With Entrepreneurship, it is More Coaching than Teaching

All the classic hero journey stories involve a key character: the mentor or guide. This character is responsible for distilling wisdom and initiating reflection in the hero–they are not responsible for telling the hero exactly what to do in every step of the journey.

Such is the case with the entrepreneurship teacher. Once the foundation of the entrepreneurial mindset has been established (which involves clear teaching and learnings around growth mindset, grit, redefining failure, and opportunity seeking), it is time for the teacher to more actively become a coach in the entrepreneurship process.

To do this effectively, the entrepreneurship coach first needs to get incredibly curious and practice the art of asking good questions. An effective coach does not provide answers but rather helps the individual discover the answers for himself or herself. After all, in the words of David Cooperrider, “we live in the world our questions create.” This means if we want a better world, we need to ask better questions.

Teaching this curious approach of coaching to our students helps them begin to ask better questions of themselves, which ultimately leads to reflection. An effective coach understands that wisdom comes from evaluated experience, and that ongoing reflection leads to evaluation which leads to wisdom. In other words, when we help our students reflect, we are helping them develop a habit of growing in wisdom.

Sometimes the best reflection comes from failure. Entrepreneurship education, because of its “fast fail” nature, provides a fertile ground for continuous reflection because we are constantly in a state of trying and testing. To ensure that reflection is a key part of the process, the entrepreneurship coach needs to become well-versed in questions such as “What have we learned as a result of this?” and “What was the most useful takeaway from this?” 

Guiding students in the process of reflection will ensure that even these “failures” are massive learning opportunities. In doing this, we will be living out a spirit of continuous improvement.

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