MEI610 Study Guide
Unit 2: Personal Skills for Entrepreneurs
2a. Use stress management and time management skills to run an effective entrepreneurial venture
- What are two reasons time management can fail?
- How can you apply the Eisenhower Matrix for better time management?
- What are the impacts of high stress?
When considering time management, everyone has fixed time and free time. Fixed time is the time committed to a certain area of one's life, while free time is the time you have to enjoy activities you like. Identifying, organizing, and prioritizing goals is one way to manage both one's free time and fixed time.
Procrastination and incorrect estimation of task time can be issues with time management. Beliefs and thought patterns, such as "I'm just naturally disorganized", can impact our time management skills.
The steps to effective time management can include:
- increasing personal responsibility;
- rewarding yourself for completing a task;
- making certain your goals are what you want to achieve;
- visualizing the results;
- breaking the goal down into manageable tasks;
- tapping into other people's energy; or
- reminding yourself why you set the goal.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool that can help prioritize, which consists of urgent or not urgent, not important, and important, then each task is put into the appropriate place on the matrix.
Poor time management can lead to stress. Stress can include personal and organizational influences, which can create a degree of experienced stress. There are many buffers to stress to consider, such as social support and hardiness. Typical stressors can include unrealistic expectations, role overload, and conflict. High stress can cause poor health and poor performance. Ideally, a bit of stress can increase performance.
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2b. Discuss personal variables such as personality, work attitudes, and perceptions, and how they apply to entrepreneurial success
- What are the six steps to selling?
- How do objectives differ from goals?
- What are the types of values?
Selling is a crucial skill for entrepreneurs. The six steps to selling include prospecting, making the sales call, presenting the proposal, handling objections, closing the sale, fulfilling orders, and fostering relationships.
Entrepreneurs must also focus on goal setting and continuous learning to achieve success. It is important to use the SMART goal framework for goal setting and to create objectives, which are the shorter-term goals one must achieve to achieve bigger goals. Goal setting and working toward goals are processes people experience during change, and the steps include denial, resistance, exploration, and commitment. In terms of continuous learning, attending seminars, reading, finding a coach or mentor, and traveling can assist in this process.
To effectively set goals, we must understand our terminal and instrumental values. Terminal values refer to people's desired end states, such as leading a prosperous life and a peaceful world. Instrumental values deal with views on acceptable modes of conduct, such as being honest, ethical, and ambitious. These values are part of personality, as are the Big Five Personality Traits, which include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
In addition to personality traits, perception influences entrepreneurial success. Social perception relates to stereotypes and selective perception. Attribution is the causal explanation we give for an observed behavior. The three types of attribution are consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
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2c. Use emotional intelligence skills in an entrepreneurial venture
- Why is emotional intelligence important to an entrepreneur?
- How does social awareness impact emotional intelligence?
- In what ways might an entrepreneur effectively engage in relationship management in terms of emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (EQ) refers to a form of social intelligence that involves monitoring one's and others' feelings and emotions, discriminating among them, and using this information to guide one's thinking and actions. This differs from intelligence quotient (IQ) in that IQ measures intelligence based on a score derived from intelligence tests. The other main difference is that IQ is stable over a lifetime, while EQ can grow and develop over time. EQ is necessary for the entrepreneur to effectively manage a business, such as working with suppliers and employees. EQ can also help entrepreneurs reduce stress.
Emotional intelligence has four main aspects. The first is self-awareness, which is the ability to understand one's feelings from moment to moment. Self-management is the ability to manage our emotions, which is dependent on self-awareness. Social awareness means understanding social cues that may influence others around us. Relationship management is our ability to communicate well and work with others.
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Unit 2 Vocabulary
This vocabulary list includes terms you will need to know to successfully complete the final exam.
- attribution
- Eisenhower Matrix
- emotional intelligence (EQ)
- fixed time
- free time
- Instrumental values
- objectives
- terminal values