193. The Entrepreneurial Spirit: A Warning

Let’s talk about King Kong for a minute. You know, the oversized ape.

You probably remember the basic story: Humongous ape lives freely as king on remote island. Capitalist douchebags discover island, capture ape, bring him to the US and turn him into a money-making tourist attraction. The humongous ape doesn’t like it, he escapes, wreaks havoc, climbs building, destroys everything attacking him except the femme fatale for whom he has a soft spot.

It is a wonderful metaphor for the devastation that will result from man’s desire to destroy nature for his own self-centered gain.

But that’s not why I’m bringing it up.

I will tell you why King Kong is important to this conversation, but first, let’s chat about your favorite employees.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

I’m sure you’ve been in situations where leaders have talked about needing employees “with an entrepreneurial spirit”.

It’s probably even listed in the job description for whatever role your company is currently trying to fill.

“Must be entrepreneurial-minded”

As of this writing, there are over 180,000 jobs posted on LinkedIn with the term “entrepreneurial” or “entrepreneur” in the description.

When I ask leaders what they mean about an “entrepreneurial” person, here’s what they tell me:

• Self-driven

• Don’t need a lot of oversight

• Proactive

• Creative

The funny thing is that the people who say they need more entrepreneurial employees are usually the ones who have never been an entrepreneur themselves.

So let me explain a thing or two about the entrepreneurial mind.

Consider this a warning

The Entrepreneurial Spirit Revealed

Concept #1: Entrepreneurs are self-driven

Yes, successful entrepreneurs are driven. They are driven mostly by fear.

Fear of failure. Fear of somebody doing better. Fear of ideas not working.

The anxiety generated from these fears is what motivates entrepreneurs to work long hours spinning lots of plates and being stressed about how it could all come crashing down.

Are they self-driven? Yeah.

But if you had an angry bear running after you, you’d be self-driven too, right?

The thing with which entrepreneurs excel is creating their own angry bear. They always have a fear they need to overcome.

Entrepreneurs often seem calm when things are chaotic, and they are more chaotic when things are calm.

This behavior works well in a startup environment where chaos is the norm. But beware the entrepreneurial mind in the sophisticated organization where chaos is condemned.

The Takeaway
Self-driven is good, as long as you know what they are driving towards (or running away from).

Concept #2: Entrepreneurs don’t need a lot of oversight

The thing about an entrepreneurial venture is that, as the entrepreneur, you pretty much get to do whatever you want, whenever you want. If you screw up, you get to toss out the idea and try something else.

The challenge with entrepreneurs is that they tend to be headstrong. When they believe in a concept, they may fight to make it happen. Sometimes they fight too hard for too long.

I’ve seen entrepreneurs convince themselves their horse will win the race even though that horse has long been beaten to death. Hypothetically, of course. (No horses were injured in this example)

The Takeaway
Your job as a leader is to oversee your team. Hiring people that don’t need oversight? That seems like you’re looking for people who can read your mind. More importantly, you probably want people who know when they need to press forward with a project and when they need to pull back on the reins.

Concept #3: Entrepreneurs are proactive

If you’ve ever worked with an entrepreneur before, you probably know how many ideas they come up with on a regular basis. Ideas that they think are brilliant. Ideas that cause the entire company to refocus efforts…. At least until their next brilliant idea hits them in the middle of the night.

They’re entrepreneurs. It’s their job to be visionaries.

Entrepreneurs are less proactive and more overactive. Focus and minimizing efforts are two of the biggest challenges for the entrepreneurial mind.

The Takeaway:
Proactive is good. It’s important to understand the next steps and do them. But it is also critical to have people who understand what actions and ideas are NOT worth pursuing.

Concept #4: Entrepreneurs are creative

Astute? Definitely.

Creative? Ummm, I’m not so sure I’d believe that generalization.

Successful entrepreneurs are very savvy in understanding a market opportunity and assessing how to best present solutions to address those mainstream problems.

Creating entrepreneurial solutions is as much science as it is art.

People often mistake astuteness for creativity, yet they are very different.

Slack, you can say, was a creative product that changed office communication. But it wasn’t. Slack was built to solve an internal communication problem at a company. The company was building a computer game. They needed something better than text or Instant Message to communicate internally. Their game failed. Their internal messaging platform then became the product we know today.

The Takeaway
Leave creativity for the marketing team. It’s better to hire people astute enough to recognize problems and create market opportunities to solve those problems.

The Risk of Entrepreneurialism

This brings us back to King Kong.

King Kong thrived in his island environment where he was free to do anything he wanted. When put in a more confined environment where he was tied to other people’s rules and had little room for movement, it didn’t work at all. He didn’t want to listen to others, he didn’t like following other people’s rules and eventually, he got frustrated, fought back, and left.

I’m guessing you’ve caught on already that King Kong is the entrepreneur.

Like the humongous ape, entrepreneurs are a unique breed that are not always fully understood.

I’m not saying entrepreneurs can’t work effectively in corporate environments. To the contrary - I’m an entrepreneur and will argue that I thrive just as much in the corporate world as I do in the chaos of start-up.

The point is, King Kong is a wild animal. Not every wild animal is the same. Some will destroy everything in their path if they don’t get their way, while others can mold to their environment.

So you can keep saying that you want an entrepreneurial-minded person. Just be careful what you wish for. You may want to hire a creative, self-driven superstar and end up with a humongous angry ape.

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A Somewhat Relevant Quote

“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity."

- Peter Drucker

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Related Tidbits

• Boo. The 7 entrepreneurial fears (don’t fail)

• Mis. The misunderstood entrepreneur (Inc)

• Hiring Right. Get the right entrepreneur (be mindful)

• Another Useless Website.  Carbo-useless (cut it)