Why entrepreneurs need multiple competencies
Multiple competencies occur when one person has many abilities or capabilities.
Most entrepreneurs have only one ability or capability. Research considers this a big limitation in the 21st century, as such entrepreneurs stand the risk of being bullied by peers with several competencies.
According to experts, multiple competencies save costs, enable entrepreneurs compete better than peers, attract investments and revenue.
Adedapo Adelegan, president of the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, recently explained the connection between multiple competencies and the 21st century.
According to Adelegan, entrepreneurs with multiple competences were those with core, pedigree and talent competences. Core competence encompassed skills acquired through training or studies, while pedigree competence dealt with skills acquired through parents, according to him. He explained that talent competence was natural endowment or natural ability bestowed on people by God.
“When you have multiple competencies, you have multiple streams of income,” said Adelegan.
“Core competence is for the 21st century, while multiple competence is for the 21stcentury,” he added.
According to him, 21st century was an internet era, where jobs were being replaced by machines and robotics across the world. He urged job seekers to look closely at opportunities that would enable them become employers of labour.
“When a century is 20 years to its end, monumental things happen,” he said.
“A couple of things happened between 1980 and 2000 that gave glimpses of what would happen in the 21st century. The first is the Internet, which came in 1984. The major consequence for a developing economy is loss of jobs. This is a robotic century, a machine century,” he explained.
“Now is for customers, not jobs. Anybody beside or close to you now is a potential customer. So the focus of this century is how to generate customers, not jobs,” he further explained.
He said the 21st century was for ‘unreasonable people’, not for reasonable persons. He defined unreasonable people as those whom the world tried to adapt to, while reasonable ones were those who tried to adapt to the world. He added that the 21st century was for those willing to take risks and not for cowards.