Enterprise (0454) | Skills of enterprising people

IGCSE Enterprise (0454) Study Notes: Skills of Enterprising People (Section 3)

Welcome to Section 3! This chapter is incredibly important because it looks at the core characteristics and abilities that make an entrepreneur successful. Think of these skills as your essential toolkit—you need to know what they are and how to use them, especially when tackling your coursework project (Task 3: Using enterprise skills to implement the plan!).

Don't worry if you feel you don't have all these skills yet. The syllabus confirms that while some people have these skills naturally (known as attributes or characteristics), everyone else can develop them through practice and learning!

3.1 The Essential Skills of Enterprising People

The term 'skills' covers everything an enterprising person needs: their natural attributes, their characteristics (like attitude), and their learned skills (like planning or delegation). We can break these down into categories to make them easier to remember.

Group 1: Thinking and Creative Skills

These skills are about generating ideas and finding new ways to do things.

• Creativity: The ability to think in new and unusual ways.
  Example: Instead of selling plain lemonade, an enterprising student uses creative skills to invent a new flavor, like spiced mango juice.
• Innovation: Taking a creative idea and turning it into a useful product, service, or method. It is putting creativity into action.
• Problem-Solving: Identifying issues and finding practical, effective solutions.
  Tip: Good problem-solvers don't panic; they analyze the situation calmly.
• Resourcefulness: The ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties and achieve goals, often by using limited resources effectively.
  Example: If your event runs out of electricity, being resourceful means quickly finding a battery-powered speaker instead of cancelling the music.

Group 2: Action and Mindset Skills

These skills relate to your drive, energy, and decision-making.

• Taking Initiative: Acting without being told what to do; seeing a task that needs doing and starting it.
  Example: Seeing a messy workspace and starting to clean it up before the manager asks.
• Motivation/Determination to Succeed: Having a strong inner desire to reach your goals and the mental toughness to keep going, even when things are hard.
• Perseverance: The commitment to continue trying despite facing obstacles, difficulties, or delays.
  Remember: Perseverance is key to overcoming failure!
• Taking Calculated Risks: Not being afraid to try new things, but only after carefully weighing the potential positive outcomes (rewards) against the negative outcomes (risks/losses). This is not reckless behaviour!
• Taking Responsibility: Accepting accountability for all your actions and decisions, whether they lead to success or failure.
• Self-Confidence: Believing in your own abilities, knowledge, and judgment.
• Prioritisation/Time Management: Organising tasks based on urgency and importance, ensuring deadlines are met efficiently.

Group 3: Interpersonal and Management Skills

These skills are essential when working with or managing other people.

• Practical Skills and Knowledge: The actual technical ability needed to create the product or service.
  Example: Knowing how to bake, or knowing how to use specific software for marketing.
• Leadership: The ability to guide, inspire, and direct a team towards achieving a common goal. Good leaders set a clear vision.
• Team-Building: The skills needed to encourage cooperation and improve efficiency among a group of people.
• Influencing Skills: The ability to persuade others to agree with your ideas or proposal, often through clear communication and strong arguments.
• Delegation: Assigning specific tasks or responsibilities to other team members.
  Did you know? Effective delegation shows you trust your team and frees up the leader to focus on more complex tasks.

Key Takeaway for 3.1: Enterprising skills are a mix of attributes (like confidence) and learned abilities (like delegation). They are crucial tools that determine whether an idea stays just an idea, or becomes a successful enterprise.

3.2 Behaviours of Entrepreneurs: Skills in Action

This section is about seeing how these skills are actually used in the real world. An entrepreneur’s behaviour is simply the way they act, which is guided by their enterprise skills.

Observing Enterprising Behaviour

To understand enterprise, you must look at how successful people—both locally and internationally—use the skills listed above.

When studying a named entrepreneur (this is often required in exams!), you should be able to identify which specific skills they demonstrated in their journey.

For example, imagine a local entrepreneur, Ms. Jia, who started a tutoring service during the pandemic by moving all lessons online:

• What skill did she use? Innovation and Creativity (by pivoting her traditional business model).
• What skill did she use? Taking Initiative (by immediately designing new online resources instead of waiting for things to go back to normal).
• What skill did she use? Perseverance (She had technical glitches at first but kept practicing until the online platform worked seamlessly).

You need to recognise that all these skills work together. A great business idea requires creativity, but implementing it successfully requires delegation, prioritisation, and determination.

Identifying and Evaluating Your Own Skills (Crucial for Coursework!)

As part of your IGCSE Enterprise project (Coursework Task 3 and Evaluation Task 4), you must reflect on your own performance.

1. Identification: You need to look back at your project activities and identify which enterprise skills you demonstrated.

2. Evaluation: This means judging how well you used those skills and what the impact was.

Example of Self-Evaluation:

Skill Used: Delegation
Action Taken: "I delegated the task of designing the poster to Team Member B."
Evaluation (Good): "This was successful because I recognised that Team Member B had stronger practical skills in graphic design, leading to a high-quality poster and saving me time for budget analysis."
Evaluation (Area for Improvement): "Next time, I need to improve my influencing skills; I should have given Team Member B clearer guidelines, as the first draft had to be completely redone."

Remember, the examiner doesn't just want a list of skills; they want to see how you applied them and how you judged the success of that application.

Common Mistake to Avoid: Simply listing "I used teamwork" is not enough. You must explain HOW you contributed to the team, WHY that skill was necessary at that moment, and WHAT RESULTED from using that skill.

Key Takeaway for 3.2: Enterprising behaviour is the visible use of these skills. You must be able to recognise these skills in others (named entrepreneurs) and, most importantly, identify and evaluate them in your own coursework project.