“You have a stableful of race

horses that act like they come

from wagon-train school.”  

You run the business (or division or department) and feel like you have a stable full of race horses that act like they come from wagon-train school.  You need better than this.  Today’s competitive environment demands that your company produce more entre-preneurial product and service ventures. 

START WITH THESE TWO STEPS:

1. Identify the entrepreneurs you already have.  Find those managers who RUN with their creative ideas.  Anyone can come to you with a problem; good managers come with solutions; entrepreneurial managers follow through in detail.  They say, “I think we should do this, and here is what it will cost, and these are the people we’ll need, and here’s the plan of action, and I’ve already initiated the following action . . . ”  Once identified, give these individuals greater personal responsibility for results, and motivate them with small frequent rewards; and, where possible, with a piece of the action.

2. No organization has enough of these self-starter folks, so you need to cultivate them too.  This is particularly true because “natural” or instinctive entrepreneurship is often surpressed.  Cultivation translates into teaching the skills that will fertilize dormant entrepreneurial traits.

Here are the key ingredients to serve as soil, sun, and water:

STRESS MANAGEMENT – Coping skills, identifying personal strengths, managing oneself under stress, especially as related to risk.  Taking reasonable risks is the hallmark of entrepreneurial behavior.

TIME MANAGEMENT – Focus on personal productivity and timelines.  Entrepreneurs tend to overcommit themselves, physically and mentally.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS – Entrepreneurship within the corporation usually entails introducing new ideas in a non-receptive framework.  Good communication skills are essential and will serve to rally needed support at all levels.  Corporate entrepreneurs must be able to communicate clearly with many different people, listen actively and accurately, be able to read and control body language and write well.

RISK-TAKING – Not the art of managing risks, but of taking only reasonable ones, and understanding risk impact on themselves and others.  Integrated in this step there needs to be recognition that changes can be non-threatening, especially when the changes are chosen and implemented by those being affected (vs. being handed down from above), and that risk-taking can be organizationally constructive when properly managed.  

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Hal@BusinessWorks.US        931.854.0474