About a week ago or so, Hal was reported in a story written by The Wall Street Journal. It described how the DNA might appear similar in the common 'profile' for entrepreneurs. I believe the piece was written as an excerpt Hal delivered at an innovation conference. Anyway, the gist of the story centered around the common links entrepreneurs have that are identifiable and predictable. Hal described the similar types of characteristics found in entrepreneurs. His focus was aimed to identify what makes a successful entrepreneur.
I liked the article. It was useful. My interest was peaked when he described how successful entrepreneurs foster innovation, creativity and a culture of winning. These are common traits to those who win often in the world of business. Unfortunately, the world is full of entrepreneurs who do not possess these kinds of traits. They do not honor creativity. Many do not like to risk their patterns of work with innovative experimentation. They therefore, remain non-innovative. In fact, most lose more often than they win. This is not a good representation of producing a winning culture. It would be safe to venture a comfortable guess and report that most entrepreneurs lack these three special sets of skill Hal described in his presentation that was reported in The Wall Street Journal recently. His description of common traits that produce successful entrepreneurs is not very common.
Let's call his defined three traits the #1 set of successful traits. Entrepreneurs who are #1 carry these behaviors. They push for a culture of winning. The expect to win, at all times. This is true even when they are currently losing. They believe beyond doubt that their ways will win out long term. They believe in what they know, do and seek. They question their path, direction and patterns with constant adjustments for moving closer to winning big. They are bent towards adjusting to win. That is what they do best. It is very difficult to teach this style of leadership. Successful entrepreneurs know when to turn, when to change and how to do it with better sets of reasonable results. They harbor some magical sense that tells them when, where and why. They have a nose for winning.
Let's go one step deeper on this subject. Successful entrepreneurs may not actually be able to write a book on how to win big. In fact, most might not even be able to articulate how they saw what they saw that gave them the insight to move in the ways they moved to win. They may only be able to report how they could 'feel' the win coming and what it would take to make that win happen. What might come up missing is the measurable indications that fell on their path of success that caused them to move in the ways they finally moved. The pure logic might be hard to find. This slippery pattern is very common territory for entrepreneurs who live in the #1 pattern for winning traits. Their instincts work overtime without much to telegraph why they do what they do. They just have a unique sense for producing winning cultures. It is more magical than definitive.
Page two.
Most #2 entrepreneurs believe they already know what works well. Their style of leadership is set in stone. They know what to do, how to do it and control what makes those things happen. They become the #2 patterns of entrepreneurs. They control how each of their days unfolds. These entrepreneurs will often perform well long term. They may never 'hit it big' but they will be able to compete for a very long time. They will likely produce some reasonable results. They are 'also-rans' that make up most of the other world of business activities. They will read articles, suggestions and search for better ideas on how to improve what they produce, but they will never become #1 entrepreneurs. They lack the unusual set of seemingly random characteristics for honoring the unknowns that innovation searches to solve. They do not move daily on making secure gestures about who they are and why they do what they do. The #2 entrepreneurs worry too much about losing their face, their image and their posture. They skip the practice of losing big when innovation does not pan out well. They avoid experimentation.
This is one of the key reasons why most entrepreneurs are #2 in nature. They do not risk enough of who they are. They are too worried about protecting their personal images. It is a very common flaw. This is one of those hidden flaws that the #1's do not pay much attention to in their quest to win big. The #1's do not care much about how you feel about who they are. They do not get tripped up with that kind of non-productive work. They are too busy, too focused on finding new ways to do their things better. They become completely immersed into the working ways of innovation. It completely consumes their mind. A tuna fish sandwich completely disappears, even when it lays open on their desk. It becomes invisible.
These innovators came about this set of unique characteristics from their childhood heredity. They had adults in their sphere of influence who practiced and honored creativity. Creativity was key. Creation was big. Doing new things in new ways was always promoted. Failure was seen as not being creative instead of creating something new and exciting that may not really work well. Working well was placed secondary. Not being creative was viewed as a piece of performing incorrectly. To be creative was to be correct. To be non-creative was to be boring, flat, uninteresting and lazy. Those who win big in the #1 world of entrepreneurship are the ones that find creativity flowing heavily. Discovering what works is secondary to building a pattern of discovering what's new. Innovators will find how it works well, later. Working well is not the original goal. Finding new things to do is.
Creating new patterns, new ways and new ideas comes natural to those who understand this working principle. This is where the innovators find their canvas. They create patterns that do not make sense. They work on ideas that come from nowhere. They ask weird questions. They try awful ideas. They raise many eyebrows from the ones who watch them work. They scare most insecure leaders. They drive their methods with a very loose steering wheel. It often times looks 'kind of' out of control. This is where creativity lives. It is not reasonable. It often times makes no sense. It can be scary thinking. It can come from strange places, in stranger ways with no hope to actually survive. This is how creativity works. It is loose, happenstance and unbridled. It is creative!
The profile for #1 entrepreneurs carries these awkward traits. These unique traits have proven to be kind of loose spirits with loose ideas that seemingly have no basis for being alive in the thoughts winning entrepreneurs carry. The #1's have these patterns they live. They are completely consumed by them. They seem random but they are not. What they truly are is real. They are not manufactured in a way to attract the attention of the star shareholders. They are simply performed because these #1 entrepreneurs are these people with these thoughts that ultimately drive their business worlds. They use innovation techniques to pull the art of creativity altogether in a tightly wrapped package that helps to formulate their winning cultures. They then begin to solve the problems their business models aim to repair. This is exactly how the best #1's serve what they come to serve. Success is one of the by-products they receive for doing this stuff well.
As Hal Gregersen may have been trying to put it, successful entrepreneurs have a way they live that drives how they ignore what others think when those thoughts can kill the culture of winning. They only listen to the stuff that helps them support how to win. Nothing else wavers their ways. You can say crap about their lives but it will not matter to them. They are too busy creating the next best thing finding innovative patterns to support how well it will serve what they do. In the meantime, get out of their way. They have stuff to do.
Which entrepreneur are you? #1 or #2?
Until next time...
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