Role of Reflection in Entrepreneurial Journey - Essay Example

Student’s Name Instructor’s Name Course Name Date of Submission Role of Reflection in Entrepreneurial Journey Abstract Entrepreneurship is conceptualized as the process involved in discovering opportunities, sourcing and manipulation of resources and lastly intelligence planning and execution. In these case, the term “process” assumes all inputs involved suck as land, infrastructure, materials and manpower which are readily available at the entrepreneur’s disposal. The role of the entrepreneur is only to identify all parts involved, know how to exactly match them in order to fit all the resources together. The underlined practically indicates that a “process” is something that can be quite predictable but in the real sense, the nature of entrepreneurial undertaken activities cannot be actually predicted (Kheng and June 2015). The purpose of this essay is critically analyse the role played by both reflection and reflective practices in determining the success and endurance in the entrepreneurial journey. Analysis of ‘experiential learning cycle by David Kolb (1984) and ‘reflective cycle’ by Gibbs (1988) will also be done in the verge to identify how they benefit entrepreneurs. Introduction Reflective practice can be termed as more than just self-awareness process in which one pauses and thinks back after already something has taken place. The moment individuals starts reflecting upon situations, they naturally start rising questions on ‘why it happened in that particular manner?’, ‘how it happened?’, ‘could it happen in a different way?’ and so on (Thorpe 2004). Reflective practice in entrepreneurship shifts from mare thinking about sequences of faced chronological events to a purposeful thinking in the process of identifying the noblest way of improving specific entrepreneur situation. Moreover, reflective practice is the ability and capacity to think over a situation in order to improve work performance. It is an active, action-based, ethical and dynamic set of skills that are located and applied in real time and deals with real, difficult and complex situations (Kheng and June 2015). Reflective Practice Models Experiential learning cycle There exists several models for reflective practice used to enhance entrepreneurial learning and development. David Kolb has offered four phases applicable in learning process. In phase one, the learner is equipped with specific learning experience, David argues that “life is full of experiences that we can learn from. Whether at home or at work or out and about, there are countless opportunities for us to kick-start the learning process”. Therefore an entrepreneur ought to have adequate experience and or experience of what he/she wants to pursue in order to effectively begin entrepreneurship journey. Accordingly, the study indicates that entrepreneurship nature presents individuals with abilities and skills that are complex to learn. Moreover, borrowing from Pittaway et al (2011), literature review on entrepreneurship indicates that entrepreneurial education is experience-based, different abilities, skills and knowledge ought to be shaped during the entrepreneur’s learning process. The study as well shows that engagement of afore mentioned with theoretical knowledge will enrich an individual’s personal capability and increase entrepreneur awareness (Irwin et al 2004). The second phase states that a learner (entrepreneur) observes and reflects on the learnt things, reflection is a process of thinking of the things that we have done before and the experience that we have gained from the activities done. Some entrepreneurs are good at this while others might need to train themselves further in order to be more deliberate in reviewing their past as well as recording it, entrepreneurs ought to know their exact position and capabilities when it comes to matters of experience recall or remembrance. This will enable the individual to refrain or eliminate actions that might lead to stumbling or failure in entrepreneurial journey, entrepreneurs must know what action leads to success and the ones that leads to failure or losses. The author further states that entrepreneurship is a unique capability that encompasses a combination of aspirations and individual skills with satisfaction by entrepreneur realization of individual’s inner needs, contentment, achievement and personal fulfilment (Shepherd 2004, Pittaway et al 2011). In phase three, the author states that after an entrepreneur has fully and successfully passed through the process of thinking and interpreting the experience, he/she enters conceptualization process. In this particular stage, the entrepreneur ought to generate an applicable hypothesis on the entire meaning of the experience. An entrepreneur may consider to change the entire or part of his/her approach. Furthermore, this stage requires an entrepreneur to develop and test creativity in his/her professional line. Active experimentation is the last phase in Kolb’s model. In this stage, the entrepreneur will effectively test hypothesis that he/she adopted. The new experience will enable the entrepreneur to approve or reject the hypothesis. Learning of experiences is not adequate enough, one has to further test and interpret the experiences. Moreover, the author supports that learning from experience involves that key elements of reflection (Rae 2005). Reflective cycle Gibbs’ reflective cycle model includes six stages of reflection namely; description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. The model can be useful in reflecting on things that happened in a given situation for instance when something goes extraordinarily well or wrong in a manner that one did not anticipate. Description An entrepreneur needs to be very specific when elaborating or explaining his/her experience. He/she ought to understand and remember to keep the experience description relevant and with precise, relevant and accurate information. The entrepreneur needs to be have proper evaluation of the encountered experience in order to be clear in description process. Feelings Entrepreneurs ought to be clear in discussing the exact thoughts and feeling of the experience. One should consider questions such as how did I feel at the time? How did I think at the time? How did I think of the incident afterwards? The entrepreneur should discuss his/her emotions honestly. Feelings discussions enable one to seek genuine opinion and identify where things went wrong and where needs to be rectified (Politis 2005). Evaluation In the evaluation stage, an entrepreneur ought to understand and discus on how he/she thinks things went. One should asked and evaluate on how the reaction to the situation was and as well ask oneself on how other people reacted to the situation. This will in return help an entrepreneur to gather information on the overall experience, the information gathered can be utilized in development counter measure to avert similar situations in future or implement them if the experience was of benefit. Analysis Analysis stage consists of event post-mortem. An entrepreneur needs to go through the experience severally in order to identify what might have hindered or helped the event. Analysis enables one to compare the entered experience with similar one experienced somewhere else. The entrepreneur ought to know how to relate and enjoin all related aspects together in order to perform effective and reliable analysis (Luoto 2010). Conclusion In the conclusion stage, the entrepreneur needs to acknowledge if that was the best that could have been done or if there is anything else that could have been done as well. Secondly, the entrepreneur should also highlight what he/she has learned from the experience and ask if he/she would have responded differently. One should as well ask him/herself if he/she will take the same measures next time to achieve similar results (Jack and Anderson 1999). Action Plan Action plan is a sum of everything an entrepreneur needs to know and do to better next time’s outcome. One may perhaps feel like attending some training in order to get more equipped to deal with similar or different situations in future. Personal Reflection Description I was placed on a teaching practice in a local high school. Being my first placement in the early stages, my main responsibility is to assist class tutors in teaching some classes in which I had already planned and delivered some small parts of each lesson. The incident occurred one morning when the mail teacher called in sick and I was requested to fill in for him but in a different class that I had never taught before. Being a different class I was extremely nervous that I could not utter any word. The student started humiliating me chanting that I knew nothing on the course. Luckily another lecturer come to my rescue but instructed me to sit at the back of the class without uttering a word but just watch. Feelings I felt disappointed and extremely miserable at that time and even considered quitting my teaching career. I was upset and felt embarrassed by my inability to teach the class but I was very angry with the lecturer response to the issue especially in front of the entire class. I later felt that the lecturer did not give me adequate time to compose myself and address my nervousness. I later realized that it’s a natural reaction to feel nervous when speaking in public (Jack and Anderson 1999). This brought about the feeling of less embracement. Evaluation At first I felt that the situation had not been resolved at all and I had the right to be extremely mad at the lecture. Later one after speaking to my mentor and heard his experience, I felt energetic and much more positive. I instantly realized that it’s natural to feel nervous and most of the people do feel the same before their first few classes. This is elaborated by (Luoto 2010) states that for every nine out of ten trainee teachers feel “incredible daunting”. Analysis My own actions and that one of the lecturer made the situation worse. At some point I felt like I should not have let him take control of my lesson and that maybe I ought to have spoken to him at the end of the lesson and explain to him on how I felt concerning the whole issue. I prefer the fact that I did not follow my instincts at that moment since after speaking to my mentor, I realized that most likely I could have handled the issue unprofessionally. Conclusion In retrospect, I would definitely do things differently. I should have mentally prepared myself and ensure that I have adequate experience or exposure in teaching different classes. Secondly, the incident made me realize that importance of developing good relationship with both the teacher and the class students. Action Plan In future I am really working hard towards developing and nurturing good relationship with my colleagues and I am planning on talking to several colleagues and my mentor on my nervousness. I also have developed a group teaching practice with two teachers that we will be teaching together for coming few weeks to help me culm mu nerves. References Luoto, S., 2010. The reflective structuration of entrepreneurship. As contextualized to the Finnish University and Polytechnics students’ narratives. Acta Wasaensia, 233. Jack, S.L. and Anderson, A.R., 1999. Entrepreneurship education within the enterprise culture: producing reflective practitioners. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 5(3), pp.110-125. Rae, D., 2005. Entrepreneurial learning: a narrative-based conceptual model. Journal of small business and enterprise development, 12(3), pp.323-335. Shepherd, D.A., 2004. Educating entrepreneurship students about emotion and learning from failure. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(3), pp.274-287. Pittaway, L., Rodriguez-Falcon, E., Aiyegbayo, O. and King, A., 2011. The role of entrepreneurship clubs and societies in entrepreneurial learning. International Small Business Journal, 29(1), pp.37-57. Politis, D., 2005. The process of entrepreneurial learning: A conceptual framework. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 29(4), pp.399-424. Kheng, Y.K. and June, S., 2015. The development of reflective undergraduate students: assessing the educational benefits of reflective learning logs in entrepreneurship module. International Education Studies, 8(9), p.25. Thorpe, K., 2004. Reflective learning journals: From concept to practice. Reflective practice, 5(3), pp.327-343. Irwin, G., Hanton, S. and Kerwin, D., 2004. Reflective practice and the origins of elite coaching knowledge. Reflective practice, 5(3), pp.425-442. Read More

Some entrepreneurs are good at this while others might need to train themselves further in order to be more deliberate in reviewing their past as well as recording it, entrepreneurs ought to know their exact position and capabilities when it comes to matters of experience recall or remembrance. This will enable the individual to refrain or eliminate actions that might lead to stumbling or failure in entrepreneurial journey, entrepreneurs must know what action leads to success and the ones that leads to failure or losses.

The author further states that entrepreneurship is a unique capability that encompasses a combination of aspirations and individual skills with satisfaction by entrepreneur realization of individual’s inner needs, contentment, achievement and personal fulfilment (Shepherd 2004, Pittaway et al 2011). In phase three, the author states that after an entrepreneur has fully and successfully passed through the process of thinking and interpreting the experience, he/she enters conceptualization process.

In this particular stage, the entrepreneur ought to generate an applicable hypothesis on the entire meaning of the experience. An entrepreneur may consider to change the entire or part of his/her approach. Furthermore, this stage requires an entrepreneur to develop and test creativity in his/her professional line. Active experimentation is the last phase in Kolb’s model. In this stage, the entrepreneur will effectively test hypothesis that he/she adopted. The new experience will enable the entrepreneur to approve or reject the hypothesis.

Learning of experiences is not adequate enough, one has to further test and interpret the experiences. Moreover, the author supports that learning from experience involves that key elements of reflection (Rae 2005). Reflective cycle Gibbs’ reflective cycle model includes six stages of reflection namely; description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. The model can be useful in reflecting on things that happened in a given situation for instance when something goes extraordinarily well or wrong in a manner that one did not anticipate.

Description An entrepreneur needs to be very specific when elaborating or explaining his/her experience. He/she ought to understand and remember to keep the experience description relevant and with precise, relevant and accurate information. The entrepreneur needs to be have proper evaluation of the encountered experience in order to be clear in description process. Feelings Entrepreneurs ought to be clear in discussing the exact thoughts and feeling of the experience. One should consider questions such as how did I feel at the time?

How did I think at the time? How did I think of the incident afterwards? The entrepreneur should discuss his/her emotions honestly. Feelings discussions enable one to seek genuine opinion and identify where things went wrong and where needs to be rectified (Politis 2005). Evaluation In the evaluation stage, an entrepreneur ought to understand and discus on how he/she thinks things went. One should asked and evaluate on how the reaction to the situation was and as well ask oneself on how other people reacted to the situation.

This will in return help an entrepreneur to gather information on the overall experience, the information gathered can be utilized in development counter measure to avert similar situations in future or implement them if the experience was of benefit. Analysis Analysis stage consists of event post-mortem. An entrepreneur needs to go through the experience severally in order to identify what might have hindered or helped the event. Analysis enables one to compare the entered experience with similar one experienced somewhere else.

The entrepreneur ought to know how to relate and enjoin all related aspects together in order to perform effective and reliable analysis (Luoto 2010). Conclusion In the conclusion stage, the entrepreneur needs to acknowledge if that was the best that could have been done or if there is anything else that could have been done as well.

Read More