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Who is the Entrepreneur?

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Rob Greenland has just had a harrowing experience. A couple of on-line tests designed to find out whether or not he has what it takes to be an entrepreneur have come back in the negative. Apparently he ‘may benefit from the security of a permanent job’.  Welcome to the human race Rob!

Most questionnaires designed to elicit whether or not you are an entrepreneur are based on the notion that entrepreneurs conform to a personality type.

  • They do not.

They also assume that all entrepreneurs are interested primarily in financial wealth creation.

  • They are not.

They also assume that entrepreneurs work in isolation.

  • They do not.

The best entrepreneurs work as part of team that they have recruited with care and humility. They concentrate on doing beautifully what they love to do – and surround themselves by people who love to do what they hate. Successful entrepreneurs recognise their own strengths and weaknesses and are able to recruit people to work with them.

It is the skills and passion of the ‘entrepreneurial team’ that are the key determinant in the success of the enterprise.

Not the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur.

If we could just get people to understand the importance of ‘enterprising teams’ rather than the lone heroic entrepreneur then I think we could make a big step forward in the quality of enterprise in the UK.

The death of the entrepreneur – and the enterprise – is solitude.

Why Do More Women Resign than Men?

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Gender Gap

In the UK, now,

  • More women resign than men. More women are resigning now than ever.
  • Women get promoted younger than men.
  • Women are paid significantly less than men – and last year the gap widened.

These findings are from the Chartered Management Institute and Remuneration Economics.

What explains the high rate of resignations?

Is it the sense of injustice at the widening pay differentials as women take on more responsibility – younger – for less money than men?

Do women have more choices that they can exercise? They are more likely to take up self-employment than men. They may also be more ‘in-demand’ than men as their skill sets leave them better equipped to work in a modern economy. The ‘skill sets’ in which women generally outperform men include

  • better improvisational skills,
  • more relationship-focussed,
  • less rank-conscious,
  • more trust sensitive,
  • more intuitive,
  • more collaborative,
  • more comfortable with ambiguity,
  • better sharers of information
  • more able to balance rational thought with intuition and belief,
  • more articulate,
  • better at reading non-verbal clues,
  • better at multi-tasking, networking and negotiating to win/wins,
  • a preference to take the long view,
  • an ability to promote egalitarian team working and a
  • more naturally empowering management style

Or is it because many management hierarchies are still male dominated cultures in which more feminine values linked to the enhanced skill-sets listed above are under valued?

One trend is very clear. Women’s power in a modern economy is increasing. This is driven by their generally superior leadership skills and their influence over just about every major purchasing decision.

This means that organisations that cannot recruit and retain women will be at a significant disadvantage in the marketplace.

“When land was the productive asset, nations battled over it. The same is happening now for talented people.”

Stan Davis & Christopher Meyer, futureWEALTH

The Most Annoying Person in Your Workplace (Could It Be You?)

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According to a recent survey conduced by Snag A Job, the awards for most annoying co-worker go to:

In 5th place – ‘The Hypochondriac’ – 5% of votes cast

In 4th place – ‘The Loud Talker’ – 12% of votes cast

In 3rd place – ‘The Gossip Hound’ – 18% of votes cast

And finally in joint first position, with one third of the total votes each:

“Kiss-ups” and “Slackers”.

There is no doubt that many of these characterisitcs are common-place and often tolerated at work because managers are afraid of the consequences of consistently using feedback to help encourage the good behaviours and influence change around those that aren’t as successful.

This survey focuses on the negative characteristics of the workplace.  What if we developed a list of the most effective co-workers and then encourages positive feedback around these characteristics.  My guess is that it would have a greater net positive effect on performance and culture.  Wh would make it onto the list?  Here would be my nominations:

The Dependable – do what they do, when they say they will do it….

The Change Monkey – always looking to make things better…

The Listener – goes without saying…

The No-man – always happy to speak their mind – even if it means saying No!

Who would your nominations be?

Who have you already got in these roles?  Do you appreciate them enough?

Can you use feedback and coaching to encourage more of these types of behaviour?

Diversity and the Art of Delegation

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  • How do you get other people to do what needs to be done?
  • How do you make time and space in your diary to do the things that only you can do?
  • How do you manage to escape doing those aspects of the job that you don’t like or find hard?

Delegation of course.

But what if your team, the pool of people available to delegate to, is just like you?  Similar personalities and temperaments.  Similar preferences and skills.

If you fall into this trap then those things that you want to delegate – they are likely to want to delegate too.  The jobs that you hate – they will hate too.  delegation becomes a difficult, risky and painful process.

If on the other hand you have a diverse team with a wide variety of skills and preferences then it is likely that you will find someone to delegate to who will enjoy the new work.

By recruiting a team with diverse skills and preferences you will make delegation much more straightforward.