Experience undoubtedly brings knowledge, but without self-awareness there is no wisdom
I strongly agree with the assertion that the most interesting of all human studies is the knowledge of yourself.
Age and experience are essential in life and business, but to be effective requires knowledge, mixed with a deep understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses, to give context and practicality when facing the inevitable challenges of business.
I will return in a future issue to the best techniques for effective mentoring, both giving and receiving, but for now I will just provide the basics for acquiring self-awareness in a business context, primarily aimed at someone submitting their first idea or business plan.
I have participated in and facilitated many live events focused on the key question: “are entrepreneurs born or made?”. I have also lost count of the number of people who were clearly very successful in business, who in all seriousness told me: “…of course, I don’t consider myself an entrepreneur!”.
I point out if they have a successful business where they are a major shareholder, then, as far as I am concerned, they are an entrepreneur, but that argument still does not seem to resonate with them.
This is perhaps because they don’t feel they represent the public perception of a successful entrepreneur, such as Elon Musk, Anita Roddick, or Richard Branson. I will talk about them and others in detail in future columns but for now let’s just put to bed the “are entrepreneurs born or made?” debate. The answer is obviously both, otherwise, logically we would not still be discussing it!
I believe that people are born with a particular set of attributes , perhaps in their genes, but for long-term success they do need to learn all the other necessary business skills.
In our book The Beermat Entrepreneur, my co-author Chris West and I ask the question “where do I fit in?”. We then list the key characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. These include confidence, charisma, energy, focus, ambition, and an overall sense of urgency.
Chris, being not only an expert philosopher but also keen student of the human condition, pointed out that, in everyone, the ‘flip’, or ‘dark’ side of those attributes is always present.
These are (respectively) arrogance, manipulative behaviour, exhausting others, being obsessive, ruthless, and, finally, childish impatience.
We stress the importance of surrounding yourself with mentors and colleagues, who can flag up instances of negative behaviour. You should listen to their advice, and then act accordingly, swallowing your pride when necessary. Once you understand your own strengths and weaknesses, you can then focus on what particular part of the business is best suited to your particular talents.
Essentially, there are only three main aspects to a business:
You need to be to be focused on Sales. Who will buy our products and services?
Then, there is Delivery. How will we provide our products and or services?
Finally, there is Finance. How best can we manage our cash-flow and improve our margins?
I suggest that all of us, perhaps in our DNA, are best suited to only one of those tasks.
As an extrovert, my role in every start-up was primarily early-stage Sales.
We describe this type of person as a Magnet.
Chris West is more introverted, so is focused almost entirely on Delivery, writing books and articles. We describe this type of person as a Maker.
Anyone who enjoys wrangling spreadsheets and crunching the numbers and data, is good at Finance. We describe this type of person as a Monitor.
Every entrepreneur has to do all three tasks in any given day. The trick is to spend most of your own time on the tasks for which you are best suited and have people you trust to do the others. We call these people ‘Cornerstones’ in our book.
Reading this, you may already have guessed whether you are fundamentally a Magnet, Maker, or Monitor, but if you’d like to try a simple profiling tool, there is one on my web site.
There is no sign-up, and the system doesn’t store or tell me the results, so, rest assured this is not an amateurish attempt to gather your personal information!
Please try the test and tell me whether you feel it describes you accurately. No model is perfect and there are many more sophisticated psychometric tests available to give you more accurate, but much more complex outputs, if that is your desire.
Our overall model is that anything, particularly practical wisdom, can always be simplified and put on the back of a Beermat. I hope you find this simple tool useful!
The Beermat Profiling tool is available here:
http://www.mikesouthon.com/the-beermat-profiling-tool/
Mike Southon is Editor in Chief of the World Communications Forum Association Davos (WCFA) https://www.wcfaglobal.com
More details: www.mikesouthon.com
