The Enterprising

Skills and
Entrepreneurial
Attributes
Participant handout

Graduate School and Postdoc Development Centre

© Imperial College London 2016
Updated 2016_09
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“Employers are no longer satisfied with a good degree, basic transferable skills and a
little work experience, enterprise skills and commercial awareness are now pre-
requisite skill and knowledge sets across all sectors”.

(Blackmore, P. Enterprising Enough? Phoenix 116 35-37)

This workshop is the first in a series of events for postgraduate research students,
postdocs and fellows at Imperial to help you realize your skills and follow your
ambitions in the enterprise and entrepreneurship space.

It was initially developed as part of The Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Project (a

joint initiative between the Postdoc Development Centre and the Graduate School).
For further details about the project and useful resources for you please see:

http://tinyurl.com/ImperialEEProj

Whilst providing awareness and skills development, we hope these events also
provide an opportunity for you to network with your peers from across the College.
Come prepared to work and learn with others and bring you contact details.

Enterprise:
The application of creative ideas and innovations to practical situations. It combines
creativity, ideas development and problem solving with expression, communication
and practical action.

Entrepreneurship:
The application of enterprise skills, specifically to creating and growing
organisations in order to identify and build on opportunities.

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Enterprising skills and your career
Your time at Imperial College offers you the chance to excel in research and build up your CV for
the next steps after your degree or contract end. Career routes in academia (A), emerging small
firms (B) and R&D in big corporate industry (C) all need people who exhibit enterprising mindsets.

If you are uncertain as to the next step Imperial can offer a variety of experiences for you to build
skills, knowledge and become more informed about which doors to open and which to close.

Increasingly enterprising skills will mark out those successful in transitioning from role to role
given the work force is working longer, “a job for life” is increasingly rare and the portfolio
career models rise in prevalence.

Take a few minutes to reflect on your next step. What skills and achievements do you need
to gain before you make that step? How do you know? What other information do you need?

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Enterprising skills and attributes: what research shows us
Case study 1: Behind every great entrepreneur is a great comeback story

Eric Schurenberg, Editor in Chief, Inc.

Please follow the link for a discussion of failure in business.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101619667

“The key enterprising skills I used when first starting out are the very same ones I use today:
• The art of delegation
• Risk-taking
• Surrounding yourself with a great team
• Working on projects you really believe in.”

Sir Richard Branson

Personal reflection: What comes to mind when you hear the word entrepreneur? Does it sit
well with an academic setting? What skills do you need?

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Demos study into Shell’s LiveWIRE programme of 1000 aspiring entrepreneurs.

Everyone’s Business 2012 http://www.demos.co.uk/project/everyones-business/

“Evolvers not revolutionaries” The research demonstrated that having a good idea (see graph
above) was important but most perceived themselves as people determined to take an idea or
a product forward - to positively evolve rather than create from thin air.

Interestingly money was not the biggest driver for this group: working for myself, passion for
what I do and turning ideas into reality were much bigger factors in wanting to set up a business.

The majority also believed that if their business failed it would be due to the idea not being strong
enough or because businesses sometimes fail rather than the surrounding economic climate.
Many successful firms have been founded during recession (Poundland, Bathstore, Fisher-Price &
CNN).

Spencer & Spencer: Factor analysis of successful entrepreneurs in a variety of settings and
cultures
Competence at Work 1993 LM Spencer & SM Spencer

Competence at Work is a major reference for studying competencies (an underlying characteristic
of an individual that is causally related to superior performance in a role). A cross-cultural study
of entrepreneurs in a variety of settings (including STEM related businesses) generated the
following list of competencies associated with superior performers:

• Initiative
• Sees and acts on opportunities
• Persistence
• Concern for high quality of work
• Self confidence
• Monitoring
• Recognising the importance of business relationships

This is a useful list to act as a starting point for personal development. For instance can you
generate a concrete example from your experience where you have demonstrated each trait?
Those that come easily are probably where your strengths lie. If you are struggling or your
answer is somewhat vague then these are the areas you may well need to look to build on. It’s
good interview practice too!

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 Initiative covered later

Sees & acts on

opportunities

Persistence

Concern for high

quality of work

Self confidence

Monitoring

Recognising
the importance
of business
relationships

How to build them up? We will look at each section in turn.

EE skills are only part of the puzzle

Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in “Enterprise and

entrepreneurship education.” QAA 2012

No man is an island and the entrepreneur is no exception. Every step of the enterprising
journey, whatever its setting, relies on the environment and others such as funders, policy
makers, customers, regulators.
• culture of enterprise
• knowledge and skills
• access to finance
• regulatory framework
• business innovation
Imperial is actively trying to build a culture of enterprise and engagement with events,
competitions and training will start opening links to the other parts of the puzzle. No-one needs
to be an expert in everything but being an informer enquirer means that you enter the dragon’s
den that bit more prepared.

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Initiative
"There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who
watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.”

Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman

Michael Frese and Doris Fay define initiative as "work behaviour characterised by its self-starting
nature, its proactive approach, and by being persistent in overcoming difficulties that arise in
pursuit of a goal.” Sound like the PhD process? However those with enterprising mindsets need
to take the initiate across the board - engaging with stakeholders / customers, seeking grants and
funding, horizon scanning what might be next.

Detail 3 times you have taken the initiative and what the result (positive, negative, opened new
things etc.) was:

Situation Result

Now detail three things you would like to do to be more proactive and rate yourself on
how likely (and why) these are:

Situation Likelihood

What would make the hypothetical into a reality?

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Sees and acts on opportunities
“If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.” Milton Berle

It is all to easy to get immersed in our research projects and perhaps miss fantastic opportunities
that come our way. Obviously the research needs to get done but the act of seeking information,
contacts and ideas can actively feedback into research. Opportunities may be there for the
taking (events etc.) or may need you to take the initiative (what if we tried this technique?).
Successful academics and business people know what is going on around them, where the
funding/markets are heading and what they need to learn/do to stay ahead.

• Ensure you come up for air & Dedicated time to think

Book time in to seek new ideas - 1/2 hour of your “golden time”
Don’t just spend it on Google - try new sources (notice boards, daily press
etc.) Team up with someone and use each other as sounding boards
• Developing new skills
Skills courses on offer at Imperial
Courses at other London
institutions Other online courses
Push yourself from your comfort zone
• What are the day to day problems in your
lab? What could be fixed?
How could it be fixed?
banish “ifs” and
“buts”!
• Horizon scanning
What is the next big thing in your field?
Where are the research councils looking
to? Where could this technology lead?
• Cross disciplinary views
attend workshops, talks and seminars across the College (don’t forget your
business card & notebook)
join a society with cross College membership

All of the above require you to get organised - capture thoughts, contacts and events in an
intelligent way. Software such as Evernote can be used but don’t let it stifle the creative
thought process.

Courses and events provided by The Graduate School and Postdoc Development Centre can
be found here:

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/pg/graduate-school/
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/staffdevelopment/postdocs1

Other enterprise and entrepreneur events that a focus group of PhD students and postdocs at
Imperial have been involved in are below - these are suggestions to help you start the search
for an event that works for you.

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 IED Business School – work with MBA student to develop your idea into a business
case http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/entrepreneurship/services/ied-projects
Althea-Imperial programme – support and mentoring for female students - win up to £10K
http://www.imperial.ac.uk/students/enterprising-students/althea-imperial-programme/
Imperial Advance Hackspace – prototype your ideas and join in hackatons http://icah.co.uk
Venture Catalyst Challenge Imperial create lab – competition to develop your idea
and pitch for£10K http://www.imperialcreatelab.com/vcc
Climate KIC Greenhouse http://www.climate-kic.org/about/
RCA cross collaboration http://ide.rca.ac.uk/goglobal
Big Design Design Museum http://www.big-design.org
Design Council event https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/events
Design club - workshops https://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/activities/a-to-z/478
Presentation series by various company founders Imperial Entrepreneurs society
Design led innovation workshop
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mechanicalengineering/study/undergraduatestudy/year3/me
3hdnvc
Silicon Valley comes to Imperial http:/felixonline.co.uk/biz/1804/silicon-valley-comes-to-
imperial/
 Machine learning and Data mining in business
Ideas Inc (NTU) Business Challenge & Business Proposal http://www.ideasinc.sg
 Base of Pyramid (BoP Singapore) social enterprise

Business school mini MBA
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/graduateschool/currentstudents/professionalskillsresearch/pr
ofessionalskillscourses/introtoaccounting
3-Day entreprenuership course
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/graduateschool/currentstudents/professionalskillsresearch/pr
ofessionalskillscourses/entrepreneurship3dayworkshop
HERMES summer school 2012 http://hermes2012.org
  GOOGLE case study
Imperial Business School,Venture competition
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/entrepreneurship/services/competition
  Global tech challenge
UKERC Energy YES http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/Energy+YES
Meet up of developers and entrepreneurs Google Campus
London http://www.meetup.com/Developers-Entrepreneurs/
Imperial Innovation Incubator http://www.imperialinnovations.co.uk/ventures/incubator/
Cambridge Entrepreneurs http://www.cue.org.uk
  Climate KIC PhD
ICON http://www.imperial-consultants.co.uk
Smarties https:/www.smarties.pro/get-involved/

You may also want to look at the Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Project “Delicious” social
bookmarking site for other resources, opportunities and competitions you can engage with:
http://tinyurl.com/ImperialEEProj-Delicious
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Using the list above, the lists created in the workshop and your own ideas create a top 3 list
of things to investigate further and when you will do this.
1. Date

2. Date

3. Date

Persistence or how to fail and carry on!

Case study 2: For post course reading Success or Failure: Which Breeds Stronger, More
Resilient Entrepreneurs?
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231535 April 18, 2014

Start up businesses have a very high failure rate in this country with as many as 1 in 3 failing in
their first three years. The reverse side of the coin is that around two thirds survive and some
go on to prosper and expand. (source Business Case Studies businesscasestudies.co.uk )

Failure does happen - for a great low down on reasons why and industries see
http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/ and for a British take we have
http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community-voice/blogs/colin-willman/business-start-upswhy-do-
so-many-fail

But businesses fail for reasons - it isn’t a random process. So if there are reasons then lessons can be
learnt. For instance if cash flow was a problem then next time the entrepreneur will create a

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robust cash flow plan, be wary of the warning signs and hopefully go onto success. Looking back
at data from Everyone’s Business we see that the young entrepreneurs are informed risk-takers.
You aren’t going to know everything but you can make yourself as informed as possible.

Atychiphobia (fear of failure) and blinkered persistence can be seen as two extremes. With the
first we are paralysed by doubt in our ability to succeed either through low self esteem,
perfectionism, self sabotage and the second we carry on regardless paying no heed to
feedback, results, cash flow - obsessed only by our goal. To combat this we must seek a middle
ground whose activities include:

• Analyze potential outcomes

• Learn to think more positively
• Seek advice and feedback
• Look at worse-case scenario
• Monitor progress
• Setting small action points towards larger goals
• Seek support (family, friends)

One way to explore these issues is to try an online test - do not take the results as definitive but
it should give you food for thought! A link to an entrepreneur test you might want to try is
http://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/entrepreneur-test/

This site also has a resilience test: http://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/resilience-test/

How do you personally deal with difficult patches or failure?

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Personal Career decision tree and SWOT analysis for each option

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Concern for high quality of work & monitoring
Academics are usually very exacting in their work: its quality and how it is viewed. What we
need to learn are checks and balances so that we know we are producing good work, we know
we are on track and we have time for review.

Internal monitoring & QC

External monitoring & QC

One way of widening the focus of action points and goals is to look beyond the immediate (I must
finish this experiment / paper / thesis) and look at longer term career goals. This can be used
almost like the decision tree but in reverse. For instance if your long term aim is a fellowship then
a year before the start date you will need fill in the application which will ask for international
referees, good quality papers, grant writing experience, collaboration experience etc. Working
back from the papers you need to submit / review / write / data analyse / experiment - this gives
you a good indication of the time frame needed. Measuring yourself against this will not only
keep you on track but allow realistic measurement of other opportunities as they arise.

Post - course look at your career options and work backwards to what you should be doing now.
Many long term options usually lead to the same set of immediate goals.

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Self confidence & business relationships

Notes from networking

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