Nature versus nurture

Are great entrepreneurs born or can they be made in the classroom? That was the subject for discussion at the Royal Institution debate in London in February – hosted by journalist Vivienne Parry – that was held in partnership with Hiscox.
On the side of nature was strategic adviser and business speaker Max McKeown. “Taking the big leaps and having the big idea is the thing you can’t be taught at business school,” he said. “The entrepreneur sees an opportunity and then grabs it. You can’t codify innate personality traits.”
Opposing him was Dean Jones, founder of the Lean Enterprise Academy, who said he had seen companies transformed by good business teaching. “You can create the conditions whereby potential entrepreneurs learn for themselves,” he said. “You can teach the process of problem solving.”
Steve Ridgeway, CEO of Virgin Atlantic, sat somewhere in the middle. The innate traits of an entrepreneur are important, he said, but need people alongside them who are trained to deal with legal or technological challenges, for example. “The entrepreneur will have an expensive big idea, the financial director will be on the other side of the page and they’ll meet somewhere in the middle,” he said.  
“At Hiscox, we spend a great deal of our time insuring the risks that many entrepreneurs face every day,” said Alan Thomas, who helped organise the event. “We thought it would be interesting to try and unlock the secret of entrepreneurship, especially as we insure more than 100,000 SMEs, professionals and consultants in the UK.”