Reason 1 : Obstacles may not really be obstacles
What really drives entrepreneurs? In short, they look around and say “I can do this better!” You and I see a constraint or barrier and see it as fixed. An entrepreneur says: “This can go. I can take it away. I can ignore it. I could use it as a vaulting-horse and jump over it.”
Reason 2 : Organize to take the profit
What makes a successful economic entrepreneur is that they also notice that they can rejig the working arrangements and take the profit themselves: “All the better for making me better off!”
Reason 3: Don’t forget reason 3
So, entrepreneurs are “in” the game and they see an opportunity. Then, they notice how to rearrange the game to seize the opportunity for themselves.
But, they don’t stop there. They do something else that is critical to their success. They rally people to help them win.
Entrepreneurship is competitive. Even if entrepreneurs are not about to bring their old industry or business to its knees, they are going to become more important than their former colleagues and bosses. A certainty of entrepreneurial life is that whomever is going to lose out or become less important than them will fight back!
Make sure people are better off with them than against them
And, so it should be. Why should others stand back and give up their right and impulse to compete! This is why rallying a team is so important to entrepreneurial success. In essence, an entrepreneur wants to make sure people are better off with them than against them.
This is the skill that psychologists can help teach entrepreneurs.
- We will let you spot the opportunity in the business that you are in.
- We will let accountants help you figure out the business structure and financing.
- What we do is help you learn that all important skill: to build a team where people are better off with you than against you!
ACADEMIC REFERENCE
Power as Practice: A Micro-sociological Analysis of the Dynamics of Emancipatory Entrepreneurship
David Goss, Robert Jones, Michela Betta and James Latham
Organization Studies, 2011, 32
[Downloadable from David Goss’ homepage at Surrey]