Ten Survival Tips for Effective Entrepreneurship

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My work encourages you to know who you are in terms of your management biases. I then encourage you to actively champion the priorities and practices of whatever mode of operation is needed to take your enterprise to the next level of growth, even if it does not fit your personal preferences. 

Doing this is a challenge at a personal level. These 10 tips will help you survive that journey.  

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Survival Tips

• 1. Know Yourself 
• 2. See Your Situation Realistically and Objectively 
• 3. Allow Personal and Organizational Objectives to Diverge 
• 4. Look for Subtle Clues of an Emerging Need to Change Operational Modes 
• 5. Use Business Momentum Wisely 

• 6. Anticipate and Plan for the Changes That Lie Ahead
• 7. Work with and Through Others to Achieve Objectives
• 9. Broaden Your Own Range of Management Skills
• 10. Find Ways to Make Your Natural Tendencies Pay 

To effectively manage your growing organization through the challenges that confront it, you must first understand your own biases. Think about what work situations you find most interesting. Consider the types of situations in which you have been most successful. Is there a relationship between the two? Think about what situations you find boring and what situations have been less than successful for you. Is there a relationship between these? An understanding of your preferences will help you identify what effective practices are likely to develop as a natural result of doing what you like to do, as well as those that will need to be the result of a conscious decision. 

Determine which of the four momentum-generating operational modes you are naturally most comfortable with. Then identify the mode that appears at the opposite corner of the map. This is your probable weak point, so you’ll have to learn special skills to be effective in that mode. You can take cues from others. Discuss with people you can learn from. Observe how they set priorities and operate in different modes.

While a leader’s preferences for how to manage other factors such as wisdom and flexibility can ultimately be more important, you need wisdom to see yourself realistically and to see the tradeoffs that may be required. Flexibility allows you to change organizational priorities at different times. 

When you look at your business situation, see it for what it really is, as opposed to what you would like it to be. What people see often is heavily influenced by their expectations. Avoid the trap of looking for situations that will respond well to your favorite type of solution — “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Look objectively at the problems that confront you, try to understand them, and then determine what types of solutions would be appropriate. 

Look closely at the ideal path shown in the roadmap to assess your current location or position, keeping in mind your product’s full market potential as your objective. Just as an automobile’s optimum speed depends on road conditions, your speed through these phases will be affected by various challenges you encounter in your management situation. Consider predictable problems as roadblocks or detours, and adjust your trip accordingly. The suggested growth phases are like recommended routes on freeways and highways. They are meant to be useful as a basic itinerary. But remember that your trip will be unique. 

Over time, your enterprise’s objectives will begin to evolve independently from your own. Be ready for those times, both personally and as the leader of the organization. Periodically review the original concepts of the business to see what your company’s inception was based upon and how its current objectives may differ. Originally, the objectives may have been to take advantage of a specific and narrowly-defined market opportunity, to be creative and aggressive, to validate your vision, or to change the world in some meaningful way. 

As time goes by and your organization grows and matures, its objectives change. Issues that increase in importance are essentials such as financial soundness, customer and community relations, and supplier connections. These issues begin to overwhelm some of the earlier, perhaps more noble and exciting objectives. You may have to settle for high profitability rather than changing the world. The divergence of the objectives of your company from your personal objectives may be painful and difficult for both you and your enterprise. 

When your enterprise involves people and business growth, change is inevitable. Even if you decide not to grow, change will occur. If people were hired as extensions of you while using the Innovating mode, they may ultimately want greater responsibility during later phases. The first people you hire are more likely to be motivated by the challenge and excitement of being in a new venture. As you hire more people, your organization begins to reflect the general population from which you are drawing. While the fifth person you hire may be motivated by your vision, the fiftieth person will be motivated more by a desire to pay their mortgage. The demographic forces of an organization will not allow your enterprise to stand still.

Look for the subtle seismic movements in daily operations that represent deeper and fundamental changes to which you will need to adapt. When you continue to have a certain type of problem, it may be an indicator that you are using the wrong operational mode. Certain types of problems, especially personnel problems, are sometimes an early indication of the need for fundamental change. Recurring problems concerning uncertainty about responsibility and authority could indicate that a Foundation Building phase is needed.

Recurring issues about the lack of opportunity for advancement may indicate that your firm is too rigidly structured. Recurring problems about a lack of responsiveness to customers may mean that defiant isolation is a general weakness. Unmotivated staff may mean that the Alpha Visionary Effect is not ebbing properly.

Some people in your organization might serve a function similar to canaries in a mineshaft. These are people who are highly sensitive to certain deficiencies or problems in an organization and who can provide warning signals indicating the issues you must deal with. Carefully consider any passionately delivered comments, especially if they are part of a developing trend. If you assume that all problems are unrelated, you could miss early warning signs that bigger ones are looming on the horizon.

Remember the person in Thailand who saved a dozen people from the tidal wave. He knew that before a tidal wave, water levels drop quickly. He saw this and ran for higher ground. Understanding the meaning of that little clue made him a hero. 

There is no naturally occurring force that will move you and your organization automatically from one mode of operation to the next. You need to make choices and initiate change, and these take time. They are also less expensive if you initiate them earlier than later. Being sensitive to the subtle clues gives you advanced warning. 

Success builds business momentum, and you can use this momentum to carry you through transitional phases of Foundation Building. The Concept Development, Rapid Market Expansion, Crowded Marketplace, and Niche Development phases produce business growth and generate business momentum. The transitional Foundation Building phase requiring the Retooling mode, however, usually consumes business momentum. Use some of the momentum generated during a growth phase to carry you through the next period of Foundation Building. As you progress through the phases, the transitions can become shorter as you become better at anticipating the changes and building the needed control levers earlier. 

A key role of the leader of a growing organization is to instigate appropriate changes before the need for the changes becomes imperative. Anticipate changes in both your organization and its marketplace. Monitor and look for fundamental changes in the customer class and the nature of competition. Any changes in these may require you to change along with them. Identify the right time to shake up the existing structure and culture of the organization and to introduce more appropriate attitudes, priorities, and capabilities. Initiate timely revolutions, but don’t purge every aspect of the practices developed in the prior phases. Carry the benefits forward and put down a new layer of capabilities when you move from phase to phase.

When you hire people, have an idea of how an individual’s job and role will change over time. Don’t make promises about long-term roles and responsibilities that can’t be kept. This will help them and you to prepare for the requirements of those jobs. It also makes it less likely that some of these loyal individuals will become redundant as the organization evolves. Regulate the power of individuals to prevent a particular structure from becoming too embedded. 

You will discover that some operational modes come more naturally than others. Working with and through others can help you meet your objectives more quickly and effectively. Discuss with your staff why a change is needed, what will be accomplished if the change is made, and what will be required to make the change. Without this information, your shifts in priorities and modes of operation may confuse others. Assure them that practices of the past are not wrong, they simply no longer fit the current or anticipated needs; it is time for a different mode of operating. If you initiate change early and allow your staff to participate in the process, you will be surprised by how forward-looking your staff can be. They will know that you are not held captive by the limits of your management style, nor are they.

When you create management teams, either formally or informally, you should try to both extend yourself and complement yourself. Identify people who share your energy, but also look for those who supplement your strengths by selecting people different from you. A team of diverse individuals will have a better chance of seeing what lies ahead and making the needed changes. 

Depend more on different people during different phases. You will need to develop specialized modes of operation during appropriate phases, so look for complementary skills and management style biases, and consider similar levels of energy and passion for success to give you more flexibility. Do not give all points of view equal weight at all times. To do so will not give you the competitive strength you will need at each phase. It will help greatly, however, to have everyone reading the same road map.

An organization’s culture is sometimes the most powerful force in determining how its members act. Seek not to limit the culture but to enlarge it to support the different practices needed in different situations. An organization’s culture reflects and affects the attitudes people have about how things should be done and which issues to give priority. When the members of your team are deciding how to prioritize their work, make compromises, and interact with others, your organization’s culture is often what tips the balance in a certain direction.

Realize that, as a leader, you have a tremendous impact on the culture. Be very aware of the messages you send to others through your words and actions. Take an active interest in shaping the culture and mold it to be supportive of long-term success. Understand that it is appropriate for you to be highly decisive at certain times and slower and methodical at others. Ultimately, no single style of management should be so tightly woven into the culture of the organization that it limits future change. All tools can be represented.

Actively communicate to your team, especially during transitional phases. It is easy to assume that people are keeping up with the evolving thinking of leaders. Yet, many people are focusing doing their own parts well — which is a good thing — and may not have the time to pay close attention. 

Create an atmosphere of success. Reward people for responding to the true nature of problems. This will help the staff handle challenges with the idea that success and effectiveness are most important.

Learn skills and techniques from others who are naturally well-suited to situations you find difficult. Follow their lead and emulate their practices and priorities. Throughout the development of your business, you may need to use every operational mode discussed in this book. You’ll need to be able to set a variety of different priorities, some contrary to what you’re personally most comfortable with or interested in. Consequently, you may need to broaden your range of management skills to be a more effective entrepreneur. Then when the situation requires a management style or operational mode different from your preferred one, you can call on the new skills. This will improve your leadership effectiveness as you navigate the growth phases in a productive and successful manner. 

Given a free-flowing labor market, people will gravitate to situations where they find comfort and success. The successive phases of business growth may require leaders to focus on issues that they don’t find interesting or handle particularly well. Many entrepreneurs resist a new phase because they don’t know whether the change is going to be permanent or not. The fact that there are phases, however, presents the possibility that later phases may again be more personally gratifying. The key is to attend to the needs of the enterprise and know that the situation will eventually require behavior that is more comfortable and rewarding for the leader.

Just as you strive to create a situation that benefits from your personal preferences, also consider the interests of your staff. Find ways to make people’s natural tendencies pay and strengthen your enterprise. While everyone can behave differently from their preferences when it is clearly to their advantage to do so, if you have them do what they enjoy, they will be more enthusiastic and productive. Use the tools in this book to understand your human resources and build on what you have or have access to. These disciplines will enable you to break free from the barriers to growth created by preserving once-successful practices in situations that require other approaches.