We’re losing the people we need to prosper

The famed management consultant Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Blockbuster (remember them?) could have owned Netflix for $50 million in 2000, but the company’s management couldn’t envision a future for the once-fledgling internet startup. You already know how that story turned out.

Companies with a greater sense of what they are about, who they serve, and why they exist have gone on to create satisfied customers, amazing products, and generational legacies. They are built by leaders willing to take risks, invest in people and create cultures that can endure.

Canada needs more of those leaders.

Despite Canada’s population growing by 10 million people in the last two decades, we’ve actually lost nearly a fifth of our entrepreneurs in that time. Self-employment is at a 45-year low. GDP per capita is virtually stagnant and pales in comparison to the U.S.

With a struggling economy and uncertainty over how AI will reshape business and work, it is understandable that prospective entrepreneurs might choose a safer path. But our society cannot thrive without people willing to take the risk of building something.

So how do we build the business leaders and businesses Canada needs?

Encouraging more people to become entrepreneurs is only part of the answer. We also need leaders capable of building businesses that last.

To do more than merely survive, a business must serve its customers well, invest in its people and remain faithful to its purpose. That vision is reflected in its mission, its strategy, its values and the way it invests its resources. Together, those things create a culture worth preserving.

Over our years in business and the non-profit world, we have seen firsthand what a winning culture can do. We lived our values, guided by the Golden Rule. We recognized everyone, including those on the front line, for getting the work done day by day. And we did not put up with mediocrity. The results spoke for themselves. People love to work on a winning team!

But culture doesn’t happen because someone hangs a mission statement on the wall. It begins with leadership.

Good leaders inspire people to strive for excellence and give them a sense of purpose larger than themselves. Leadership is ultimately about influence and using that influence for the sake of others, helping people learn and grow while developing the confidence and skills to become leaders themselves.

That is the kind of entrepreneurial leadership we believe Canada needs more of, and it is why we’ve decided to do something about it.

We’re putting our decades of experience in business and the non-profit world to work helping build a new generation of leaders through an Entrepreneurial NextGEN Fellowship hosted by Cardus. This inaugural program, launching this winter, is about strengthening the next generation of entrepreneurs so they can build successful businesses, create a legacy, and contribute to a thriving society.

Rooted in our Christian faith, we believe entrepreneurship can be a redemptive and transformative tool that helps us build toward the common good. Within our new program, faith, entrepreneurship and civic leadership come together, with fellows gaining the frameworks, mentorship and peer community needed to build businesses that can renew society.

For us, that is the larger opportunity in Canada’s entrepreneurial challenge. We need people willing to build institutions, create opportunities for others and shape the culture of their communities. We need leaders of character who understand that influence is a responsibility, that success carries obligations and that business can be a force for the common good.

Imagine a Canada with a rising standard of living and successful businesses whose employees and communities flourish alongside them. Imagine businesses that become pillars of their communities, creating value as God designed them to do, giving back, funding charities and helping the poor. Imagine communities strengthened by entrepreneurs who understand that the value of a successful business extends far beyond its bottom line.

That is the kind of entrepreneurial culture Canada needs to rebuild.

To borrow another Drucker insight, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” If we want a more prosperous, innovative and caring society, we will need more leaders willing to do exactly that.

David Smith and Lois Benham-Smith are senior fellows with Cardus, providing leadership to the Entrepreneurial NextGEN Fellowship. David worked in leadership roles in the Canadian hospitality sector for more than 30 years, while Lois possesses decades of experience in health care and led the Atwell Centre in Hamilton for 13 years.