PI Training
The Personal Initiative (PI) Training is an action-oriented and evidence-based training program that focuses on creating an entrepreneurial mindset and has proven to increase entrepreneurial success. Doorways is a certified provider for PI Training.
About PI Training
Personal Initiative (PI) means being self-starting, future-thinking, and overcoming barriers. It is a psychological construct that has been found to increase performance in various context – especially in entrepreneurship. To strengthen PI, the Frese Group at Leuphana University developed the PI Training. It is based on action regulation theory which holds that actions are affected by goals, a search for relevant information, plans, and obtaining feedback. The training follows an interactive, action-oriented methodology that allows participants to learn by doing and to immediately apply the content to their own business. The training primarily focuses on individuals that already have a small-scale business but can also be implemented for aspiring entrepreneurs and other target groups that benefit from developing a entrepreneurial mindset.
PI Training Concept
The PI Training is an evidence-based and action-oriented training program. The methodology has four core principles:
PI Training focuses on self-starting, future-oriented, and persistent behavior along the entrepreneurial process. As part of the training methodology, the participants are encouraged to immediately apply what they learn in class in between the training sessions. At the beginning of each new session, they share the positive and negative experiences they made, discuss potential solutions to their unsolved problems and give each other feedback.. This method of “learning-by-doing” or exploratory learning leads to a deeper level of understanding and a higher likelihood of actual behavioral change and long-term adoption of the things they learned during the training.
PI Training participants learn entrepreneurship based on action principles. These action principles have been derived from the scientific literature on entrepreneurship, management, and psychology. They are „rules of thumb“ that provide participants practical knowledge of what to and how to do it. Research has shown that this form of learning is more effective than providing participants with theoretical knowledge. PI Training is also evidence-based from a didactical perspective as it is rooted in action regulation theory and the research on training methodology and training transfer.
The PI Training has been evaluated in multiple randomized controlled trials (RCT) with a training group and a control group. A comparison of the pre-training measurement with multiple post-training measurements up to years 7 after the end of the training enables us to assess the impact of the PI Training. The findings support the idea that PI Training enhances participants’ business performance (in terms of sales and profits), their innovativeness and improves business practices.
With every new implementation, the PI Training content is adapted to the local context in cooperation with local partners. Each adaptation also addresses the specific needs of the target group and entails local examples and storylines that are relatable to the participants. The training sessions are conducted by local trainers who receive a training-of-trainers workshop to become certified PI trainers. This approach enables our partners to implement the training sustainably and builds capacity on the ground.
The Difference Between PI Training and Other Business Training
A good example of how PI Training differs from other, “traditional” business trainings is its perspective on sourcing finances for a business project. In the “traditional” business training program, participants learn how to keep financial records, they get to know lending products offered at banks, and they learn what is needed to apply for loans. In PI Training, participants are taught how to identify and make use of unusual sources of money (self-starting) and how to bootstrap so that they do not rely on external funding in the long run (future-thinking). They also learn to develop a plan B or even plan C in order to be prepared if financial problems occur (overcoming barriers).
The effectiveness of this approach also shows in the results: In direct comparison, PI Training significantly outperforms traditional business training.