You Might Be The Next “Big Thing”!

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Four Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs

Competency: entrepreneurial leadership

Who benefits: Those who not only think outside of the box but want to build a new, different and improved box

Consultant Usage: Good to know if you are already in the entrepreneur category

What’s it about? One of the competencies we support is entrepreneurial leadership.  Some of us get entrepreneurial fever sometime in our life.  And I would like to add this important reminder: you don’t always have to leave your organization to become an entrepreneur. But if you have the fever, here are two must-read books for your consideration and future success.

The first is Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck: What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur and Build a Great Business.  The book is built around 4 characteristics the authors feel are necessary to be successful entrepreneurs:

The Heart: This is the ability to bring purpose and passion to your ideas.  There is absolute desire to create a vision and see it through.  Heart makes the enterprise special.  The authors tell the story of a heart guy, Guy Liberate, a street performer and accordionist, who redefined what a circus should be. And voila, Cirque du Soleil.

The Smart: Smarts are rational, fact oriented and are able to organize, delegate, articulate strategy, set goals.  They have book smarts, people smarts, street smarts and creative smarts.  Most important of all they have what the authors call “pattern recognition” ability.  That means they can connect things.

The Gut: The willingness to risk.  Some Guts are risk takers – these are the bungee jumpers of entrepreneurial life.  They live for the high.  Others are risk tolerant.  They willingly accept and manage the risks that come their way.  The authors quote General Patton: “The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on.”

The Luck: May the Luck be with you.  Or as friend and colleague Terry Paulson puts it, “Position Yourself for Opportunity”.  Luck happens!  But as the authors point out, good luck most often happens to those who have a Lucky Attitude and a Lucky Network, which in turn creates what they call Circumstantial Luck.

So there you have one view of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

As an added bonus today, I bring you a second book.  If you are taking serious steps down the Entrepreneurial Road, you need to add Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future to your reading list.  From above you know the 4 characteristics you need.  Then what?  Act, Learn, Build, say the authors.  They offer these three steps:

1. Take a small, smart step.

2. Pause and see what you have learned.

3. Build your learning into your next small, smart step.

There you have it.  Now go forth and be the next Google, Amazon, or Starbucks.  You can thank me later.

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.