The paradox of the Entrepreneur

I love entrepreneurs. I have had the privilege of having worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs in my role as a Management Consultant plotting strategy and mentoring for success over the last 20 years.

You will know the entrepreneur; they are the ones brimming with enthusiasm and often pinging off the walls with ideas and activity.

They have often built their businesses from sheer willpower and determination. When faced with adversity they will find a way to scale the wall, dig under it, go around it or bust through it.

There often comes a point where the behaviour that got the business to where it is today will no longer serve the business aspirations moving forward. What got us to today will not get us to tomorrow.

The shift great entrepreneurs make that enables them to go on and create extraordinary businesses, is the ability to explore the why and what before the how. Why do we compete the way we do in the markets we serve? What if we were to diversify into more profitable less competitive markets? What if we build this capability to drive into that market? They learn to take the time to explore and consider.

Once the why and what has been determined then the how can kick in. The how is the natural bias to the activity which has served the entrepreneur so well. There is often no shortage of finding “a how” for these creative people.

It is in knowing the why and the what through the deliberate creation of strategic clarity, then unleashing the entrepreneurial bias to action that we can truly build businesses by design that gives us the lifestyle and purpose we crave.