure movement all the time. It is not always about the speed; even slight movement is a form of movement.

You just need to make sure that at least you register some form of growth in whatever business you find yourself in.

In conclusion, growth is a sign of life in your business and therefore a necessity on your entrepreneurship journey.

Hope

Without hope, all personal and business endeavours will lose meaning. Even in entrepreneurship, all is done with the highest levels of expectation of fulfilment. It is that hope and a strong desire that gives all incumbents in the entrepreneurship faculty the energy to move on. Without hope all is vanity.

Meriam Webster gives three definitions of hope as follows:

To cherish a desire with anticipation, to want something to happen or to be true.

To desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfilment

To expect with confidence.

From the above definitions, we will all agree that hope is central to entrepreneurship. You need to confidently expect positive results having done all that is necessary and expected.

Even the definition of entrepreneurship is pregnant with hope. The one that talks about risking resources, material or otherwise in the form of a unique business venture in anticipation of a profit.

Entrepreneurship is a higher-level type of business for above ordinary beings. We get into business to make money and in the process, making sure that customers’ expectations are met and at best surpassed.

All these are desired processes and ends that one expects to happen. The act and art of expecting a desired outcome to happen is hope. Without hoping for something, all the hustles become meaningless.

A farmer buys fertilisers and seeds, tills the land hoping to get a harvest at the end of the season. You invest in whatever business endeavour hoping that you will be a better person wealth wise. Your business will help the community access the products and services they want closer home and at reasonable prices.

All the innovation, value addition and unique entrepreneurial effort that goes into your business is aimed at some form for fulfilment either way. That is hope at play.

It is therefore clear from the facts that, flexibility, growth and hope are key pillars in the making of sustainable entrepreneurship.-sundaymail