Before this week, it has been discussed that entrepreneurs may not be a good fit for the executive position when organizations grow. I was puzzled about this phenomenon, as founders are vision setters and have the deepest aspiration to make the venture better. However, after reading through this week’s articles, this puzzle was cleared. Indeed, apart from passion, other things are also critical for entrepreneurs to be catalysts for venture’s growth.
John Hamm raised four characteristics of entrepreneurs that may sabotage ventures to scale up, i.e. loyalty to comrades, task orientation, single-mindedness and working in isolation. I believe that they are more related to leadership styles and working habit than universal characteristics of entrepreneurs who are tech and/or engineer subject experts. And I strongly believe that these characteristics can be avoided or lessened with help from mentors, friends, co-workers and anyone who are close to the entrepreneurs.
Loyalty to comrades sounds interesting to me, as it does not feel as easy and simple as depicted in the article. I personally have doubt about this theory. Running a business is not as simple as hiring the best person and firing the less capable ones. Yes, companies on the Wall Street may succeed due to their well-known ruthless competition and “natural selection”. However, when people talk about why they want to work at such companies with cut-throat competition, I think many of them are attracted by financial returns more by passion to what they do. This is what distinguishes a private company at large with a social enterprise. Social ventures need to attract and retain talents with expertise and yet more importantly, with passion about the mission of the venture. Otherwise, relatively low pay cannot compete with investment banking and trading positions. If these people are willing to strive for a future with the venture, on the entrepreneurs’ side, I do not think they should be as fierce and ruthless when treating their employees.
The example given in the article is more of a communication problem than a loyalty problem. The entrepreneur did not communicate well with the engineer and share his and the board’s expectations to him. I do not believe that loyalty is blind and without principles. Being loyal can be accompanied by arguing, fighting and high standards, similar to relationship building I suppose. Being loyal does not mean that entrepreneurs cannot criticize co-workers or have to stand up for everything that colleagues do.
In addition, dealing with loyalty has something to do with culture as well. In the United States where it is known for “it’s just business, nothing personal,” it is a different story in Asian countries. People care about past history and tears and happiness shared together, more than today’s fitness in the organization. Sacking an colleague easily who has worked with entrepreneurs for a long time and contributed to the organization, for whatever reason, may not be as easily accepted by employees as here in the US. The fired would resent the entrepreneur’s ruthlessness, and other employees would wonder if one day they would experience the same thing. Having said that, I would by no means mean that entrepreneurs should keep everyone even they are incompetent to what’s required. What I want to say is that it has to be dealt with carefully; otherwise it may be a factor that sabotages employees’ loyalty to the entrepreneur.
Having said these, I still have a question in mind. This article proposes that blind loyalty may stop entrepreneurs from scaling; on the other hand, if we think about it, entrepreneurs also need loyalty from their co-founders and employees in order to scale the enterprises. How shall entrepreneurs retain talents and align them with vision of the venture? What approaches can they take? How can loyalty be utilized as an opportunity instead of as a risk for the venture?
I found an interesting article on advice to angel groups. Standing in venture cabalists’ shoes may help us tailor our venture to their needs.
http://news.change.org/stories/5-ideas-for-social-venture-angel-groups
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