A few lessons from the concept of Design Driven Entrepreneurship

June 16th, 2017, I was privileged to be 1 of 1000 Africans and 24 Cameroonians who began a journey that will among other things change our perspectives on leadership and development in our communities and our role in the development of our Country, the African Continent, and the world.

Source: Lars Blackmore

Selected for the Business and Entrepreneurship track, I was placed at the prestigious IVY League Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire to study “Design Driven Entrepreneurship” alongside 24 other brilliant young leaders from 18 other African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Zambia, Namibia, Burundi, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mali, Liberia, Senegal, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Sudan and Ghana. I spent 6 weeks with these impressive young leaders in Hanover New Hampshire where we were immersed into course work on Design Thinking, Design Driven Entrepreneurship, Developing, Leadership Development, Practical Business Skills, Team Building among others.

I met amazing people who opened my eyes to a lot more about practical Leadership and Team Management in less than 6 weeks than I have learned in over 2 years now running my company. a few things I can cite include:-

“When you’re leading people, telling them to be more creative is just as helpful as throwing water on the ground. You need to stop telling your team to be creative or to work as a team… instead, you need to actually create an environment which will force them to do so.”

Source: Lars Blackmore

“The most important person in a group or team is not necessarily the founder or the leader, but the first person to follow the leader. He is the trendsetter and he’s the one who assures everyone else that it’s okay to join.”

Our MWF experience groomed us all to become better entrepreneurs who understand the importance of identifying the needs of the people around us and creating solutions to these needs. We emerged leaders ever more determined to create positive change.

It is hard to capture what I learned personally during my MWF experience in a few words as it feels like our mouths were opened and oceans of specifically targeted knowledge were poured into us, each clearly opening our eyes to aspects of our organisations and our communities where we will work to improve as soon as we return.

A few of the Biggest Lessons to note include the following.

1. Design Driven Entrepreneurship: We must, as entrepreneurs apply Design thinking to the process of finding solutions, we must Identify abundance in Slack resources.

2. Stepping in others’ Shoes: We MUST step away from our side of the communication to get a picture of what our Stakeholders (Customers, beneficiaries, donors, etc) seeing and understanding

3. Social Good: Small Organisations (like yours) can create Impact and bring change. It takes a Community to Create Impact… We sure as hell cannot Change the world on our own, but we damn well can try.

Source: Pexels

I hope these lessons help you in your various journeys Leaders.
Remember that LEADERSHIP is not a POSITION. A Leader is anyone who takes action to lead change in whatever position they find themselves.