Entrepreneurs AND Implementers: The Recipe For A Winning Team!
Entrepreneurs are those people who come up with better ideas and doggedly pursue them to implementation, even if they don’t at the time have the resources available.
Real entrepreneurs are those unique people who come up with ideas that are sometimes so simple, yet effective, that they change our daily lives. The entrepreneur is the genius who conceives it, lives, eats and sleeps it, and attempts to make it the next great thing, despite all the odds being against this.
The entrepreneur is the person who starts a business or a venture, and if it survives, it grows to a certain level where it can no longer be totally controlled by the owner. Then it either fails, continues reasonably well, or by some miracle, a better manager comes along and takes the business further, helping it become what the entrepreneur originally dreamed it would be.
In the process, some entrepreneurs lose everything they have, both materially and relationship wise, in the pursuit of their dreams.
Some make it, some make it very big, and many remain unfulfilled entrepreneurs.
So why do some entrepreneurs make it and some don’t? Is it just luck?
What can an entrepreneur do to increase the chances for success?
A little more about entrepreneurial behavior:
Typical entrepreneurs are always very busy. There is much frenzied activity in their lives and also in those that come into close contact with them.
On the cell phone almost all the time, rushing from task to task, running from one crisis to the next one, entrepreneurs are permanently busy. There is little time for formal planning. If there is a budget it’s usually out of date. If you ask them a question you will receive another task as an answer.
Everything is a priority, and new tasks get precedence over existing tasks. Tasks are not explained clearly and meetings are about new things, and often don’t include follow-ups on previous items. Some entrepreneurs are so hyper, they walk out of their own meetings to go and do other things.
Entrepreneurs arrive and leave work pretty randomly. Being on time for a meeting is almost impossible, although other people are expected to be waiting.
A meeting is usually a spontaneous, high activity event, eventually resulting in slow progress. The progress is slow because the entrepreneur jumps from task to task and they make little or no notes that are followed up on.
Entrepreneurs often select the wrong people. Subconsciously they often look for someone like themselves, those who have high energy, are innovative and enthusiastic, and that’s the problem.
Who’s going to do the “stuff” that needs to be done, but in a structured, methodical manner in an entrepreneurial organization? Not the entrepreneur, and certainly not two entrepreneurs in the same company! So what do the entrepreneurs do? They hire “Go-fors.” Go for this, go for that.
Go-fors are expected to work whenever the entrepreneur is at work, so they have to get used to arriving early, leaving late and being available at all times after hours for phone calls. Some of them get paid for being part of the busy atmosphere and engaging in activity rather than producing high quality work. They become experts at frequently changing direction. Go –fors can last for a long time with an entrepreneur because they are loyal, and entrepreneurs demand loyalty.
Entrepreneurs need to start the meeting with what they have just done, or achieved, or heard because they need that attention. It’s like breaking news on television. Cell phone in hand, there is always something happening around them. It’s important they be given the opportunity to tell their story. Once they have done this, you need to get to your point quickly.
Entrepreneurs are better talkers than listeners. They are pushing their products all the time. They have a short attention span. They tend to switch off as soon as they are bored. No long accounting rambling or banking administrative stuff for them. They want to do something exciting!
Management and the entrepreneur. Management is not the strong point of an entrepreneur. Dishing out tasks may be what they do but management is not their skill.
An entrepreneur is all over the place in terms of his thinking. Out of the box stuff. He is focused on new ways of making his project work. He is not focused on the step-by-step methodical approach required to make this all happen. Somehow he feels that what needs to be done is just going to happen. It’s really that simple. “Just get an accountant, or “just get a marketing person “is perhaps the most direction one can expect. An entrepreneur is generally not aware that he causes organizational stress by these actions. He is aware that he does not like doing certain things, but it takes a long time for him to figure out that he needs a higher level of assistance to get things done effectively.
Because of their non-stop dedication to their project, the management style of an entrepreneur is really a “Tell” management style. Entrepreneurs tend to tell people what to do. They just don’t make the time to listen. They have a very limited attention span and if you don’t make an impact in the first ninety seconds, they switch off and tell you what to do.
The problem with this management style is that it only works on the lower level go-fors and employees who just need to do certain tasks.
This management style does not work on higher level employees who know a great deal about a particular field of expertise.
If you as the Entrepreneur but as an amateur manager, were to tell a physicist how to split the atom or a competent accountant how to do the books, you would be managing that person completely ineffectively. If you continued to employ this “Tell” management style on those who truly are qualified in their fields, then those employees will only stay until it no longer suits them.
Because entrepreneurs are generally not experienced managers, they often end up with employees who operate at lower levels of competence than are needed to do an effective job.
That’s why the entrepreneur often says “I just can’t find the right people.”
He also says “Whenever I am not here nothing happens.” Quite right. The subordinates with a lower maturity level relevant to what needs to be done, have not been allowed to make decisions. They have to join the long line outside the office of the entrepreneur so they can get his daily blessing on something they have to do. If a subordinate is not allowed to use his initiative as he grows in the job, he will not be able to carry out tasks on his own. That style creates a weaker company that is dominated by the mood and physical capabilities of one man.
Implementers are those people who make things happen. Effective implementers are the people who enable the strategies, dreams and wishes of the entrepreneur to reach fruition.
What can someone working for an entrepreneur do to increase the chances of success for the company and for themselves?
What kind of people are the most effective Implementers? What roles can less effective, but by no means less important, implementers play in an organization?
In general, the higher the level of the implementer the more effective and helpful that person will be to the entrepreneur.
Ideally an entrepreneur needs to get someone of a higher rather than a lower maturity level to assist him. The reason is that if people have a low maturity level, you have to look over their shoulder all the time to see what they are doing, and whether it is what you want them to do.
My advice to the entrepreneur is this;
Seek out and find, through utilizing professional assistance, those high level implementers. They tend to be even-tempered, methodical, disciplined, initially slow at seeing the big picture, but when they get it, they get it. They ask questions, can get detailed, understand consequences and they have the maturity to dissuade the entrepreneur if the idea is really not a good one. They provide the balance the entrepreneur needs.
Until entrepreneurs accept they need competent Implementers, they will continue to struggle and to develop an effective organization.