E-Magazine
Magnus George
People are often perplexed to learn that I am an ecologist working in a management school, and that I once earned a living as a squid biologist but now develop learning programmes for entrepreneurs. Without going into detail on those changes (think transferable skills), I know that my background allows me an alternative viewpoint on some questions about entrepreneurship education.
As a life sciences undergraduate I received scant exposure to ‘industry’ or to the ways of organisations. I now realize that throughout my first decade of work, in and around the fishing industry, I spent most of my time learning as much about how things run, and how ideas and opportunities are exploited, as I did about the species I was working on or the fishery I was helping exploit or manage. When I gave up the sea and first came to Lancaster, as an MBA applicant, I was asked if I felt I was entrepreneurial, a word I had never pondered. Having developed several aspects of marine biology, secured exploratory fishing licenses, and started and run small companies, I realized that in some ways yes, I had been. How had that come about? My answer goes, for me, to the heart of two key questions about entrepreneurship education. These are, can entrepreneurship be taught and, if yes, how should it be taught?
After seven years working in and around entrepreneurship education in the UK I continue to be wrong-footed by the sometimes timid response to the first of these. At open days, or upon meeting visitors from a range of agencies, the question is seldom left unasked. It is different in America. I recently attended the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) conference in Houston, Texas. One of things that struck me most there was the absence of the first question and, in its place, the focus on the second.
Is there though anything peculiar to entrepreneurship that distinguishes it from other activities that are taught/learned, such as music, algebra, cardiovascular surgery, chess, rugby, animal husbandry, sculpture or even happiness? These all require complex combinations of cognitive and neuromuscular skills. People study each of them, gaining ability to varying degrees, though their eventual peak level of expertise or success is not known from the outset. Early experiences are important for most, at least if a career is required from them, and there are age cut-offs for most, by convention if not by actual ability. Of course entrepreneurship can be taught, whether as a phenomenon worthy of study or as a discipline to be learned and practiced. In that it is like so many other activities. In my own case, I had a good general education, some relevant technical expertise, a network of industry contacts, some informal mentors, and found myself living and working in an environment that brought out in me what resourcefulness and innovativeness I could muster.
The ‘can it be taught’ question is the flip-side of the ‘born or made’ one. As a biologist I can confirm that all entrepreneurs are born, as are we all. It is clear from the biographies of the famous ones that what they were born into was part of what made them. That might have been poverty, family strife, an inappropriate education experience, an uninspiring early career or whatever else they later recall as formative. Biologists call this phenotype, namely the way in which genetic potential is expressed in response to environmental conditions. We are descended from ancestral frugivores and folivores, and as our diets diversified we were able to inhabit a wide range of ecosystems. That versatility has been an adaptive characteristic that we still enjoy, and displays of enterprise are one way in which it becomes manifest. The science fiction author Robert A Heinlein’s fictional character Lazarus Long said:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
I concur with Lazarus, and his list is not a bad job description for an entrepreneur, or recipe for an enterprising life.
Turning now to modes of entrepreneurship education, I have recently enjoyed a role in the debate on entrepreneurship as a taught subject or apprenticeship. This is of course a false dichotomy, and few nowadays deny the value of a range of stimuli. Working extensively with practicing entrepreneurs, my colleagues and I have been active in promoting an integrated model of learning. This combines observational, reflective, enacted and other forms of learning, much of it taking place in a peer-to-peer environment. We use classrooms, learning sets, workplace shadowing, coaching and other means to stimulate and provoke, challenge and support. Our latest venture, involving our Entrepreneur in Residence, facilitates groups of owner-managers working together in quasi non-executive board structures to help each other devise and enact business development plans. In this, we are fortunate to be working closely with small groups of enthusiastic people, and we have the time to deal in depth with the syllabus that we have derived. These experiences have also been influential in the design of our recently-launched first year undergraduate course in entrepreneurship, and will impact upon all our student teaching.
Returning to my undergraduate theme, and my own early studies in ecology, you would be right to challenge me on the broader need or opportunity for a wider promotion of entrepreneurship education. For myself, albeit as a latecomer to the field, I wholly support that idea. The spectrum of work undertaken by ISBE members; initiatives such as the Government’s enterprise education agenda; and campus-based cross-discipline student activities such as SIFE have all excited my interest. As a natural scientist, it is the diversity of activity and the richness of forms that keeps me interested in this area. At school level, entrepreneurship can be a form of play. For young adults at college or university, entrepreneurship education can awaken interest, raise salience, instill rigour and criticality, and support tentative explorations to promote self-efficacy. It can provide a foil to what is, for many, the stultifying blandness of traditional careers guidance. Even if many students are destined for a career as a lifestyle bureaucrat, entrepreneurship education can lay down the dormant seed of a fruitful future idea. And for practitioners it can be developmental, challenging and inspiring. Examples of each of these abound, and evidence of efficacy is good.
To conclude, the ecosystem is healthy, productive, and seems to be evolving rapidly.
Magnus George, Lancaster University Management School