Entrepreneurism: An Inherent Trait or An Attitude?

I have been described as an entrepreneur for most of my professional career and, yet I wasn’t completely sure what was meant by this statement.  My career path is one in which I have developed and implemented patient care services, identified new ways of generating revenue, and created new practice/business models to help sustain our practices.  I have listened to colleagues who have unique ideas, different practice strategies/models, or entirely new concepts as it relates to pharmacy practice.  Some things that I hear about make sense to me, others do not.  Some ideas have meaning to me as I can envision implementing in my own practice, others I cannot wrap my head around it.  So, what is it about me that others describe as entrepreneurial.  Is it some inherent trait that I have possessed since birth or is it more of a learned behavior, an attitude that I have developed?

First, let me say that being an entrepreneur was not something that I tried to be nor something that I thought was unique to me.  It was more about how I thought, how I searched for opportunities, how I challenged the status quo.  A word that I absolutely detest is “complacency”.  My reason for such an intense reaction to this word is that to me, professionally, it means I am content, smug, uncritical of myself in terms of my skills and knowledge and/or my current career path/position.  It leads to a sense of false security and a lack of awareness and, if left unchecked, can lead to missed opportunities, irrelevance, and career stagnation.  So, for me, it is this avoidance of complacency that has also been my drive to challenge the status quo, to be aware of new practice opportunities, and my willingness to embrace practice change to improve my current situation.

I have read the book by Peter F. Drucker titled “Innovation and Entrepreneurship”¹.  In this book Drucker discussed that entrepreneurism is not a personality trait, but rather a behavior.  It is not something that is inherent in some, but not in others.  It’s more of an attitude, a willingness to employ new concepts, new practice processes, new business models.  Entrepreneurs are not necessarily risk takers nor are they risk averse, but rather they are informed risk reducers.  Entrepreneurs upset and disorganize as they see change as the norm and healthy.  It’s not that they necessarily create the change themselves, but they are always exploring potential opportunities that arise from change.  From this change also comes the opportunity for innovation—introducing a new idea, product, model, or a service. 

The key to success for entrepreneurship is to make it systematic.  It’s how you approach your practice, your career.  So, the answer to the question about entrepreneurism—is it an inherent trait or an attitude—it is the latter.  But systematic entrepreneurship also needs to be managed.  Successful entrepreneurs exploit change by identifying new opportunities early on and shifting resources from areas of low productivity and yield to those opportunities offering higher productivity and yield.  So, to summarize, entrepreneurism is an attitude, a mindset that is systematic and manageable.  I end this blog with a quote from Drucker.  

”Systematic innovation therefore consists in the purposeful and organized search for changes, and in the systematic analysis of the opportunities such changes might offer for economic or social innovation.” (“1.9: Chapter 9 – Innovation and Entrepreneurship”)

1.     Drucker P.F. (1986). Innovation and Entrepreneurism. Harper.