Organizational Skill
Organizational skills are among the main components of the psychological culture of a person. This concept defines a person’s ability to properly allocate their time for work, study, rest and other activities. How well a person has organized this distribution largely depends on his or her success in all matters – in particular, in entrepreneurship. Often people themselves do not understand why they do not succeed in anything, why they never have enough time. And the answer is on the surface – lack of self-organization, inability to properly allocate one’s time. I aspire to become a significant manager-entrepreneur; thus, organizational abilities are essential for me.
During the first week of the course, I fully understood the necessity to possess notable self-organization, given the variety of tasks and interactions with my colleagues. Then, the second week allowed me to realize that my organizational skills as an entrepreneur can be considered as a generalized personal quality, which is reflected in the constant desire to achieve a certain goal, concentration and high motivation and ability to subordinate planned actions to the necessary regime, taking into account changes in the internal and external environment of my activities (Bridge and O’Neill, 2018).
With my acquaintance with the peer-reviewed literature, it is possible to define organizational abilities of an entrepreneur as skills to see and accurately formulate perspective and most important current tasks, in due time to make reasoned decisions and to provide their performance, to organize, coordinate, direct and control activity of subordinates, constantly and effectively cooperate with public organizations and control bodies (Burns, 2016). The entrepreneur with organizational skills pays special attention to the rational division of labor among employees, achieves real personal responsibility of each for the performance of his functions.
The development of organizational consciousness allows improving the organizational skills of the entrepreneur: planning personal work, professional, career growth, development of life strategy. But internal concentration and organization do not come by themselves but are associated with a well-organized mode of work and reflected experience. The first two weeks of the course served as a great theoretical foundation for understanding the crucial aspects regarding an entrepreneur’s organizational skills, which are being further developed during my academic activities.
Creativity
Modern business trends require companies to change approaches and tools for solving certain tasks, as standard methods have already exhausted their reserves to improve the efficiency of the enterprise. One of the possible options for successful problem solving is the use of creativity that promotes personal and professional self-development and self-improvement, the development of initiative of the company’s staff. In addition, successful creative management enables the company to form a positive image, increase competitiveness, use limited resources more efficiently, increase profits. Given that I am going to be a manager-entrepreneur, this perspective is essential for me.
The materials during the second week of the course showed me important and evidence-based rationale regarding creativeness within the scope of entrepreneurship. In particular, now, I tend to determine creativity as the ability to create and find new ideas, deviating from the accepted patterns of thinking, to successfully solve the problems facing the company in a non-standard way (Sternberg, 2006). Creativity involves seeing issues from a different angle, resulting in the development of original ways to solve them.
Like any quality of character, creativeness can be developed and stimulated. Each of us has potential abilities that can be revealed with a competent approach. To do this, it is necessary to create a favorable psychological climate in the team. A person can work creatively only where he feels good, where there is as much freedom and independence as possible. It is necessary to use the knowledge and skills of employees as much as possible to give them the opportunity for self-realization (Sternberg, 2006). It is especially important to minimize stressful situations, prevent them or quickly resolve the problem.
I suggest that the following elements are necessary for the development of creativity by the end of the course: competence (knowledge, skills, experience); creative thinking, flexibility and persistence in finding a solution; internal motivation (personal interest in solving the problem) and external (material incentives and career advancement).
Finally, I figured out that creativeness is critical to implement innovations into the business. I understood a clear line between these two terms and can confidently claim that creativity is an idea generation while innovation – idea implementation. This theoretical point will not allow me to get confused in this regard in the future.
Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking is a rather broad concept, and it can be interpreted in different ways. This phenomenon itself is a type of systems thinking that combines both rational and creative components, as well as objective and subjective aspects. Such a type of thinking is based on certain principles, which unites various systems and methods in a complex process of strategic activity. Apparently, proper development of the mentioned skill is crucial for my success as a manager-entrepreneur, which was clearly understood during the course. Strategic thinking is a special, even unique, trait of an entrepreneur who is focused on discovering new strategies.
In order to create a successful enterprise, it is imperative to develop the skills of strategic thinking because it is precisely this that is nothing more than the process during which we learn to translate the commercial vision into reality (Bridge and O’Neill, 2018). It is also the ability to work in a team, the ability to solve various problems and think critically. Moreover, it is also a tool that will help you cope with any circumstances that change every day, draw up a plan for the necessary transformations, bring them to life, predict new directions and opportunities. Thus, I assume that thinking strategically means the need for a clear understanding of the result of the activity.
The materials of the second week revealed to me that the strategist seeks to first clearly understand the nature of each component and then use the full potential of human resources to combine these components in the most beneficial format (Bridge and O’Neill, 2018). Phenomena and events in real life of an enterprise rarely correspond to specific theoretical models. Therefore, if one needs to urgently and quickly sort out a critical situation and then create the necessary structure, then the step-by-step method does not work in such a situation. A non-linear tool of thinking is needed here – the human mind. True strategic thinking is in stark contrast to the traditional systems approach, which is based on mechanical operations because it is based on linear thinking. But strategic thinking also differs from a purely intuitive approach, when conclusions are made without rational analysis, based only on guesswork.
Personal Development Plan
I consider the presented organizational skills, creativity, and strategic thinking the most important features of me as an entrepreneur (Wylie, 2020). Hence, I am planning to dedicate the following year to their development. In order to improve my organizational skills, I will get involved in complex projects with many teammates. In order to advance my creativity, I will attend special courses on problem-solving and resolve business cases. In order to develop my strategic thinking, I will study a great amount of the related literature and gain practical experience at an enterprise.
References
Bridge, S. and O’Neill, K. (2018) Understanding Enterprise: Entrepreneurs & Small Business, 5th ed., London: Palgrave.
Burns, P. (2016). Entrepreneurship and Small Business: Start-Up, Growth, and Maturity, 4th ed., London: Palgrave.
Sternberg, R. J. (2006) The Nature of Creativity, Creativity Research Journal 2006, Vol. 18, No. 1, 87–97.
Wylie, A. (2020) Developing a Professional Mindset, Harlow: Pearson.