Management experts have pondered the question incessantly: is a passion for entrepreneurship a natural talent or something that can be taught? A study has been conducted, to be sure. The scholars were able to perform a randomised controlled trial by analyzing a large number of small enterprises rather than a few large ones. These are one of the most persuasive sorts of evidence, usually related with medical studies. Participants (in this case, businesses) are randomly assigned to either “treatment” (in this case, two types of training) or the “control” arm, which receives no treatment. You can identify which method—if any—is superior with high confidence if you recruit enough participants for good and bad luck to level out throughout the sample.
The businesses were divided into three groups, each with 500 participants. One group was used as a control group, while the other received traditional business training in areas like accounting and financial management, marketing, and human resources. They were also provided advice on how to formalize their company.
The last group was given a training based on psychological research that was supposed to teach personal initiative—things like goal-setting, coping with feedback, and persevering in the face of setbacks—all of which are regarded to be valuable attributes in a business owner. For the next two and a half years, the researchers observed the progress of their participants over a two-year period.
A previous, smaller trial in Africa had suggested that the psychological training would be effective. It worked: monthly sales increased by 17% over the control group, while profits increased by 30%. It also increased innovation: those who received it came up with more new goods than those who did not. That implies that entrepreneurship, or at least some of the mental habits required for it, may be learned. More striking was how ineffective traditional training was: it had no effect at all, according to the researchers.
In conclusion, aim for the psychology section of the business shelves, if you’re a potential entrepreneur.