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Q:
Sometimes I get the feeling I want to start my own
business and fly freely. And while I know some smart
friends who might join me, I still wonder whether I have
the instincts and leadership required. Umair Malik,
Islamabad,
Pakistan
A:
Forget, for a moment, your desire to fly free.
Forget the “required” levels of instinct and leadership.
And while you’re at it, forget your smart friends.
To start
a company, you need those things...eventually. But first
and foremost, you need a great idea.
That
doesn’t mean we want to discourage you or denigrate the
entrepreneurial urge. To us, the gutsy individuals who
launch ventures are some of society’s biggest heroes.
And yes,
there are people who dump their day jobs, hunker down in
a garage or spare bedroom with a bunch of friends, and
then, five years later, can be seen ringing the opening
bell on Wall Street.
But
before you start visualizing yourself in that picture
and make the leap from stability to start-up, it
probably makes sense to separate wishful thinking from
the less rosy realities that usually characterize the
entrepreneurial experience.
Let’s
start with a favorite “wish”—you mention it right in
your letter—that entrepreneurship grants independence.
True, you will become your own boss. But for months and
even years, that choice will mean less freedom and
flexibility for you, not more.
You
won’t control your own life; your new business will do
that for you. After all, when you only have two
customers, you don’t tell them you can’t meet Monday at
5 p.m. You smile when they show up three hours later. In
your heart, you may be flying free, but in the trenches,
you’ll still be taking orders—just from a new set of
bosses.
Another
bit of wishful thinking is something you don’t mention
but is common too—it purports that entrepreneurship
bestows financial independence. If only! Unless you’ve
built up a pile of savings, no one is more “owned” than
the founder of a start-up.
We
recently met an entrepreneur whose venture was stalled
because she was loath to give more equity to private
investors or venture capitalists.
“It’s
bad enough to give up control,” she complained, “But if
I keep giving away stock, I’ll still be driving my 1994
Honda Civic to my son’s college graduation.”
Given
the fact that her son was an infant, she was joking, of
course. But the fact is: start-ups almost always make
their founders poor before they make them rich.
Finally,
there is that popular notion you refer to: that
companies can get born by just a bunch of bright people
in the room bursting with energy to “make it happen.”
We’d call that partial information. Obviously,
passionate, talented people are the key to getting a
venture off the ground. And yes, there have been cases
of friends banding together to build something amazing
from scratch. But those friends usually had an idea to
start with.
The real
engine of any start-up is a product or service that
fills a market need, or better yet, creates one.
Several
years ago, we attended a celebration honoring the 50
fastest-growing entrepreneurial ventures in the Atlanta
area. The room buzzed with excitement as everyone waited
to hear who would get the top award. The winner ended up
being a three-year-old company that had discovered a
better way to de-ice airplanes. Undoubtedly, the company
had great leadership, but its revenues were growing 55
percent a year because it had an idea that changed the
market.
Look,
all around the world, we’ve seen successful
entrepreneurs, young and old, literally changing the
world for the better. So we don’t want to dissuade you
from going out on your own.
Just
know that there is more to being an entrepreneur than
meets the imagination. And there’s a lot less without a
great idea to start with.
Q: When
should a leader pass blame? John Reaves, Matthews, North
Carolina
A:
In all of organizational behavior, there is probably
nothing worse than a boss who suddenly forgets a direct
report or disavows his team when things go wrong.
When you
manage people, you are in it together, and because you
are the leader, you own all the outcomes, good and bad.
That
being said, there is one exception.
Sometimes a leader can’t see and touch all his people,
especially in large companies. In such cases, they
shouldn’t be held personally responsible for the
occasional rogue employee. They can, however, be held
accountable for having rigorous control systems in place
to ferret out such miscreants, and they should never
turn away when they sense something off base.
Every
boss can’t be a street cop. But he has to make sure
someone is walking the beat. |
