Dr Ju­dith M S Mark

En­tre­pre­neur­ship, the act of tak­ing risks in pur­suit of an op­por­tu­ni­ty, dri­ves eco­nom­ic growth, fos­ters in­no­va­tion and in­creas­es a coun­try’s com­pet­i­tive­ness. Over the years suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments of T&T have pro­posed ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture and ur­ban-de­vel­op­ment projects with the po­ten­tial for en­tre­pre­neur­ial op­por­tu­ni­ties.

This in­cludes the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment project of the 1990’s or the more cur­rent East Port of Spain Re­de­vel­op­ment or the re­cent­ly an­nounced Car­rera Is­land Re­sort De­vel­op­ment, these projects of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty for en­tre­pre­neur­ial ac­tiv­i­ties of vary­ing sizes and scope and so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact

Suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neur­ship, how­ev­er, oc­curs where en­tre­pre­neurs and na­tion­al lead­ers pos­sess crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, adapt­abil­i­ty, and prob­lem-solv­ing skills. Be­yond cap­i­tal or net­works, cog­ni­tive skills en­able the en­tre­pre­neur­ial and in­no­v­a­tive mind to nav­i­gate un­cer­tain­ty, piv­ot strate­gies, and turn ideas in­to tan­gi­ble im­pact. Giv­en T&T’s vi­sion for a more di­ver­si­fied and sus­tain­able growth, build­ing cog­ni­tive skills through ed­u­ca­tion and pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives can lead to a ro­bust en­tre­pre­neur­ial econ­o­my. Cul­ti­vat­ing a “think­ing econ­o­my” po­si­tions T&T to com­pete glob­al­ly, un­lock­ing in­no­va­tion across tech­nol­o­gy, cre­ative in­dus­tries, and build­ing sus­tain­able en­ter­pris­es. Suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neur­ship be­gins in the mind.

Think­ing as cap­i­tal - The cog­ni­tive ad­van­tage

In­no­va­tion is in­creas­ing­ly be­ing ad­vo­cat­ed as a strat­e­gy for suc­cess, how­ev­er many strug­gle to move be­yond ideas to achieve ex­e­cu­tion that cre­ates in­di­vid­ual, com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al wealth. The en­tre­pre­neurs who thrive are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those with ac­cess to a greater share of hu­man, so­cial or fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal. The com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage of suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs lies in how they think. “T&T’s fu­ture will be shaped by en­tre­pre­neurs who think crit­i­cal­ly, adapt quick­ly, and learn con­tin­u­ous­ly.”

Cog­ni­tive skills which in­clude crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and adapt­abil­i­ty have emerged as key to ac­cel­er­ate in­no­va­tion-dri­ven growth. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the nur­tur­ing of these men­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties is as vi­tal as ac­cess to fi­nance or tech­nol­o­gy. The sto­ries of T&T’s suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs Dr An­tho­ny N. Sab­ga, founder of the ANSA McAL Group, Dr Langston Roach, founder and cur­rent Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man of Langston Roach In­dus­tries Lim­it­ed and Mr Ka­ma Ma­haraj, founder of Sacha Cos­met­ics, re­it­er­ate the sig­nif­i­cance of cog­ni­tive skills in suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing an en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney.

Un­der­stand­ing the cog­ni­tive edge

En­tre­pre­neur­ship can be de­scribed as both art and sci­ence in­ter­twined to en­able the en­tre­pre­neur to see be­yond the ob­vi­ous, to pur­sue un­char­tered ter­ri­to­ry and to mo­ti­vate oth­ers to fol­low even when there is un­cer­tain­ty. Cog­ni­tive skills form the foun­da­tion of en­tre­pre­neur­ial in­tel­li­gence and in­flu­ence every stage of the en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, prop­er plan­ning, doc­u­ment­ed process­es or rou­tines pro­vid­ed a com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage in busi­ness. To­day how­ev­er, giv­en the in­creas­ing lev­el of volatil­i­ty, the suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs are those who en­gage in deep think­ing, con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, and ag­ile adap­ta­tion.

The T&T con­text: In­no­va­tion, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and cog­ni­tive skills

En­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion are at the fore­front of new growth for the Trinidad & To­ba­go econ­o­my. Whether it is the cre­ation of mo­bile ap­pli­ca­tions, so­cial en­ter­pris­es or cap­i­tal­is­ing on op­por­tu­ni­ties in the or­ange econ­o­my in­ter alia, suc­cess will be strong­ly linked to re­sources be­yond tan­gi­ble cap­i­tal.

In both en­ter­prise and acad­e­mia, it is known that the tool­box utilised for suc­cess when the mar­ket is sta­ble can­not be the same one used when the con­di­tions are con­stant­ly chang­ing or un­cer­tain. This is be­cause in pe­ri­ods of un­ex­pect­ed change or un­cer­tain­ty, cog­ni­tive skills will in­form why, how and when to act as the en­tre­pre­neur or lead­er­ship team seeks to nav­i­gate un­char­tered wa­ters.

This was ev­i­dent dur­ing the pan­dem­ic where en­tre­pre­neurs were re­quired to adapt in re­sponse to the dis­rup­tions of the pan­dem­ic. In T&T, as it was glob­al­ly, the com­pa­nies that suc­ceed­ed were those that demon­strat­ed cog­ni­tive agili­ty.

How is T&T do­ing in dri­ving cog­ni­tive skills?

Re­search un­der­tak­en by this au­thor dur­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic ex­am­ined the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the abil­i­ty of top man­age­ment of lo­cal­ly-owned com­pa­nies in T&T to re­spond to mar­ket tur­bu­lence or its dy­nam­ic man­age­r­i­al ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and the ten­den­cy of the com­pa­ny to take risks, be in­no­v­a­tive and proac­tive; re­ferred to its en­tre­pre­neur­ial ori­en­ta­tion.

The study re­vealed that while two of the three di­men­sions of dy­nam­ic man­age­r­i­al ca­pa­bil­i­ty, name­ly hu­man cap­i­tal and so­cial cap­i­tal pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed the lev­el of en­tre­pre­neur­ial ori­en­ta­tion, a pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ship be­tween man­age­r­i­al cog­ni­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ial ori­en­ta­tion was not ob­served. This is con­trary to the find­ings in pri­or stud­ies un­der­tak­en glob­al­ly, where there is a pos­i­tive re­la­tion­ship be­tween the cog­ni­tive skills of top man­agers and the en­tre­pre­neur­ial ori­en­ta­tion of com­pa­nies, its en­tre­pre­neur­ial suc­cess.

The ques­tion then aris­es as to the state and lev­el of cog­ni­tive skills re­quired to dri­ve en­tre­pre­neur­ship and in­no­va­tion in T&T. Fur­ther re­search on the lev­el of cog­ni­tive skills and its rel­e­vance to dri­ving en­tre­pre­neur­ial in­no­va­tion and firm suc­cess in T&T is pro­posed.

Build­ing cog­ni­tive ca­pac­i­ty

As T&T seeks to be­come a re­silient, in­no­va­tion-dri­ven econ­o­my, the de­vel­op­ment of cog­ni­tive skills must be­come a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty. This re­quires a mul­ti-faceted ap­proach in which cu­rios­i­ty, in­quiry, and cre­ativ­i­ty are in­cul­cat­ed from ear­ly and de­sign think­ing, sys­tems think­ing and en­tre­pre­neur­ial rea­son­ing are em­bed­ded in­to ter­tiary lev­el pro­grammes.

In­no­v­a­tive learn­ing and teach­ing ap­proach­es should pro­vide stu­dents, founders and bud­ding en­tre­pre­neurs with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tice prob­lem-solv­ing, re­flec­tion, and ex­per­i­men­ta­tion.

T&T can al­so en­hance its cog­ni­tive ca­pac­i­ty when suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs see suc­cess be­yond the fi­nan­cial bot­tom line to in­clude so­cial im­pact. When ex­pe­ri­enced en­tre­pre­neurs share how they think, they help oth­ers de­vel­op men­tal mod­els for de­ci­sion-mak­ing. The books writ­ten and pre­sen­ta­tions of suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs are use­ful in demon­strat­ing how cog­ni­tive skills con­tributed to their suc­cess­es.

Ear­li­er this month I had the plea­sure of re­ceiv­ing a signed copy of the book ‘My Busi­ness Ad­vice : Lessons from a Life­long En­tre­pre­neur’ by Langston Roach. Dr Roach, re­cip­i­ent of an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad To­ba­go and re­cip­i­ent at Trinidad & To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Ex­porter of the Year, 2025, con­tin­ues to re­ceive with nu­mer­ous ac­co­lades for his con­tri­bu­tion to en­tre­pre­neur­ship. His sto­ry, like that of oth­er suc­cess­ful en­tre­pre­neurs like Sab­ga and Ma­haraj, is one of re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion, fu­elled by cog­ni­tive skills.

Con­clu­sion: From think­ing to thriv­ing

Every en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney be­gins as a spark re­fined through re­flec­tion and ac­tion. But mov­ing from idea to im­pact re­quires more than am­bi­tion; it re­quires the har­ness­ing of cog­ni­tive think­ing.

As T&T con­tin­ues its jour­ney to­ward di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and sus­tain­able growth, in­vest­ing in the na­tion’s think­ing ca­pac­i­ty will de­ter­mine its com­pet­i­tive edge. Equip­ping en­tre­pre­neurs with the tools to think crit­i­cal­ly, adapt swift­ly, and in­no­vate bold­ly, can tran­si­tion T&T from an econ­o­my of po­ten­tial to one of mean­ing­ful so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact.

“The fu­ture of en­tre­pre­neur­ship in T&Twill de­pend on the strength of its think­ing.”

Dr Ju­dith M S Mark is a busi­ness strat­e­gy con­sul­tant, ed­u­ca­tor, aca­d­e­m­ic coach and ad­vo­cate for in­no­va­tion-dri­ven lead­er­ship