Openminds

I regularly speak with people who work inside of what they describe as an “entrepreneurial company”. They speak with both admiration and loathing for the company’s founders who they describe as erratic, unpredictable, too fast to action, and too slow to develop process.

These folks love the energy, commitment, enthusiasm, and above all else, the vision of their leaders. But they hate the lack of organization, policy and predictability that accompanies those same leaders.

Many times, I also hear them say they too are entrepreneurial, and ultimately they joined the company because it was led by someone they felt they could relate to. They wanted to be an entrepreneur and felt that by joining a company led by one, they would be able to live their own dreams without the risk.

It is in those conversations that I think to myself: I wonder if that company really needs another entrepreneur, or whether what it really needs is an “intrapreneur”?

Let me explain. Several years ago, I engaged a consultant to help us determine the personality types of the people who worked in our company. We all took a test and ended up with a coded color that helped to identify and explain our key motivators and actions. The colors were orange, blue, green, and yellow. Orange represented highly entrepreneurial-type people who didn’t require process and were bad at detail and follow through. At the other end of the spectrum were the yellows who needed clear process, direction, and detail in order to succeed. The objective of the exercise was for each of us to understand the other’s personality type in order to communicate in a more meaningful way.

I soon found myself engaged in a conversation with the consultant who pulled me aside to give me some unsolicited advice. She showed me that the company was approximately 50% orange with a mix of the other types of individuals across the remaining 50%. Her advice: I needed to quickly make the company more “balanced”. She said that what we needed wasn’t more entrepreneurial types, but more intrapreneurs - people who could act independently inside of a framed context. She said we had too many people who had no process discipline, and we could never be truly successful without those planner, detail driven thinkers to help ensure we were delivering in a scalable and repeatable manner.

I thought long and hard about what she said, and from what started as a simple, fun exercise to build teams, ended up with an epiphany of how to build my company. We didn’t need people who thought like me, acted like me and didn’t question me. What we needed were people in each area – thinkers, doers, dreamers and questioners. We needed to rethink the balance of our company and look for that perfect blend of process and vision that makes good companies great.

Subsequently, I made some significant changes in my organization. The biggest change was likely in my head. I accepted that the best thing I can do is hire great people who believe in the same vision as I do but aren’t exactly like me. I needed to surround myself by talented, unique individuals who can bring a different perspective and style to helping achieve our vision.

Together, we are an “entrepreneurial company”. Why? Because we are not bound by conventional thinking and we embrace what’s possible. But we are not “entrepreneurial” when it comes to disciplined thinking, process, structure and planning. In that sense, we are a professionally managed firm that can scale and compete with any firm, anywhere.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, intrapreneur, management, hiring, humanresources, venture

On a scale of 1 –10, I love owning my own business. There are many reasons for this, however the drive to succeed likely supercedes all others for me. I am not competitive with others by nature. I am highly competitive however with myself.

The best satisfaction I derive is from making myself do things in business that I never thought I could or that others said couldn’t be done. On the personal front, I’m not so great at this. If I were, I would challenge myself to be exercising regularly and eating healthier than I do. But that is likely a conversation for Dr. Phil’s site not for my work blog.

There are days however in business when I just frankly want to say I’ve had enough. The saying that it’s like a rollercoaster ride – with the highs being higher and the lows being lower than anything else you will ever do - is so true. One day you are feeling ecstatic that you have climbed that impossible hill and the next day you wonder how you are going to be able to dig yourself out of a hole that feels bottomless.

On those bleak days, I would fill in the blank in my headline with the world Hell. Whether its from feeling frustrated with the ongoing dynamics of business or whether its dealing with issues that are so clearly not what I got into business to deal with, it is often no fun whatsoever.

BUT. And, it’s clearly a big but, there is no better feeling for me then when our company has helped another firm to deliver on its business and marketing goals. There’s nothing that can replace the feeling I have when our team works together to do the impossible and does so with integrity, fun and intelligence. Nothing beats that. And that feeling overcomes all of the bad stuff and all of the business headaches I sometimes experience.

I guess the reality is that on 95% of the days I’d fill in the headline with the word Incredible.

And that feeling is enough to get me out of bed every day and wonder what the day will hold. I realize that sometimes it’s going to be just a plain awful day and, awfully hard to get through. But I know that on most days its going to be, well, incredible. So that makes me one of the luckiest roller coaster riders in the world. Because I know that when the ride is low it will surely go back up and I will feel like we’ve climbed a mountain. That thrill will always have me getting back on the train again and again.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, venturecommunications,

As a female in business, I have often found myself fighting back tears at moments when I least wanted them to appear. Sometimes I won that battle and sometimes those tears came out regardless of my resolve. Recently, I was discussing this topic with a group of male business leaders who insisted that it was NOT okay for women to cry. Particularly in the boardroom.

That made me ask myself a few questions. Why is it okay for men to often express their emotions through anger in a boardroom but not okay for a women to express hers through tears? Does it show a fundamental leadership weakness when we give in to tears or to anger? And, why is it considered okay for a man to slam his fist on the boardroom table to make his point but not okay for a female to show her emotional reaction to the same situation in a different way?

The answer is that neither reaction is great but both are understandable. We are, after all, human. We each react differently to any given circumstance. That’s as true when you compare one female to another, as it is when you compare one male to a female. Women and men often do have different emotional reactions to the same situation. We simply have a different chemical makeup so it’s only natural.

I would offer to you that showing no emotion in the workplace is, in my humble opinion, far worse than a controlled emotional reaction that is honest and heartfelt.

I doubt that any person who has worked for me over the years has not accepted that once in a while I will cry. I also doubt that those same individuals have ever questioned my capability or dedication to the work and task at hand as a result of a few tears shed over frustration, disappointment or fear.

There is nothing wrong with crying. Neither is there any shame in being angry at a situation. There is only something wrong when those emotions then drive a reaction or response from the person that becomes detrimental to solving the business issue at hand.

Business is hard. Business can be incredibly draining. But business does not have to be without heart, emotion and care. Triple bottom line business today is being embraced by the world. Caring about the social, environmental and financial success of a business means that the company has to have a heart. And sometimes, that heart can cry, get mad or be elated.

The days of faceless, heartless corporations are gone. Women and men today are creating business with souls. And, tears are not a sign of weakness but of truth. I suspect that the organization of the future is going to have to be one that accepts the human condition and allows emotion not to rule but to be understood and embraced.

Technorati Tags: women, business, emotions, crying, etiquette