Entrepreneur and entrepreneurship are quickly becoming the most overused words in business. People labeling themselves an entrepreneur are so common these days that performing a quick LinkedIn search will give you more than two million results.

But what does it really mean to be an entrepreneur? Classically, entrepreneurship is defined as setting up a business (or businesses) and taking on financial risks in the hope of making a profit.

Here are five key techniques to support and encourage entrepreneurship in your employees -- while simultaneously keeping everyone moving in the right direction.

Communicate your goals, values, and mission to your team

To help your teams work well together and understand how their contributions are moving the organization forward, it is paramount to articulate your company’s big-picture goals, values, and mission. Share them with your team members and enable these individuals to look for ways to better tailor their contributions to the company’s needs. For this to succeed, this needs to be an initiative driven from the top down, and your leadership team and senior managers need to embody these values and ideas.

Intrapreneurship: finishing school for entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are always interested in new ways to build products, and they want to drive change. So do intrapreneurs. These individuals are internal problem solvers. They follow their curiosity down paths that will facilitate the creation of innovative solutions for your organization. They are the people who will ask the questions to unlock new opportunities and directions for your product development (and your business). Intrapreneurs hold themselves and others accountable to the highest standard and have a “no excuses” mentality.

Provide continual training and education opportunities

Employees today expect to have access to opportunities for growth, and one of the ways to demonstrate your company’s commitment to this is to provide opportunities (or funding) for additional training or continuing education. In order for your organization to scale and grow, you need to invest in your employees’ career development and growth.

Empower your employees to get things done

Giving your employees autonomy and the freedom to follow and dig deeper into the avenues that interest them most will encourage innovation throughout your company. The insights they get from pursuing their own passions will help your business grow. To get there, you need to empower your employees to make decisions, take initiative, and own the results they get -- good or bad.

Accept that failure is part of the process

Failure is a part of life, but learning from your failures, and the failures of others, is the only way to be successful. As a result, it is important that individuals are not afraid of failing and understand that success is not final. In a culture of entrepreneurship, you need to encourage employees to be fearless and accept that failure is part of the process. To do this, you need to create a culture of continuous feedback, coach team members to move past failure, and share what you’ve learned with the rest of the team.

Source: https://www.informationweek.com/