Business Acumen with the Acumen Fellows in Pakistan

Business acumen is a subject that we typically teach within Fortune 500 companies like HP, Abbott Labs, Heinz, and Ashland, or in academic programs such as the Executive MBAs at Cornell-Queen's, Kennesaw State, and Villanova.

However, we also provide pro bono workshops for Acumen of New York. They have sent Eliza and me to work with start-up entrepreneurs in Kenya and, last week, in Pakistan. Here we are with a remarkably diverse group of start-up entrepreneurs who are on a year-long Fellowship from Acumen in Pakistan. (No prizes for guessing which one is the assertive artist among them.)

This week-long retreat was held in Murree, 7,000 feet up in the hills above Islamabad. Looking down through the trees, sometimes you saw hills and valleys below you; other times, you saw only clouds. Murree was once the summer residence of the Governor and administration of the Punjab, and its main street, The Mall, was built for the shops and offices, churches, and cafes of the summer inhabitants. When we were there, during Ramadan, everything was open, and the streets were alive even at 12:28 at night.

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The Pakistanis are naturally entrepreneurial people, but Pakistan sometimes feels like an old train with the steam up, yet going nowhere. The people are full of hustle and bustle but low on organization and maintenance. A prosperous country, like a good business, needs both sets of characteristics—and Pakistan seems to need not an engine, but an engineer. This is probably why military interventions often lead to economic and social progress (at least for the first few years), while the restoration of full democracy seems to lead to chaos, corruption, and decline. This is not a viable system in the modern world.

But the good news is that Pakistan as a whole possesses the energy and entrepreneurship that are virtually impossible to teach. It is only lacking a sense of order—which can be instilled, as the army demonstrates. And this, in a sense, is exactly what Acumen is doing.

Acumen provides seminars in topics such as Adaptive Leadership, Ethics, and (via our Income|Outcome business simulation) two days of business literacy and business acumen competency, as part of developing successful entrepreneurship skills. We don't need to provide the drive—but we can help clarify the thinking about business dynamics and processes. The Fellows have been universally enthusiastic about gaining a clear, logical, and orderly way of visualizing financial analysis and planning.

If successful, these Fellows will have an enormous impact on their society: starting online export businesses, specialized universities, microfinance institutions—all with a social aspect, all with viable business plans, all driven by entrepreneurial spirit.

We are proud to be associated with Acumen and the people of Pakistan. Good luck to all of you!

Interested in learning how our Income|Outcome business simulations can enhance entrepreneurial skills in your organization? Contact us today to find out more.

Note: This post references our collaboration with Acumen and our experiences conducting Income|Outcome workshops for their Fellows in Pakistan.

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