Dear Employee; Please think like an entrepreneur

 

Dear Employee; Please think like an entrepreneur

But why should an employee think like an entrepreneur? Is that not the employers job? Well I suppose that is true. But suppose the employee actually learns to think like an entrepreneur is there any chance that they might just become an employer as well? I think the possibilities in this line of thinking are endless, but far from worthless. So let’s discuss why the African employee is ideally positioned to think like an entrepreneur and become an employer!

First the employee works in an enterprise. That makes him part of the enterprise. And, if you get my meaning, anyone joining an enterprise must be an entrepreneur otherwise they will not survive in the enterprise. If you join a football team, I would expect that you would know a thing or two about football. If you take a keen interest in the game and listen carefully to your coach, one day you could start your own team. Even if it is in the little leagues. What I am saying is that all employees are exposed to enterprise in employment. Every employee has an opportunity to learn as much as they want about how the game of enterprise is played. Sadly, many employees leave employment without a clue of how or what it takes to run a business. The best place to learn enterprise is not in an MBA class. It is in enterprise! On the job! Best of all ,as an employee you get paid to learn. Which brings me to my second, may be third point.

Employees get paid to do the business of the employer. Now that is not a very hard statement to interpret. It means the employer is making use of the employee’s entrepreneurial skills to get his (employer) work done. Before we go on let me state as a matter of fact that, THERE IS NO ROBBERY IN THAT. You (the employee) are paid an agreed wage in exchange for your contribution to the enterprise. There is no shame in that. But that, in my books, also makes you an entrepreneur. It is just that you may never really have stopped to think like one. You may have gone about your job so routinely and passionately that you have never stopped to consider that your job is in fact an enterprise. If you do it well, you earn a business income. Do it poorly and you get fired. Isn’t that what entrepreneurs and employers do. Employers do not accommodate poor or ghost workers in their enterprise. They only hire productive entrepreneurs. Allow me to be cheeky here and mention that some employees work so poorly that they would never hire themselves to do any work for them. Now that you are beginning to think like an entrepreneur let’s consider my fourth or next point; thinking like an entrepreneur.

So what does it mean to think like an entrepreneur and what are its benefits? This will require a little imagination. Something all employees have otherwise they would not be employed. Supposing we considered your job as an enterprise that is part of the employer’s larger enterprise. And that you have employed yourself to do that job. To do that job well you have to think like an entrepreneur. In other words, you employ yourself to do the job. As an employer you will only pay wages for a job is well done. As an entrepreneur you will demand that the job earns you an income and makes you a profit which you take home to invest on your own small enterprise. With time you could be able to leave the job and grow your own enterprise using some of the core knowledge and skills you learned from your employer. I have lost count of my numbered points, but I think you get the message.

By dispelling the viral myth that employees are one type of people breed and employers are another, we have come to the understanding that the only difference between an employee and employer is that one is expected to think like an entrepreneur, while the other, more often than not, does not care to learn from the best, nor think that way at all. By the way I have invented nothing new in this essay. You, the employee, provided me all the material I needed to put it all together. I think that is enterprise. Next, I think lest talk about income... And if you like these series let me know what else you would like me to talk about.

 

Allan Bukusi is the author of ; How to Prosper in Employment and writer of the series of articles under the theme; 2026: Year of the African Employee challenging employees to prioritize creating personal wealth early in their careers.