A closed environment stifles entrepreneurship

Sun, Oct 25 06:52 AM

Society at large is experiencing a contradiction between open and closed environments at the individual and industry levels. Digitisation of technology has made life easier even as it has created linearity across society, commoditising all products and services in the happening open environment.

Take a look at how you have been groomed in your personal life. The education system expects you to write and talk English better than Britishers and Americans. Your family would rather you came first in class, take up a 'decent' job, and 'settle down' to a respected family life. All this comprises the opium of your closed environment. It makes you practise prudence in professional life, satisfying the boss becomes a critical activity, and making decisions is no longer your problem. The trend is to tote up the money you make and the job offers that come your way, or wallow in your job stock options.

In earlier times, security came when you clinched a government job for your whole life. Since the 1991 economic reforms, the young generation is flirting with jobs. In each new position they are again cocooned in the same kind of culture, as though they are in the closed family environment. People are averse to the discomforting risk of becoming an entrepreneur. MNCs applaud this as they can hire people communicating in English here, which is very difficult in China.

So statistically, after China's 1978 economic reforms and policy change in 1987 that opened up private enterprise, the number of individual new businesses grew 11.04 million from 1989 to 2004. In contrast, as per India's Ministry of Corporate Affairs, from 1992 to 2006, the average number of companies formed per year was 33,835, thus taking the 15-year total figure to just half a million new companies.

How does one become an entrepreneur? We know Charlie Chaplin as a great comic, but he was among the first to take on incredible entrepreneurial challenge in cinematography. He became the producer, director, screenplay writer, composer, mime choreographer and principal actor in his films. He started early. His mother used to entertain rioters and soldiers in Aldershot theatre near London in 1894, when she suddenly developed a larynx condition. They booed her out of stage and her career ended abruptly. Watching her weeping and the audience angry, five-year-old Charlie went onstage. He sang Jack Jones, a well-known tune of the time. The audience was spellbound.

Do our schools instill this confidence in our children? I recently met over 1,000 students, parents and teachers across India while working for a for-profit education company. Parents expect high performance, having spent excessively on fees. Most secondary school students bemoan that they are forced to study boring subjects they don't like. Teachers decry a loaded curriculum and lack of respect from students. I passionately listened to these daily life crises, and thought how fortunate I was to be born in an underprivileged family. I could go to art college without any pressure even though art was considered a domain sans a career at that time.

From humble beginnings, Charlie Chaplin's entrepreneurial talent took him places. When his half-brother Sydney tried to promote him to an American businessman travelling through England by boat, they suddenly found a young boy somersaulting towards them. So passionately engrossed was Charlie in his performance that he somersaulted into the water. Sydney had to dive in to save Chaplin.

Chaplin went on to become an astute businessman. He marketed his film persona as "The Tramp" and in 1919 founded United Artists with several prominent stars.

Corporate enterprises, to have control over productivity for efficient operations, carefully define their own culture and discipline in their closed environment. Digital technology has gifted them the Excel sheet for this modern habit. Such internal discipline was relevant 20-30 years ago when industry used to command the market. Today people at large command industry. Stakeholders of an enterprise comprising end-customers, talent pool, suppliers, shareholders, distribution channel and financial institutes all reside in the open, uncontrollable environment. Technology democratises this happening space, expanding its power into endless infinity.

New trends, the media and rapidly changing lifestyles influence this open environment. Enterprises may find it difficult to control this environment, but employees engaging in entrepreneurial challenge can certainly intercept society to ingeniously navigate business through this bubbling cauldron. Unfortunately, most employees exhibit a subservient character at work, just the way Indian children are tutored into dependence by parents and teachers.

Lacking this spirit of entrepreneurship, Indian business houses have not made a dent in world markets. Only the monopolistic, family-driven businesses make it. I salute the handful of exceptional people with no traditional business background who became successful after Independence. Here I am not referring to the trading community with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Small and medium enterprises form the backbone of most economies. A US study shows that 35 years after World War II, more than one of four young men and one of five young women were self-employed in the 1980s. But in India, I've heard many SME owners say they don't see a future for their business as their children are not interested—they are happy working in someone else's major enterprise. According to Business Today, just 13 per cent of small family businesses survive till the third generation, and only 4 per cent go beyond that.

The closed environment culture is the dope that kills the entrepreneurial urge. Being able to adapt to, integrate with, and navigate the uncontrollable open environment will bring Indian education and business to the platform on which to survive the future with entrepreneurial challenge.

Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management.

shombit@shininguniverse.com

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