Awolowo’s creative innovation

Entrepreneurship is the wealth of a nation. It unleashes the sparks of genius embedded in the talent pool. The pull and connectivity of entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and adaptability always deliver sustainable, globally competitive and thriving national economy that is tremendously strong, healthy and resilient.

Our nation, Nigeria, should encourage an entrepreneurial culture that fosters the confluence of skills and differentiating values. These pillars of entrepreneurship which include creativity, always engage idea generation or critical thinking to solve problems.

Decision making would be driven by knowledge, strategies and adaptive choices. We would take initiatives, identify problems and solve them as well as also adapt economic deliverables to provide beneficial solutions. Value-added activities for growth and development would also be generated when we create, co-create and co-design products, services and solutions with potential users and users.

Entrepreneurship is surely the pathway to Nigeria’s development and greatness. We need leaders like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who has been aptly described as the best President Nigeria never had. He was an outstanding entrepreneur and his leadership style was exemplified by creativity and innovation. He was exceptional in creating values and massive employment.

He displayed a rich reservoir of creative thinking, innovation, vision and value-delivering strategies. He was never trapped in a conundrum, because his decisions were well and critically thought-through as well as germane to problems and situations.

We have lots of lessons to learn from the life and times of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. I challenge today’s leaders at different levels, to become models of creative innovation and exemplary entrepreneurial leadership. I sincerely hope the present and future leaders would drink from Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s fountain of exemplary decisions and actions.

Little drops indeed, make a mighty ocean. Entrepreneurial efforts and achievements can solve society’s big problems and challenges that big organizations are incapable of solving. Large and well-established organizations oftentimes slow down experimentation and innovation because of their mindsets and inertia.

The smart entrepreneur hones his energy around goals and turns them into viable models for solving problems and challenges. He designs new ways of innovation, new elements, new products and services and new ways of solving new and existing problems.

He achieves goals because they (goals) bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. It gives your life direction, purpose and sense of accomplishment.

Goals help you focus your energy and resources on what truly matters. They are not just dreams and wishes, they are clear objectives you can work towards.

A goal is specific, measurable and time bound. Clarity of goals turns abstract desires into achievable targets. One could even breakdown large goals into smaller manageable steps and stay consistent.

There might be challenges and setbacks along the way, but persistence is what would ultimately lead us to success. We must embrace occasional failures as part of the process. No journey is without its bumps. Failure is not the opposite of success but a part of it. Each setback is a learning opportunity that brings us closer to our goals.

We just need to quickly reflect on the setback, what went wrong and how can we adjust the initial approach.

Whether the goal is big or small, each one has the potential to change and add appreciable beneficial values in profound ways.

Entrepreneurship thrives on the two (2) pillars of engaged individuals and mentorship. It also bridges two (2) identities: creativity and innovation. It combines the different dimensions of adaptive choices.

It takes an idea and develops it consistently into great improvements. The idea is then refined, improved and shaped into an engine of work.

Creativity is finding solutions to almost anything in life and the entrepreneur just cannot suppress it. A creative person literarily cannot suppress the flow of ideas. Those who are close to you may tell you it will not work. Do not listen to them. Rejection and dismissal are inevitable parts of becoming a successful entrepreneur. You must confront self-doubt, live your truth and create your own “beauty from ashes”. Generate the work and strive very hard to sustain it. Like I mentioned earlier, the successful entrepreneur is an individual that creatively refines, improves and shapes an idea into an engine of work.

But we must change our mindsets. What makes an entrepreneur “entrepreneurial”? He adapts and masters new mindsets to challenge assumptions, overcome obstacles, mitigate risks and at the end of the day, achieve desirable and highly beneficial change.

He imbibes new attitudes, habits, thoughts and mental inclination. When ideas come the entrepreneur’s way, he calls them OPPORTUNITIES.

He builds on core competencies, invests in them, nurtures them and makes them more robust. When he sees new opportunities outside his area of competencies, his reaction is: “Yes, I can”.

He considers problems first, not products or services. He focuses on the problem, no matter how narrow.

An entrepreneur must focus not only on creativity but in addition, business. He must communicate his value and not allow belief systems to hold him back. He must not stop reinventing himself. He must be creative always and his eyes must be focused on tomorrow.

Entrepreneurship ensures dynamic and rapid performance. The fruits are, valued diversification and enhanced utilization of natural resources and the talent pool. Value chains would complement each other and there would be accelerated value-adding specialization based on comparative advantage. Our nation would no longer be a demand centre that is literally importing everything, but a powerhouse of agro-related finished products. There would be skill upgrades and human capacity development. We would satisfy local needs and also earn foreign exchange.

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